My wife and I stepped into a Nissan dealership near our home (about 20km east of Melbourne CBD) last Saturday afternoon, at around 2.30pm. We made a purchase, and yesterday (Monday) at around 5.30pm, I went and took delivery of the car. No waiting period, no registration headaches and certainly no JPJ-like pains. The registration authority here is relatively pain-free to deal with. Need a customized plate? Log-in to their website to find out the costs. No winks and nudges or secret handshakes as to who to see and payment for unlisted items. As for insurance, I went online and purchased coverage. As for the trade-in, again, I went online and cancelled the insurance for the old car. Did that yesterday and this morning, I got a reply saying my refund has been approved, and I should expect payment within 7-10 days. Cheque is in the mail for sure, but thus far, I didn’t even have to use a single slip of paper. I remember selling my car before leaving Malaysia. The buyer needed me to drive the car to his financier’s branch way out in Selayang somewhere. I then had to go see some lawyer in that area, to sign some statutory declarations. Then I was told I could only be paid at least one week later, as the registration process would take at least that long. I told the manager if it was going to take that long I wasn’t going ahead with the sale as I has some other cash buyer lined up. He then suggested a “fast-tracking” or “express” registration process. Needless to say, some payment is involved and I was asked to pay, in order to be paid faster. What the…. I said no, of course. I was leaving the country precisely because of this sort of nonsense, and I wasn’t about to leave with this lousy experience as one of the last things to remember it by. The buyer ended up paying for all these “extras” (I guess I must have sold it at a low price, or he must have liked the car very much). Anyway, this morning I drove that brand new car, but no sense of excitement there, as this was the exact same car I sold. I sort of like replaced my old car with the same model, except that here, I pay about 1/5 the price I paid for in Malaysia. Even if I allowed for the conversion/exchange rate, I would have still paid only about 60% of what I would have paid for it in Malaysia. Hmmm… another Proton success story, I guess.