The Mexican government has changed their immigration regulations, which means I have to sell my car.

The new law is that an immigrant can only keep temporary status for four years, after which he has to become what they call "Permanente". This ins't a problem, there are advantages like being able to be gainfully employed, not having to renew the immigration status every year, etc. But the Mexican car dealers did some creative lobbying, and now Permanente residents are no longer allowed to own automobiles with foreign license plates. No problem, right? Just register it in Mexico and be done with it.

Except... they also pushed through a little addendum that only cars of year 2007 and older, and manufactured in a NAFTA country are allowed to be "nationalized". My 2009 Honda Fit fails both tests.

This means that I have to take my car out of Mexico to the United States, sell the car, fly back to Mexico and purchase a Mexican car. Cars are not inexpensive in Mexico, and by the time I'm done I'll have spent about $9,000 USD, only partly because I am using the whole debacle as an excuse to update my ride from a 2009 Fit to a 2011 CR-V.

So, anybody on the West Coast wanna buy a 2009 Honda Fit Sport, loaded with every option including navigation and a Valentine One radar detector? All scrapes, scratches, and door dings have been repaired (body work is amazingly inexpensive here) and the car is absolutely perfect mechanically. The only thing even approaching a problem is that the rear tires are probably down to just 40% tread depth.

I'll deliver the car anywhere on the West Coast. I'm heading North in about six hours, so will be out of contact for the next three or four days.

tanstaafl.