Katrina Cars Still Around

And this problem is also compounded by the fact that most of these buyers are not fully aware of internet tools available to them to check the integrity of the car they are buying, like CarFax.com.

If I lived in Latin America, I would never buy an used car long distance, period.

The MINI is a grey market import for most of Latin America except, Mexico, Venezuela, Chile and Argentina where there are authorized MINI dealers. New MINIs sold in South America are mostly European spec models. The vast majority of MINIs sold in non-supported countries are mostly US spec imports.

I might add that Mr. Vargas appears to be a wealthy man by Bolivian standards. If he has spent US$30K to restore this water damaged dud, he certainly had the money to either import a brand new one from the US or from Venezuela where they can be purchased brand new as well.

I think this guy has lots of money and little common sense. Why he hasn’t gone after the local car dealer/agent that helped them lock into this piece of junk?

Another caveat with this article…They claimed that MINIs are not sold in Bolivia because they are little cars with complex electronics…Total BS! BMW sells brand new spanking Bimmers in Bolivia as does Mercedes Benz, Audi, etc which are vehicles also riddled with expensive and complex electronics.

The US media never ceases to amaze me…. Always wanting to portray South America as some 3rd world dump. Actually some of the best mechanics come from there…Those people can build a car FROM SCRATCH if you let them lose in Home Depot….

Wow! While $12,000 is not a terribly large ammount of money in the USA that is a huge ammount in Bolivia where the GDP per capita is about 1/30th that of the USA. It sucks that such shady dealings are unlikely to come back and bite the seller.

This is a worldwide problem where insurance companies write-off cars from floods and accidents then sell them through auctions to restorers. Cars like these should be crushed by insurance companies period. In the UK if a car has been damaged, it has to get a special plate number identifying that it has been re-registered – one of our UK based members may verify this.

Why would anyone think they could get a decent used MINI of any age for only $7,000? This particular case is so absurd it seems to take away from the real problem, which is the “age-old” practice of reselling these water-logged or otherwise “totaled” cars. Usually it’s not so obvious something might be wrong with the car. Sounds like the UK has the answer; however, so why don’t we have a law like that here?

7k is fair market value for a flooded MINI of that age, I remember the threads of the guys who have built race cars. just the unibody shell is like 5500

Anyway………………