Iran - Cars, traffic and everything about travelling

Where is the best place to start? We'll limit ourselves to the car, as we didn't travel by train (except once, but more on that later) or taxi. Instead, we saw cyclists and many intercity buses. Others will have to report on this, we cannot share these experiences. If you want to jump straight to the transport experience, we recommend the last chapter!

Preparation

To be able to enter Iran at all, you need customs documents for your own vehicle. These are called "Carnet de Passage", or CdP for short, and you have to deposit about half the current value of the vehicle. We did this with TCS, the Swiss ADAC. You also pay a fee for the CdP for each year that you need it. Of course, you can also extend the CdP or return it earlier. As soon as you have taken the car out of the country again and have all the stamps, you send it back to the TCS (or ADAC etc.) and get the deposit back.

Navigation

Our normal sat nav doesn't have an ice map. We couldn't buy one either. That's why we have maps.me, google-maps and, more recently, map.cz on our smartphone. We can even download the maps here for offline use. Works like a charm. The Foreign Office warns against downloading the maps, but standing in the middle of nowhere without a sat nav is probably not a good idea either.
Incidentally, when we used Google Maps, we were often shown traffic jams on deserted roads. We always realised that people were picnicking at the side of the road. Google Maps should probably introduce a picnic icon.

The vehicle

...should be roadworthy and you should have any necessary spare parts with you, as Iran has been subject to import sanctions by Western countries and Western spare parts are sometimes difficult or impossible to order. However, you can get parts from other travellers. If you want to go into the desert (and there are plenty of them!), you would probably need a 4×4. But we all got as far as the desert with our Fiat.

Roads

You don't need a 4×4 in Iran, the roads are good to okay. Those who prefer to drive on German or Swiss roads are better off staying at home.
In general, the left-hand lanes are better, the right-hand lanes are quite worn out and potholed by the lorries. There is always a lot of rumbling, but we drive slowly anyway, which is better for our equipment. In the west, the roads are much worse than the north-south axis.
There are many sandy roads, most of which are really packed. Nevertheless, you should keep an eye on the weather forecast. Firstly, rain can come quickly here, secondly, a lot and thirdly, it can wash away the roads. We've been lucky so far and haven't got stuck or got into muddy roads.

Bumps / bumps

Nowhere else have we experienced so many bumps as in Iran. These are bumps in the road surface, some of them quite steep, which are intended to slow down speed. Some of them are well marked, others are not marked at all. Our friend Felix and his inventory rattled quite a bit. At first we found them quite annoying because they were everywhere and often, but we've got used to them now. And we also find them appropriate given the general driving speed (you could also say chaotic driving style) in the country.

Diesel

Petrol and CNG (gas) are available everywhere, diesel only on interurban roads. So if there are lorries at filling stations, they are diesel filling stations. Since we can't read the writing, we have to orientate ourselves by such things.
Diesel itself is only available for lorry drivers, not officially for foreigners. That makes the whole thing a bit complicated.
You can buy a so-called diesel fuel card at the border. We didn't find out exactly how this works and we were never able to find out the price. But: petrol cards would make it much easier to buy diesel.
So we have to rely on the support of other truckers, whom we politely ask if we can buy some diesel with their fuel card. Sometimes they have 10, sometimes even 30 litres left for the day. So far, we have always been lucky and have been able to fill up. A litre costs 300 toman, which is about 0.005 euros. Yes, you read that right, diesel is much cheaper here than any drinking water. We always try to pay for the diesel, but it's often not possible! It is simply given to us as a gift.
The important thing here is simple: refuel when a petrol station comes along. Not when our tank is empty. If we understand correctly, the petrol cards are limited to a certain amount per day. And anyone can fill up with 10 or 20 litres, but filling up a 90-litre tank for us is simply not always possible and would also be more than rude.
Oh yes, one more thing: diesel often does not stop pumping when the tank is full. The diesel just keeps pumping out of the tanks. So watch out.

Diesel quality

The quality is significantly worse, i.e. dirtier than in Europe. Our Felix is still running perfectly, but you should have the oil changed every 10,000 kilometres. After almost 9,000 kilometres in Iran, we have now had it done directly in Turkey. Like all vehicles here, we stink when driving and there's a lot of smoke coming out of our exhaust.
That's all we know about diesel quality, but we follow the recommendations of other overlanders, especially the tips from OM service.

AdBlue

We haven't seen one here yet, our Felix has a Chiptuning and does not need AdBlue here. But there is supposed to be AdBlue in Iran. But the good thing is that we can now switch AdBlue consumption on and off so that we can add it again immediately in the countries where AdBlue is available. We also reactivated AdBlue immediately after arriving in Turkey.

Exhaust gases

Is it the special petrol and diesel fuels that make the air "stink"? Anyone like me who comes from the GDR will remember what the streets smelled like when the Trabbis, Wartburgs and Russian lorries drove in front of you. It smells similar here. All the time. It gave me a headache for the first few days, but now we don't smell it at all. We're probably "on it". But after almost 3 months we constantly had this strange odour in our noses. Now, after a few days in Turkey and clean air, we feel much better. Gerd no longer coughs.

Headlight flasher

We are constantly honked at. We don't know why. At first we thought we were being warned about a speed check. Then we thought it was because we had been recognised as tourists and they wanted to say hello. Now we have another suspicion: we always drive with our lights on, that's the setting in our Felix. Perhaps they want to draw our attention to the fact that we still have lights. But we don't know for sure.

We simply greet them back in a friendly manner and that's that.

Parking

You can actually park anywhere. You simply pull over. As traffic behaves like water anyway, i.e. it seeks its own path, even the heaviest traffic flows around you. We observe parked cars at roundabouts, on pavements (if there are any), people park across the road (so it's easier to load goods into the boot), and once we even had to park on a narrow one-lane road for a few days to spend the night. "Yes, you can drive out the back there," was the comment. That was all right! There are two or three parking lanes near the bazaars: the first would be the right one, the second for "just for a short time", the third waiting for a free space in the second or first lane. This works quite well for us. As long as there is still a narrow lane to drive through, everyone is happy.

Bus lanes

If the traffic gets out of hand, the police send us to the bus lane (in the city, of course). So that the junction empties. The fact that all the cars at the next junction then also clog up the bus lane: no problem!

Traffic in principle

You can call it an adventure trip. There is Driving schoolsbut what they are good for is a mystery to us. We learn the following: The white stripes on the carriageway are orientation lines, they have nothing to do with the lanes we are familiar with. Two lanes can become five or six if necessary. And we learn that only those who want to stick to the lanes have a problem. The fact that someone on the motorway or country road (at best on the hard shoulder) meetsnormal. What is the problem?

The fact that in the picture at the bottom someone is travelling in the opposite direction on his scooter is special to our eyes, but normal in Iran!

You can always turnalways. Yes, always, regardless of whether there is three or four-lane oncoming traffic. You pull out slowly, the oncoming traffic brakes, you just have to be brave and fast.

Indicator are a pure Bad investment. The only one who Lane change (haha) or at the Turn off flashing is Gerd. Makes him feel safe, he says. Instead of indicators, there's a horn here: "Watch out, I'm overtaking, please don't pull out!" (In the last few weeks I've noticed a certain Iranisation in my husband's driving behaviour, I'm curious to see how it will be when we get back to Switzerland).

The Turn off in general: If you want to turn left, get into the left lane in good time. If you want to turn right, get into the right-hand lane in good time. Okay? That's exactly how it's done here, only the word "in good time" needs to be redefined. It's quite common to turn left from the right lane across three (maybe more) lanes. And the best thing about it: everyone waits and it works. Only we are surprised.

With Traffic lights The respective colours such as red or green tend to be perceived as a loose recommendation. Everyone knows that red is followed by green. That's why you can also drive on red, as the colour will soon turn green again anyway.

All in all, a interesting experience. Driving in Iran. But not impossible. And certainly no more life-threatening than in other countries. If you still have questions, go ahead, we'll try to answer them in the comments.

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Merci for "travelling with us

We are thinking about taking another break from travelling in the summer and visiting our families in Germany and Switzerland. One of the ideas is to organise a Lecture about our long journey to the Persian Gulf to prepare. If you would like to, what would interest you the most? We will also tell stories here that don't find a place here on the blog. We're thinking of the Bern and Berlin area - simply because we have family there. But other places are also conceivable. Feel free to write to us.

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