New car

Do you wanna drive or get a car with driver? Cause I would never ever recommend driving here.
I can't drive 5-15 km/h (usually drive 160 - 180 km/h back home long live the Autobahn!). Its really dangerous if you're not use to the traffic. There was a Viet Kieu singer from USA who killed a motorbike driver with his car. He went to jail and died there. No money could bailed him out.

If you consider having a car here, hire a driver. Its not that expensive and much safer:)

Happy Day

missmae wrote:

Do you wanna drive or get a car with driver? Cause I would never ever recommend driving here.
I can't drive 5-15 km/h (usually drive 160 - 180 km/h back home long live the Autobahn!). Its really dangerous if you're not use to the traffic. There was a Viet Kieu singer from USA who killed a motorbike driver with his car. He went to jail and died there. No money could bailed him out.

If you consider having a car here, hire a driver. Its not that expensive and much safer:)

Happy Day

Agree with missmae. I retired over here about 7 years ago and put some thoughts into buying a car, haven't rode a bike in over 45 years and didn't plan on starting here. After looking at what a new, or used one costs plus the insurance, headache of registrations and a few more factors I did the math. Wasn't a hard decision.  I have a contract with a Transportation company here and they provide a fairly new Innnova van with driver on call 24/7. I come out thousands of dollars ahead every year and no headaches.  Ah the good old days of the autobahn missmae, drove on it everyday for over 8 years.

One day, in about 50 years, Vietnam will also have a good autobahn with more cars and less bikes... ok thats a dream

"Lamborghini" !
Vote for it! ^^

To be honest it would probably be way to much hassle and expense to own a car here. First off the price of the cars are about double the cost of US and then you have to deal with parking and everything else as well.
From what I have heard if a foreigner is involved in an accident it is automatically his fault.

Can't remember having ever seen any westerners driving cars during my time in SGN, except the rare escorted motorcade from visiting dignitaries.

I'm not sure about ownership laws either. Hell, when I bought my first brand new motorbike in Vietnam my wife had to buy it in her name.

VTD
As long as you have your residence permit (permanent or temporary for a period over 1 year) or working permit, you are good to register it under your own name.

I've seen several cars in Phu My Hung with NN plates, so there ARE foreigners owning/driving cars here. However I agree with the other posters that it's not worth the trouble to drive one. And it's possible that those cars I've seen with the NN plates were being driven by a hired Vietnamese driver. Just because you own the car doesn't mean you have to be its driver.

Saigonmonkey

The NN signs are from embassy/diplomatic personnel utilizing the loophole of the law of tax exempt and selling them to the locals (for a profit when they leave or even when they still are in VN). As you know, diplomatic personnel don't drive themselves often. The locals who buy those cars then use their connection and bribes to drive them around illegally (i.e., without legal importing them by changing to regular plates and paying import tax).  Last year the gov tried to clam down this practice (because of lost tax revenue).

Phu My Hung has been a hub of those illegal trades. The newspapers have written about several busts of luxury car trades having NN plate lately in Phu My Hung.
Here is one for example (link in Vietnamese)
http://www.baomoi.com/Dai-gia-khu-do-th … 940515.epi

The other faction of NN-plate owners are VK. Also same story.

missmae wrote:

Do you wanna drive or get a car with driver? Cause I would never ever recommend driving here.
I can't drive 5-15 km/h (usually drive 160 - 180 km/h back home long live the Autobahn!). Its really dangerous if you're not use to the traffic. There was a Viet Kieu singer from USA who killed a motorbike driver with his car. He went to jail and died there. No money could bailed him out.

If you consider having a car here, hire a driver. Its not that expensive and much safer:)

Happy Day

Ok, I need a car/ driver service....any recommend company?

Anatta wrote:

Saigonmonkey

The NN signs are from embassy/diplomatic personnel utilizing the loophole of the law of tax exempt and selling them to the locals (for a profit when they leave or even when they still are in VN).

Oh, Oh, Oh, Miss Anatta  .... I'm sorry to have to tell you this, but you are wrong. You are talking about NG plates, not NN plates.  I have NN plates on my motorbike.  This has been discussed here on this forum before. NN simply means (Non-National in English). Any car or motorbike with NN plates is owned/registered to a foreigner, not a diplomat.

This is a cut and paste off of a VN Gov website I pulled down a few years ago but I think the info is still correct:

Diplomatic organizations, diplomats: 80 NG xxx-yy. NG (NG = Ngoai Giao = Diplomacy) is red.
Heads of diplomatic organs/embassies, heads of representative offices of organs of United Union: 80 NG xxx-01. XXX has a red stripe through.
NN plates (NN=Nuoc Ngoai=Foreign) is distributed to foreigners. xx NN yyy-zz
xx: where the car was registered.
yyy: owner's nationality
zz: orderly number
A American register his car in Hanoi. The plate is 30 NN 297-zz
191( German )
206( Danish )
626( Swiss )
636( Korean)
296, 297( American )
011( English )
156?( Canadian)
166( Cambodian)
301( Dutch)
311( Italian)
446(Japanese)
456 ( New Zealand)
506(French)
521( Finnish)
061 belgian
691 (Singapore)
888( Taiwanese)

Budman1 wrote:

This is a cut and paste off of a VN Gov website I pulled down a few years ago but I think the info is still correct:

Diplomatic organizations, diplomats: 80 NG xxx-yy. NG (NG = Ngoai Giao = Diplomacy) is red.
Heads of diplomatic organs/embassies, heads of representative offices of organs of United Union: 80 NG xxx-01. XXX has a red stripe through.
NN plates (NN=Nuoc Ngoai=Foreign) is distributed to foreigners. xx NN yyy-zz
xx: where the car was registered.
yyy: owner's nationality
zz: orderly number
A American register his car in Hanoi. The plate is 30 NN 297-zz

Yes, this is still correct. However, for motorbikes, the nomenclature is slightly different:
xx yyy NN zzz
My plate number is 59-296 NN 461.
50-59 are for HCMC
296 is American
461 is orderly number, meaning apparently 460 foreigners registered their vehicles before me.

Saigonmonkey
How are you? Still slodging it out in Vietnam after those years 

We both are right.
Both NN and NG are used for foreign embassy personnel. NG can only be used for (I believe) official embassy usage.
Both can be exempt from import tax. Viet Kieu importing car using tax exempt clause can of course only use NN plates.

Both NG and NN plated cars have illegally traded to the locals.
The link below in Vietnamese shows two specific cases: one with NN plate and the other with NG plate. The picture shows clearly many confiscated cars with NN plates.

http://www.tienphong.vn/kinh-te/sap-thu … 593343.tpo

Here another Bentley with NN plate getting confiscated.
http://petrotimes.vn/news/vn/xa-hoi/xu- … -dich.html

I would believe the NN plates are more popular among the locals since it is not so obvious (to be illegal) as in the case of NG plates. You can pretend to be a VK (although not everyone wants to look like Howie) 

Regards from miss Anatta 

Concerning the meaning of Vietnamese registration code.

Here is a comprehensive source (in Vietnamese)
http://vi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biển … 7879;t_Nam

So how does it work guys? the embassies illegally sell and pocket the tax difference? why would any embassy or personnel take such a risk? maybe i didn't understand the point you were making Anatta?

Anatta wrote:

Concerning the meaning of Vietnamese registration code.

Here is a comprehensive source (in Vietnamese)
http://vi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biển … 7879;t_Nam

I've been looking for that Anatta thanks....

Ashard
Now it seems like the good old days with all the regulars.

The embassies, of course, are not part of this. Their personnel are.
They are often here on short assignment (3 years) and are entitled to get a car tax exempt. They will sell their car to the Vietnamese and pocket the profit.

Why they take the risk? Don't know. The profit must be huge. Beside, as I understand it, it is not illegal for them to sell. It is the obligation of the new owners to declare tax and change to regular plates.

This practice is quite wide-spread indicating professional actors specializing in contacting those personnel, processing buying/importing paperwork. They have powerful connections to pull it off.

Many of the cars confiscated are luxury cars: lamborghini, bentley, porsche, BMW 7 serie,... I would hardly think the typical cultural attache would like to be seen or even can afford such cars (even tax free). This fact again indicates careful coordinating from the start what kind of cars to be imported so that they would be later on sold (to the locals).

Hi Anatta,

The trolls are just around the corner, i can smell em;-) yep at least for the time being feels that way!

Okay, that makes sense. Sure, with the taxes being what they are for luxury cars i guess there would be enough takers. No wonder you see sooo many NG red plates on the street. Thanks for clearing that up for me.

Cheers,
Ashard

I don't understand how one can drive here. I know the rich society wanna show off their wealth but come on it's no fun driving like a turtle here. I would be pissed off when I'm driving my Porsche, Mercedes or Lamborghini and a 50 cc Super Cub or even a granny on a bike is passing me >.<

Sure.  You live in Saigon.  Up here in Hoi An where traffic is minimal and the air is cold, driving a car is perhaps not quite a pleasure, but certainly not that painful.  We bought a new car 18 months ago and have driven over 13,000km just between here and Da Nang (25km).  The drive to the airport is 4-lane road all the way and, as long as you keep an eye out for the local constabulary and the hopeless local drivers, you can move along at 60-80kph.  It's not the autobahn, but the grannies aren't passing me yet either...

Ok so it doesnt make sense to drive in Saigon and Hanoi but maybe it's really worth to drive in Hoi An. Still I would not drive here since I'd probably hit a motorbike driver any time>.<