Cars With Questionable Emissions Levels End Up South Of Border

By Darren Hunt

EL PASO — The old adage, ‘One man’s trash is another man’s treasure’ seems to hold true even for older, larger vehicles that El Pasoans are seeing sold to the highest bidders, many of whom are from Mexico.

New rules in the North American Free Trade Agreement have cleared the way for thousands of cars to find new homes just south of the border. Auto auctions here in the Sun City are able to sell vehicles to Mexican dealers who bid for the vehicles and often they end up on used car lots in Juarez.

Many of the 6,000 cars driven in Juarez come from the U.S. and the prices for them can range anywhere from $100 to $3,000. The new rules from NAFTA which were implemented a few years ago allow for the importation of American cars, trucks and SUVs between 1993 and 1998 model years.

Often, the vehicles have had difficulties meeting the stringent emission guidelines required in the U.S. Thus, a vehicle can be auctioned off at a lot like West El Paso’s Manheim Auto Auctions and be taken across international lines.

“Once they cannot retail it, they will wholesale it here. Good chances are a Juarez dealer took it back south of the border,” said Marketing Manager, Erika Ortiz. Why would the cars be so welcomed in Mexico?

“Because they’re easy to recondition in Juarez. Labor is cheaper over there and the consumer is looking for that lower end unit that they can afford,” Ortiz added.

But the cars’ connections to El Paso don’t necessarily end there. Because of the proximity of the ‘sister cities,’ the emissions from these vehicles is often shared between the two.

Jesus Reynoso, the former director of the City-County Health Department’s Air Quality Division, said that although the vehicles may travel south of the border, pollutants don’t linger there.

“This has been a problem for many years. All the border cities import American vehicles that really we discard. The majority of them are tampered, that means they’re polluting more than they should be,” Reynoso said.

“Anywhere from 70 to 80% of the total pollution in a major city comes from automobiles, so we can estimate that maybe 35 to 40% of that pollution we have in El Paso is coming from Juarez,” he added.

There are no plans to change how business is done at auto auctions, but some are concerned about the long-term impacts the practice will have on our city.