How to buy a car in Saudi Arabia

1. Start by going in to your local dealership, wander around for half an hour trying to get someone to help you, decide to take it upon yourself to go ask for help, hear the call to prayer, decide it’s hopeless and decide to try again another day
2. Begin working on having your money wired from Canada.  Hopefully you have enough cash to buy a car or you’re going to have to wait until you pass your 3 month probation before you can get approved for a loan.
3. Open a bank account (sounds simple but it’s not)
4. Get driver’s license. Go to Driving School after work, find out that they close at 2pm, awesome, get your Canadian license translated into Arabic (easier than step #3, surprisingly), take a whole pile of paperwork down to driving school with some random dude you met at the HR office, stand there like the token white person that you are, elbows up while in line (these people are feisty and cut in lines…happens in traffic too…big surprise there), attempt to understand the exchange between random HR dude and the traffic officer, Khalas! and you’re done.  Wipe that look of bewilderment off your face when the HR dude tells you that your license will be back at his office sometime next week, inshallah.
5. Go back to car dealership…still hopeless…next shipment of SUV’s comes in a couple months
6. Plan B - fellow co-worker mentions this fantastic car market in the next suburb to the north. “No worries, mate” he says.  So we hop in his coffin…er…rental car and take off in typical Saudi traffic (please refer to the “Driving” post if you’re just tuning in).
7. Arrive at the Dammam Cars Auction Market.  This is code for “Pure freaking Arabian Mayhem”.  If you thought the roads here were crazy well then you should see this place.  Cars are going the wrong way down roads on the wrong side.  Lights flashing, horns honking, people standing on the side of the road trying to buy your car from you.  My Aussie co-worker is cool as a cucumber as he says “watch this”.  He pulls the rental car over as three extremely excited Saudi locals approach his car.  One says “you sell?!?!? you sell?!?”  I laugh to myself.  This is a piece of garbage 2013 Honda Accord that’s been rode hard and put away wet yet this guy thinks its amazing.  I’m pretty sure the only english he knows is “buy, sell, yes”.  At this point I’m wondering what this mad scientist of an Aussie is up to but he pulls out his phone and fires up the calculator app.  Numbers are the universal language for selling cars.  Wait a minute…is he selling the rental car?!?  After they can’t settle on a price the mad Aussie closes his eyes and starts to slowly nudge out into oncoming traffic.  Crazy?  Heck no.  This is normal.  Drive a bit further down, park the car and begin touring the Used Car Souk.
8. Wait for a break in traffic and make a run for it.  Ya know…this place isn’t half bad and once you’re off the roads and looking at vehicles things seem almost normal.  “Almost” being the key word.  Now enter my brand new Egyptian buddy Mahmood.  This guy is great; his english however…not so good but we can get past that.
9. 5 brand new Nissan Patrols await the Aussie and I. Ooooohhhhhh Aaaaaahhhhhhh. These things are fantastic.
10. Engineering 101 - Saudi Style: Size + Power = Safety
11. Wave over Mahmood.  Me: Year, Price, Mileage?  Mahmood: uh…two…uh…zero…uh…one…uh…three. Me: ok this is gonna take a while *pull out phone*
12. Start Calculator app and start typing in numbers to determine the year, price and kilometers of each vehicle
13. Its pretty easy to figure out which one of these vehicles Mahmood is wanting to get rid of: the 2013 Nissan Patrol SE Type 2 with zero mileage.  Why?  The 2015’s are starting to move into the car souk and he needs some room
14. Name your price, negotiate a little bit, get close to an agreeable price and then walk away.  Always walk away.  Walk away even if it’s a steal of a deal.  As we leave the Aussie says “you got ‘em mate, that’s a fantastic price, you’d be dumb not to take it but lets go grab a tea and see what else is…WHOA! Watch where the #$%& you’re driving!!!”  The Aussie almost gets taken out by a local and I’m starting to wonder if his company is going to get me in trouble.
15. Go grab a freshly brewed green tea from the local who’s got a kettle brewing over a campfire on the side of the road (no joke at all).  Further down the way we see a fellow who has a hukah set up on the side of the road.  I start bobbing my head to the imaginary beat of Cypress Hills “Hits from the Bong”.  I chuckle, grab my tea, haggle a bit over the price (2 riyals is steep for a tea that I’m getting from a street vendor), take a sip and realize it’s easily the best green tea that I’ve ever had.  Makes me start thinking about stopping by the hukah vendor to see what he’s got available…
16. Realize that my new buddy Mahmood is standing at the edge of his dealership hollering something at me which may or may not be English.  Likely not English though as he’s  talking too fast.  Then I realize he’s talking to his fellow dealers about the Aussie and I.  Note to self: learn Arabic so you can figure out what and when these guys are talking about you.
17. Realize that there are far too many dealerships crammed into this space to adequately find something
18. Turn around and return to Mahmood where he’s much more receptive to my final offer.  We agree on a price so it’s as good as done.  Ya right!  I attempt to ask what the next step in this process is.  All Mahmood keeps saying is “you give me money, I give you puck”.  And I start to think, “sure buddy, I am pucked if I give you this much money before I get the vehicle”.  I have no clue what this puck things is all about so I do as Taylor Swift does and just “shake it off”
19. Give Mahmood a 1000SAR deposit and tell him that I’ll be back Monday or Tuesday, inshallah with the rest of the money.  He gives me a photocopy of something written in Arabic and says “need this for insurance and bump number”.  I say “bump number?!?!?” and after going back and forth a few more times I realize that he’s talking about the license plate.  Ok, cool, give me this paper and I’ll do what I can.  I keep insisting that I want a receipt for this deposit that I’ve given so Mahmood tells us (or tries to) that we need to go to another one of his dealerships to make this happen.  Another dealership???  This should be interesting…what kind of freaking shell game are you playing here Mahmood?
20. Grab hand written receipt (all in Arabic), wonder what in the world it even says, shrug and pull another Taylor Swift
21. The Aussie and I depart into the increasing mayhem of the car market and begin our trek home.
22. Day 2 - goal for the day is to secure the rest of the money and obtain insurance.
23. Contact bank in Canada and tell them that I need a large sum of money transferred from my Canadian account to my Saudi account.  They pretty well laugh at me.  They kindly tell me that they are not going to send that kind of money to a bank account based in the Middle East.  That’s when I lose it.  CAN NOTHING SIMPLE BE ACCOMPLISHED IN THIS COUNTRY?!?!?  That’s it, we’re leaving, this isn’t happening, I’m done, where’s the airport???
24. I then put myself in their shoes and realize exactly how stupid that sounds.
25. Pop into insurance broker on the main compound during my lunch break.  Learn that they only work from 9AM-noon Sunday - Thursday.  Awesome.
26. Day 2 = FAIL
27. Day 3 - Call bank back and insist to speak with bank manager to straighten things out.  They hesitate but it works out.  Lots more to this story but lets just say that transferring money between two completely legitimate bank accounts in your own name is extremely difficult.  The things that seem so simple at home are VERY difficult here.  We have yet to figure out why.
28. Obtain insurance.  Pretty sure this is a scam too.
29. Get phone call from Mahmood.  Tell him I’m on my way with money and insurance.  Tell him that he needs to get bump number.  Speaking over the phone with this guy is hopeless.
30. Drive half an hour through Saudi traffic/hell to the car market.  It’s 1pm in the afternoon an this place is a ghost town.  Not a soul in sight.  I get to my dealership and it’s as if life has simply disappeared from the planet.  A stray ferral cat walks past me and I feel like I’m in the middle of some post-apocalyptic nightmare.  Not joking.  This is really starting to weird me out.  I start calling around for Mahmood, whistling, looking in office windows.  There’s no sign of this guy.  What’s going on here???  Then I hear some noise coming from one of the rooms with a sign on the door completely in Arabic.  I’m now convinced that I’m living an episode of AMC’s The Walking Dead.  Great.  This is how it all ends.
31. Knock on the door, step back, body slightly turned, escape route planned, ready to sprint.  Out pops Mahmood.  He’s got food all over his hands and he invites me in to sit on the floor of a dimly lit room which appears to be his living quarters so that I can dine with him and his two partially dressed companions (both of which are male to clarify) just using my hands.  Thanks but no pal, I’m good, where’s my car?
32. Mahmood washes up and we begin the next round of charades about what needs to happen next.  Out come the phones again.  I need bump number and Mahmood is trying to show me on a map where to go.  He finds it on his so I give him mine.  He starts tapping wildly in the bottom left corner of my phone trying to pull up the Arabic keyboard but only gets a keyboard full of cute Emoticons.  Sorry pal, I can’t read it so why would I need to spell it?
33. He calls over his half dressed companion (it’s 44C without A/C at this place so I don’t blame the guy) to drop a pin on my phone.  I can already tell this isn’t going to end well.
34. Head over to the other dealership to do some more sketchy paperwork.  I’m pretty sure I’m handing over a massive cheque for a vehicle that I’ll never see.  Wait a minute here…why am I giving you this cheque before I get the car anyways.  Mahmood says “you give check, I get bump number, you get get puck”.  I think “ya pal, I’m pucked, completely pucked”.  Wait another second, I thought I was going to this random pin on my phone to get bump number.
35. Hand over the cheque and pull another Taylor Swift.  Ask when I get my bump number and istamara (which I think now is this “puck” that he’s referring to).  Mahmood says (tomorrow, 2 or 3 in afternoon, inshallah).
36. Learn after the fact that this istamara thing is basically the vehicle registration and the vehicle can’t be registered in my name unless it’s paid for in full
37. Head home, attempt to go to sleep, replay the events of the day, convince myself that Mahmood is now in Bahrain living the dream with my money.
38. Get up, go to work, watch phone all day long, waiting for a call.  2pm comes.  Nothing.  3pm comes.  Nothing.  Screw this.  I’m calling him.  He answers, hooray!  No idea what he’s saying.  I think he forgot that I don’t speak Arabic.  Now I’m convinced he’s gone sideways in Bahrain.  I say “bump number?!?!?”, he says “yes, you come get car now”, I say “absolutely, see you in an hour”.  
39. Inform the Aussie that I haven’t been scammed and that I need yet another ride to the car market to actually get my new ride.
40. Arrive at car market and just about run over at least a dozen locals who, again, try to purchase the rental car.
41. Get car, sign paperwork and drive away.  No problem.  Couldn’t have been easier.  Mystery dinging sound comes from car.  Oh good, what’s that?  Low fuel.  Are you kidding me?!?  At $0.12/L for fuel they couldn’t even fill it up?  Whatever.
42. Locate nearest gas station and tell guy to fill it up.  He puts in 83L which is worth roughly 50 SAR and I take off with 3/4 of a tank of gas. $13 for 3/4 of a tank of 95 octane gas?  Geez this thing is gonna be a thirsty beast.  I do some more quick math and realize that it’s going to take less than $20 to fill this thing to the brim where it would have cost $165 back home.  We’re not going home.  Ever.  This place is fantastic.  Why would anyone ever want to leave.  Please refer back to #23.
43. Relay story to all your friends back home so they can stop taking for granted how easily somethings really are and so that they realize that their “First World Problems” really are just that.  First.  World.  Problems.  Don’t sweat the small stuff people; you could be going through processes like this on a daily basis.