Buying a vehicle in Costa rica

rocketman58 wrote:

Would like some advice on buying a used car in Costa Rica near Playa Lagarto looking for 4x4 good shape. Suv.

Hola Rocketman,

You can find them on Craigslist CR, Ecuentra24 and a few others.  DO NOT BUY UNTIL YOU'VE HAD A TRUSTWORTHY MECHANIC GO THROUGH IT.  And, good luck finding a "trustworthy" mechanic.  You'll want to ask Gringos in the area who they use and who they trust.  Personally, I do not like/trust  the used car dealerships here at all.  Same as the States, overpriced and just come across like "used car salesman."  🤡

If you haven't discovered it already, the cost of vehicles here is at least double what you'd pay in North America.

Hope this helps.

- Expat Dave

I agree with Dave that used cars sales are a treacherous road here. That said I do know others who have bought them successfully. I would go with a private party. Honestly it's a real CHALLENGE to buy a car here. They are expensive, beat up, the private parties are not honest, and so on.
Best bet imho is to ask an opinion of someone you can trust to recommend an honest mechanic to you and then ask them.
Of course, that said, we did that and kinda got screwed by the "honest mechanic" and his "honest friend"!
But it didn't work out TOO bad, we do still have the car after 1.5 years, it just needed quite a bit of work the first 6 months... including a new (used) differential!

But really there's no magic bullet, it's a tough challenge to buy a used car here. If you are anywhere near "rich" I'd recommend a new one! But wow they are super expensive here, used or new!

Good luck!
(It took us 3 weeks of searching every day to find one - we were renting a car at $500 a week with max insurance - and that's one reason we broke down finally and bought one we maybe shouldn't have. We must have looked at 20 or so from private parties.

Also, make SURE you get the private party to agree to let you take the car to a mechanic to have it checked - hopefully again, you can at least find a mechanic to do this, that is recommended, and NOT the seller's mechanic!

Thanks for the input. I need all the info I can get thanks again

..and before buying, have a lawyer check  for any judicial problems like traffic fines, leans, etc.

My wife and I went to Purdy Motors in San Jose and bought a car there.   They have English speaking salesmen and I thought we got a fair deal.   They also gave us a 6 month warranty.   They might not have older models, though, depending on what your budget is.  We bought a 2012 model.

I would not recommend buying in Grecia although there are a lot of auto sales there. We went to many places there and they all felt very sleazy. One car broke down while we were test driving it!  There could be good cars and honest places there, but ... we weren't impressed.

I will second that. I am pretty car savy and what I saw was appalling. We bought privately.