“This place is a mad house.” I said to my friend.
We were across the border from Ecuador, in Colombia, at a tire shop, and it was choke full of Ecuadorians buying tires for their cars.
I soon found out why.
A set of 4 Goodyear tires in Ecuador in the Quito area for my jeep/SUV would set me back $691 USD. I got the quote in September of 2015 a few days before I came to Colombia cause I had heard whispers.
In Colombia, after converting the Peso to the Dollar with the current favorable exchange rate, the same Goodyear tires came to about $45 each! Total $180 USD!
Wow! Big difference, hard to believe I’m only 4 hours from Quito.
So, as you can imagine, a lot of drivers will drive over the border for the day, get new tires placed on their car, throw the old ones out and drive back over.
As long as you’re not bringing new, unused tires back loose inside your car the border patrol rightly assumes the tires are for personal use and don’t try to charge the steep import duties importing tires would normally incur.
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