Buying a car in China

[pennstlong]

there are places where you can get decent cars for relatively little money. They are however, always illegal (smuggled) cars.

since China charges are very steep import tax on cars, some dealer import them via land or water ways from HK or other places. These cars sometimes are taken apart, shipped in containers and then wielded back together and ALMOST ALWAYS can not be registered. The dealers will offer you paperwork that are copies of other people's paper work.

If the police catches you with a fake plates or fake papers, they will confiscate the car and you might also face problems with visas and other related legal issues.

I would suggest a older Jeep Cherokee, some of the older ones are almost 85% built in the U.S with US parts, the ones with V6 and 4X4 are very good, and should not run you too much money...

bigdamo, just saw your location is in Xinjiang...
Xinjiang is one of the loosest place to have a car/bike registered. Most of the smuggled motorcycles in Beijing here are registered under xingjiang or Hubei plates...So, if you don't mind that your car might come into the country in non-conventional ways, you might able to get a deal.