this is Gabriel and I was the one that wrote the journal, not Gustavo. And we all agree on what was written in this post. We as Expedition 4×1, not only Gabriel or Gustavo.
That said, I’d like to point that I chose not to go much on details on the post because I did not want to argue about the whole situation anymore, since I believe those mistakes happen and so life goes on. There were no hard feelings about it until the mean e-mail you sent to us, which I briefly mentioned on the post. And now this comment.
But as we chose not to answer that e-mail at that time, I also did not want to answer this rude and nonsense comment of yours. Also, I’d be really glad if you make no comments on our trip, on what we do or even about our country anymore.
Anyways, you chose to write down on our website whatever you wanted and we will not delete it, however there are some points that you forced me to clear out, even without the will to go on this matter anymore:

1) When you mentioned we do not know much about US regulations by the time we hired you, that is, indeed, true. And that is SO true that we decided to export our vehicle via an agent (you) and not by ourselves. That said, we understand that, as we are hiring a service we wanted it to be as clear as possible. But when you actually checked the box on ‘EPA form 3520′ which states on ‘Code O’ of ‘Temporary imports’ that “imported by nonresident for personal use by an individual for a period up to a year. EPA letter of approval must be attached to this form.” and you did not mentioned that to us, not even for a moment, I believe you’ve made a mistake. I personally don’t care if you’ve been working 1, 5, 10 or 20 years on car exports and that this letter was never been asked to you in previous exports you’ve worked with (which we recently found out that even in Miami, sometimes, they ask for this letter). If this is a rule to be in compliance with EPA and not having it would take us 1, 2, 3, 4, 10 days more, we should have been warned about it and I would have to chose to take or take not the risk. And that is the point where we believe you made a mistake. The problem is, you did, in fact, a good job in Colombia (as we mentioned in our post on Cartagena) only taking us 3 days to do everything. However, as you did not recognize your mistake on the EPA exemption letter and as you wrote us that nonsense (and mean) e-mail on September 11th as a reply about it, we decided to not keep on discussing anything more with you. Yes, as you said, bad things happen, but sometimes we need to recognize when we’re wrong and not be impulsive, specially when it comes to a service that has been hired and paid for.

2) It DID NOT TOOK us 72 hours to get our car as you mentioned and, again, I will clarify that. We arrived in Tacoma on September 11th – that was the day we found out about the EPA exemption letter which Ronald (that day) told us it could take up to 7 to 10 business days. We called Ronald twice and we explained him everything. He was polite and said he would do his best to send the letter as soon as possible. And he did, but anyhow we only had the car after 6 days (4 business days) which counts at least 96 business hours or 144 hours (straight)! Again, we know you have the right to make mistakes but you cannot simply take the chances by making an assumption by your feeling. You should have shared it with us and we would decide to take or not take the chances. We almost missed some parks for a couple of days and we actually missed one. Again, it is our planning and you have nothing to do with that, but you sure needed to be clear to us in what we have hired your services. Talking about that, what we do or dont’t is also our own problem, whether we have fun or not.

3) We believe it is very disrespectful and nonsense what you commented about our country, Brazil, maybe in retaliation on our comment about the delay and US’s EPA bureocratic process. It has nothing to do with our specific situation. If exporting to Brazil is difficult, it is not related to what happend to us.

Also, we do not want to mention anything concerning Leonardo (Infinita Highway) in his respect, once the issue you have had, regards to you and them, not us.

To sum it up. You did a good job in Cartagena’s process. But you have to admit your mistake in our process in the US. You took the chances and did not share the risks with us.
What you can’t do, however, is to offend us, by anyhow. We respect your right to write in our page, but as long as you don’t be offensive or disrespectful to us (which you already have been in this comment).

Again, we don’t want to discuss this issue anymore (as we did not answer your rude e-mail on September) precisely not to take this matter any longer.

As you said, bad things happen, and so we want to let it in the past.

Expedição 4×1

I have read your journal at the 4×1 page, finding how bad your experience had been in Seattle because you called as an ERROR on our behalf because of the issue with EPA and the delay drama.

Let me clarify something and I think I clearly told you in my previous emails on Sept 11th. First of all you are a foreigner in the U.S. and you don’t know how regulations work in this country. ERROR means make a mistake or not knowing the regulations and making a fault or omission of some procedure.

Customs, is a federal agency , which means that Custom’s law should be equal at every port of entry. Yes, the law is written but because U.S.A. it made of different States, with their own laws , Customs see the regulations in many different ways state by state or port by port.

This is not the first time that I bring a foreign vehicle to the U.S.. Yes, it is the first time to Seattle, bacause on previous occasions were Canadians on vehicles treated a free trade law.
Actually, in your 4×1 page , you have Mauro Antonini from ‘Projeto Anima’ linked. His Brazilian vehicle was imported by me from Cartagena to Houston, using the same shipping WWL line that you. The fact is, Customs did not requested the EPA letter of exemption to them. As usually vehicles using RoRo , the letter is not or nerver requested.

This is one of the reason why I did not want to request the letter and make it paying $80 for the process if wasn’t requested at the end. Well, shit happens and the port of Tacoma did requested at the end. This is not an ERROR, this is a compliance upon Custom request.

Also, I want to comment , that the letter only took 72 hours to get in your hands and the whole process was done over e-mail. How convenient don’t you think?. I have my doubts if in your country is possible to do that. I don’t think at all. Based in my experience with Latin America, Brazil is the most complicated and bureaucratic country along with Venezuela. Simply, you cannot export anything there because you loose tons of money and time.
I have sent several containers with vehicles from Brazilians and no one of them wants to enter using Brazil. We use Uruguay or Chile. Why? they know how bad it is.
I have the misfortune to sent a container from Miami to Belem , with an Argentinean vehicle, just because the owner want it that way.
It is sad to remember, how many times I have to contact Customs in Brazil , ask for letters just to convince the shipping line to take the vehicle , because the line did not want to do it. The Argentinean has to wait over 26 days in Belem to clear his vehicle. After that , I won’t do export to Brazil anymore.

All being said above, I don’t think we deserve such words on your page. I can see on all your photos having fun and clearly see how attach to your car you are. However we pay with bad comments and references.

By the way , I ‘ve just exported the vehicle of Leo Dantas (Infinita Highway) to Europe from Baltimore. There also was a problem with that. The shipping line at the port did not accept personal effects inside the car at all.
Leo of course also blamed me because I did not advise to him about that. Well, if you read the conditions at the RoRo booking , clearly say that ‘NO personal effects are allowed in the vehicles’ . However, most of the lines accept such effects at your own risk (“…”). Leonardo was advised to put his things in a box inside car locked.

Now, this article , its going to be published at the page ‘DRIVE THE AMERICAS’ advising everybody exporting a foreign vehicle that they must comply with EPA requirements and personal effects won’t be allowed anymore, when a vehicle is imported/exported from/to the U.S.A. using RoRo shipment.

We do not endorse Customs regulations or hide information to our advantage. We follow rules and work for you on every port of the Americas , as much the regulations call for.

Gaston Etchart/SAMX