Buying a car in Costa Rica

[szbel]

My family and I just moved to Costa Rica. We flew into San Jose, booked a hotel for three nights with are plan being to buy a car. We first hired a Tica and her American husband who offer a service where for $250 they will pick you up at your hotel and take you around to different car dealerhsips which have models that you are looking for, they also do all the translating and call ahead to get the Tico price rather than the Gringo price. The following is a play by play of our car buying experience.

Day number two for the Zbel’s started at 5:30 A M for my wife Amy. That’s when our two young boys of 2 and 3 and a half wanted their “milky’s.” This is a vanilla flavored carnation instant breakfast drink that Amy has trained the boys to be more dependant on than the most addictive drugs known to man. I am just as well trained not to hear their cry for “milky’s” and keep on sleeping. At around 7-am I awoke and we all had breakfast in our hotel’s dining room. While there we encountered an American couple that we chatted up. We told them that we were in San Jose for a few days to shop for a car. It just so happened that they were selling there car because of a failed business venture and were going back to the states. They seemed friendly and sincere enough so I went to check out the car and went for a ride with the man.
After we were about 16 blocks away from the hotel he pulled a knife on me and demanded all of my money. That’s when my Kapu Kuialua (“forbidden way to fight”), kicked in and I proceed to beat the sh@t out of him.
None of this really happened but I did pass on his car because when we put the air conditioning on it smelled like wet dog. Back at the hotel, Katia was waiting for me for day number two of car shopping. After visiting my fourth dealership I decided that the last car I looked at last night was the one we really wanted. It is a 2000 Hyundai Galloper. It seats 7 and is what is called a intercooler turbo diesel. Gas is fershluggin’ ridiculously priced here. I think it’s about $6 bucs a gallon. Diesel is about half of that. We went for a diesel model. It has around 60k miles on it and is a pretty sweet ride I must say. So, upon deciding which car we wanted it was time to pay for it. Before leaving the states I had arranged with my bank to raise my daily spending limit on my credit card and I would use that to pay rather than stuffing thousands of dollars into the crotches of my family members and traveling internationally. Well, I wish I would’ve stuffed stacks of Ben Franklin’s into all of our groins because not having cash turned out be a huge pain in the ass. So we go to Banco National. After taking a number like when you’re at a busy deli, we were finally called to sit and discuss our banking business. Only to find out that the maximum they could give me was 10k. This was no good as the car costs more than that. We then went to another bank and after a Reuben or two were told that the max they could give us was 1k. We then went to another branch of the first bank that we went to and were told, “no problem, but your bank will not release the funds because they have a per day max! So……I went to an Internet cafe where I could make a call to the states and called my bank. They said that they had raised the daily limit and were aware of my wish to make a large purchase in a foreign country but, “tough s*!t” we chose to leave American soil and would have to deal with the consequences.
None of what I just said was actually exchanged between me and my bank but they did say they would look into it and make sure I got a green light. So, we went back to the bank, got a number, ordered a crisp relish tray and waited some more. This time the transaction went through, would we please take a seat and in about 45 minutes we could finalize the currency withdrawal.
Now it was off to the dealership to give them the check so that we could sign the papers so they could get it registered and inspected tomorrow because if they didn’t get all of that done tomorrow then we couldn’t do it until after next week because the coming week is a super holy week here and all of the government offices shut down. So, I brought all of my papers that my Costa Rican lawyer said I would need to complete the deal only to find out the one piece of paper that I absolutely must have was nowhere to be found. A call to the lawyer and “oops” they forgot to give it to us. They would send it right over. An hour and a half later it arrived. Because both my wife and I have to sign the papers we would now have to go back to the hotel so that she could sign her part. Can you imagine if I had her and the kids with me throughout all of this? It’s about 3:30 in the afternoon now, and I’m informed that we must go pick someone up who’s getting the car inspected, then we’ll pick the lawyer up and then we’ll all go back to the hotel and sign the F&*%$#g papers. So, we go to pick the someone up and the next thing I know we are back at the dealer and I am being explained to that an engine number was written down wrong on the paperwork and we would have to go back and get that engine number right. I said kiss my a** and take me back to the hotel so I can get some pollo frito and cervezas (fried chicken and beer) and come back when you can get your s*** together. So, they dropped me off at my hotel where I was thrilled to see my wife and kids and drink some chicken and have a couple of pieces of beer. It is now 8:30 and the lawyer and dealership representative just left after my wife and I signed one signature and wrote down our passport number.
We pick up the car tomorrow at 3.
Maybe.

PS though the tone of my email sounds rather negative I actually took all of this in stride and wasn’t all that surprised by the amount of waiting and multiple steps it took to finish the transaction. The next day Katia picked me up and took me to pick up my Galloper. I would highly recommend their service and after about a total of 16-20 hours of their time it was worth every penny. If I had to take cabs and do all the negotiating myself I don’t know if I really could’ve gotten it done. Their website is autos.fijatevos.com/english.html. I told them that they should advertise on this website and could probably do some good business through it.

-Regards,

Storm Zbel
Now renting in Dominical and waiting for our place to be finished being built. It’s supposed to be ready in June! Maybe.

[jafranz]

szbel
You are very lucky to have used Kattia and Russ or your purchase would have really been awful. I am surprised that Russ didn’t have you more prepared for the money transaction. I bought through them and was told about not using a credit card. My experience with them was less than 6 hours and I was off to Quepos in my car. By the way a (Hyundai Galloper) Their $250 charge is cheap.
JF

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