Last Monday I finally made an agreement on the price of car with the seller after months of looking. It has been quite a process trying to find a second hand car in Mt Hagen. The second car hand market here is not very lively, is expensive and cars are not the best for wear. My criteria for a vehicle was mainly that it was a 4WD diesel and if possible a turbo diesel. And it needed to be able to drive through a road block if required, just joking. The normal thing for a missionary here is to buy a car off another missionary that is leaving the country. And that can take some time and there is a lot of interest once a car becomes available. So instead of waiting till next year, I started looking else where through national contacts and friends. I had come across a few cars, one that should be covered in petrol and burned to the ground. You would not believe the condition of that vehicle. I have never seen such a late 90′s model vehicle worse for wear. In the end I came across a 1985 Toyota Landcruiser, which I test drove after waiting some time. The owner offered a look at the vehicle quite promptly after they saw me test driving another vehicle. After a look over and a test drive the negotiations started. In PNG people always, always bargain. So the price started off at $15000K (one Kina, PNG dollar = between 0.40 – 0.45 Australian dollars) and negotiations went on. Going back and forward, up and down in price until I gave my final offer of $6000K (bargain boy would be proud) and was agreed to last Monday. This is just under what I sold my previous car for. The Landcruiser is a 4.0L six cylinder manual petrol engine, I really wanted to avoid a petrol engine but you can’t be fussy in PNG. Good thing is that all fuel here is from PNG oil and refined here too. It has not been registered for three years and has quite a few little jobs to be done. It also has just over 330,000kms on the engine. But all these things are fixable and parts are available from QLD. Plus we have two MAF mechanics at our base and facilities to carry out any work as long as I can get the parts. So I am looking forward to getting it up and cruising soon, hopefully will have it on the road by the end of the week. I will try and get some photos during the week too. So the Landcruiser is my third vehicle and I praise God for his timing and provision of this vehicle.
September 24th, 2008 at 7:30 pm
one question…where are the photos?