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Hello all, can anyone give me some advice on buying on old car ?
I just want to buy something cheap and quickly as a second car and I was looking for a 10 year old car. After trawling though the ads I noticed that a lot of them make a big deal about how long the car is registered for, so my question is this: what is the law on owning old cars ? Does it become difficult to reregister them after a certain age ? Also what are my responsibilities when the car comes to the end of its life and has to be sent to the big junkyard in the sky ?
PS In case you're interested I'm thinking of getting an old volvo (yes thats right, I'm new to Dubai and I want to keep myself safe)

Cars are tested every year as part of the registration process so in that sense you have to make sure it is in good mechanical shape but age alone I don't believe is an issue for registration, I registered a 1988 car without issues.

What you will notice though is it will be difficult to find a place that will give full insurance to any car 10 years old (i'm being nice, you won't find a place that will insure you except PLPD), although i'm not sure you would want to.

Good luck

Thanks, I thought it might be an insurance issue. But if I only want to get minimum legal insurance to cover third parties, would that be OK ?
And tell me please, who are PLPD ?

Oh, when I read the title of this thread I thought that Arnie was up for sale

homie wrote:Thanks, I thought it might be an insurance issue. But if I only want to get minimum legal insurance to cover third parties, would that be OK ?
And tell me please, who are PLPD ?

PLPD is third party insurance, i.e. the minimum legal insurance. if you cause an accident the other guy is covered but you are SOL, same thing goes for hit and run and vandalism your are not covered as is my understanding.

Once upon a time there were 2 friends. Their names were Kanelli and Arniegang.

For months they were a happy couple of forumers, chatted a lot had great days out it was simply a perfect friendship.

Then one day Kanelli was very very nasty to Arniegang. She called him an "old banger".

So Arniegang being a gentleman decided not to called her a "fekin cheeky cow"

awwww every banger needs its mash just like every arnie needs its K.

homie wrote:Hello all, can anyone give me some advice on buying on old car ?

Don't.

My advice is to use the money you would have spent on an old banger as the deposit on a newer car and get a loan for the rest. There's a good chance the loan repayments will probably work out to about the same as the maintenance costs + taxi fares when waiting for repairs on a POS.

If you really want an old car, then look for something common, reliable, simple and cheap to fix eg Toyota Corolla. US cars tend to wear out quickly. Old Mercedes seem to be popular but I've heard mixed reports from people who've owned one. Other German/European old cars are more likely to be unreliable/expensive to fix/difficult to find parts for.

I just want to buy something cheap and quickly as a second car and I was looking for a 10 year old car. After trawling though the ads I noticed that a lot of them make a big deal about how long the car is registered for, so my question is this: what is the law on owning old cars ? Does it become difficult to reregister them after a certain age ? Also what are my responsibilities when the car comes to the end of its life and has to be sent to the big junkyard in the sky ?

If the car is mechanically sound, it'll be registered. As other posters said, there's a time limit on full insurance - I thought it was only 5 years. I think rust is a problem when going for registration - and the salty atmosphere affects old cars.

When it does finally die, take it one of the wreckers yards in Sharjah. They may give you some money for it.

PS In case you're interested I'm thinking of getting an old volvo (yes thats right, I'm new to Dubai and I want to keep myself safe)

If safety is a concern, a smaller newer car is probably going to be safer than an old Volvo.

Seems like sound advice to me, thanks guys