Rainmaker

Hi All,

I am in San Diego and am need of a car (surprise surprise). Credit can be assumed as being non applicable as I have just moved over. I am open to all ideas. From your experiences, what would you recommend with regards to commencing such a search please?

Thank you all!

SanDiegogirl

I moved over and purchased a car with finance from a dealer pretty easily.
Sure, I probably paid over the odds, but I did it in order to build up my credit and paid it off early.

Rainmaker

thanks SanDiegoGirl.

Did you opt to buy straight from a dealership?

Pulaski

Depends on your budget. .... If you can affoed a down payment and can accept a relatively high interest rate because you have no credit history, then a new car dealer is probably the route for you. But if you have more of a used car budget and more modest down payment, then you'll probably do better to look for a used car dealer that has "Buy Here, Pay Here" signage - meaning that they'll provide credit themselves, or as a servicing agent for a broker, and are accomodating of new immigrants and others with poor/ no credit history.

OldJuddian

When I landed in San Diego I bought one car from CarMax and the other from Mossy Nissan. I did largely finance them in cash (cheque)
My colleagues found that VW would give expats from Europe "reasonable" credit deals. It's been a while so I forget how reasonable it was, but they seemed happy.

Rainmaker

Wonderful insights, thank you all!

Are you able to kindly share your experiences with car insurance here please?

SanDiegogirl

I financed my car via Acura in SF. There are some specialised companies which cater to the expat crowd but I don't know the names of any.
My first few years of car insurance were very expensive as most companies consider you a new driver.
You'll just have to call around for the best deal. It will reduce after a year or two.
I've been with Geico for years.

OldJuddian

Getting insured is easy even as a new expat, I went with Geico initially. It's just very expensive.
Make sure you shop around on renewal as it should get a lot cheaper as you build US experience - but your existing insurer has no incentive to give you a good deal.

Pulaski

Due to inertia, the opposite is true - some people won't bother to shop around and the insurers will just milk that relationship for as long as they can.

PetrifiedExPat

This should be gospel. I suspect our home insurance could get a better deal as well!

Expatrian

We’ve been with AAA for many years (and I’m guilty of not price shopping around often enough, although when I have, AAA was less). They gave me credit for my UK driving record, but I don’t know if that’s still the case today. We also have homeowner’s with them; most insurers will give you a decent multi-policy discount. What I like about AAA is their insurance is not-for-profit, so if the premiums of all of their insured members are more than all of the claims, they give a dividend back for the difference to the members as a percentage of each member’s policy amount. Ours is typically $150- $300 a year. You have to be an AAA member to get their insurance, but it includes towing and other benefits.