More cars

So, it came time to get ready to ship the second car. I figured that since we already had the Germany insurance set up, it wouldn't take as long. Not so.

So, a bit of background. We bought our Honda in April, so we've had it for less than a year. Before we bought it, we told the finance guy at the dealership that we were moving to Germany at some point (we didn't know exactly when back then), and asked him if we would be able to ship it. We had known of several people who had bought their cars in Hawaii, and then weren't allowed by their banks to ship it back to the mainland when they got sent back. We told him that, and he said that there shouldn't be a problem at all. OK, so we bought it and went with their financing.

The Honda is financed through PNC Bank. I was a bit nervous, because one of the requirements from SunTrust had been 12 months of on-time payments. Since we've owned this car for less than a year, I was hoping that wouldn't be a requirement for PNC.

Jess & I went out to CA to visit my family for the holidays. While we were there, I called PNC to see what I needed to do to get my letter of transportation. The guy said I needed to fax a request with all of the car info (VIN, etc) to their loan department. I didn't have all of the info I needed with me in CA, so I had to wait until we got back to MD to do that. When we got back to MD (on 1/6, we fly out 2/11), I called again. I thought it was odd that SunTrust had required so much info, and PNC was only requiring a couple of things. The lady that I talked to this time said that I could fax that stuff, but that was just to have them consider letting it out of the country. She said that, as far as she knew, they had never released a car to go overseas before. Oh. Damn.

So, I then start looking at alternate financing. I won't go into everything, but I spent lots of time on the phone with different banks, trying to work stuff out. I also spent some time on the phone with the Honda dealership, letting them know that their finance guy was wrong. Then, Ev called them from Germany and really let them know he was unhappy. They decided to help us. They said that they would pay any refinancing fees that we ran into. The finance guy, Matt, also called and talked to his contact at PNC. He explained the situation, and they said that they would consider it if I sent them lots of info. No problem! I had all of these other possibilities, but all of them were quite likely to take too long. I desperately didn't want to try and get somebody else to ship the car after I leave. So, being able to stay with PNC would be really great.

I faxed in the stuff on Tuesday, and was told it would take about 3 days. I hadn't heard anything on Friday (and this is a holiday weekend), so I called them. I talked to a guy in the loan department, and he said I need to send them the insurance info for while in transit, and for once we get there. Same stuff I needed for the Toyota. Unfortunately, things were closed in Germany already by that time, and Monday is a holiday. But, I'll be able to get the car on the Geico Overseas policy on Tuesday hopefully, and then I'll be able to fax them that info. I also need another copy of the paperwork from the shipping company, because I can't find the stuff they sent me before. If it all works out, I'll be good to go. If it doesn't, there's no way I'll be able to get a refinance done before we leave. It was a tough choice to decide whether to try with PNC or to go ahead with somebody else. The PNC guy seemed pretty confident, though, so I went with them.

Wish me luck!