@gilmorneau
Was your vehicle titled/registered in your name for the trip?
-Yes this was our Troopy while we lived in Honduras so it was in my name.
Did you need carnets for transiting each country you passed through?
-I didn’t need it for Guatemala as they are part of the CA4. I did get harassed by Guat police deep in Guat as they didn’t understand Americans driving a Cruiser and not needing a Carnet. However I basically demanded they leave us be and let us go and they did. I’m always polite until I need to be otherwise and it served me well.
At the Guat/Mexico border we did get fumigated and I did get a Carnet there.
At the Mex/US border we had a run in, but got through it. Basically here’s what happen. I did lots of reading online of what papers I needed, how many copies, etc. I had EVERYTHING. I was so excited to import I told them at the border I wanted to import and that was my problem. There were two border agents, one nice and the other a bleeping ?!%! The bleep told us we had to have a $10k bond and stay in Mex for three day and possibly drive all the way back to HND and start over. My kids were upset and my wife was crying after 3 weeks on the road and being told this and this guy was literally laughing getting off. It took everything to not punch him in the throat. The nice guy then shows up and says look the people that normally deal with this aren’t here since it’s the weekend and you seem like honest people so you can go and just do your papers at the local office in your town. In the end they didn’t even look in the Cruiser or ask us to get out.
Anyway we have since told multiple people to not say ANYTHING about importing and just only answer their questions. I’ve had two or three friends do the exact same thing with ZERO issues.
Importing at the local office was SOOOOOO EASY!!!!!
Side note, I still have my HND title and plates so there’s no reason now I couldn’t drive back and fourth and just switch plates.
Was your vehicle titled/registered in your name for the trip?
-Yes this was our Troopy while we lived in Honduras so it was in my name.
Did you need carnets for transiting each country you passed through?
-I didn’t need it for Guatemala as they are part of the CA4. I did get harassed by Guat police deep in Guat as they didn’t understand Americans driving a Cruiser and not needing a Carnet. However I basically demanded they leave us be and let us go and they did. I’m always polite until I need to be otherwise and it served me well.
At the Guat/Mexico border we did get fumigated and I did get a Carnet there.
At the Mex/US border we had a run in, but got through it. Basically here’s what happen. I did lots of reading online of what papers I needed, how many copies, etc. I had EVERYTHING. I was so excited to import I told them at the border I wanted to import and that was my problem. There were two border agents, one nice and the other a bleeping ?!%! The bleep told us we had to have a $10k bond and stay in Mex for three day and possibly drive all the way back to HND and start over. My kids were upset and my wife was crying after 3 weeks on the road and being told this and this guy was literally laughing getting off. It took everything to not punch him in the throat. The nice guy then shows up and says look the people that normally deal with this aren’t here since it’s the weekend and you seem like honest people so you can go and just do your papers at the local office in your town. In the end they didn’t even look in the Cruiser or ask us to get out.
Anyway we have since told multiple people to not say ANYTHING about importing and just only answer their questions. I’ve had two or three friends do the exact same thing with ZERO issues.
Importing at the local office was SOOOOOO EASY!!!!!
Side note, I still have my HND title and plates so there’s no reason now I couldn’t drive back and fourth and just switch plates.