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Sunday, October 28, 2018

First Year of Owning a Vehicle in Costa Rica - Vehicle Inspection


In Costa Rica, vehicle inspection is handled by a government agency generally referred to as "Riteve". As it seems, the inspection procedure turns out to be far more rigorous than we ever encountered in Canada. I expect the same is true for the U.S. For older vehicles, inspection can be an annual event.

The procedure involves not only checking exhaust emissions, tire tread wear, break lining wear, headlight alignment, do the blinkers work, but also checking under the hood, under the body, can the horn actually "honk", etc. What was different, at least compared to our past experience in Canada, was a bone rattling dynamic testing of the brakes.

The procedure is a step by step drive through procedure and you do the driving. You are expected to follow instructions in a very noisy environment. Unless you are absolutely fluent in Spanish or luckily get a Riteve technician who is fluent in English then you could have a problem. Normally, the whole procedure should take about 15 to 20 minutes.

In the absence of fluency, then for a nominal fee you should consider hiring a local mechanic to take your vehicle to Riteve, do the drive through, and report back to you on any deficiencies found by Riteve. Riteve does provide a report card (in Spanish). 

In December 2017, we purchased a used low mileage 2006 Subaru Forrester. Part of our due diligence dictated that we confirm it had passed on its last due date (and it had). The next due date was recent. We went online to Riteve and got an appointment. This was easily done (in English) HERE.

We FAILED! Riteve had four observations:

(1) Rear tires with mild tread wear but not requiring attention at the present time (not serious).
(2) One clouded headlight cover burned by the sun but not requiring attention at the present time (not serious).
(3) A "sunscreen adhesive" on the rear window but not requiring attention at the present time (not serious).
(4) One low beam headlight considered to be too low - a serious problem ("grave" in Spanish). FAILURE - NEEDS FIXING!

The "sunscreen adhesive" was actually a small "Baby On Board" sticker applied by the previous owner. We could easily scrape it off but decided to leave it in place. What bad guys would attack a vehicle if they thought a baby was on board? Possibly a naive thought - and not necessarily a good message for first responders.

We were given an initial three week deadline to return to Riteve and show that the low beam headlight problem had been fixed. We did so, but not before going through some hoops. 

First, we unsuccessfully looked for any advertised local service which could provide headlight alignment. Second, we turned to Facebook only to be advised by many that any competent mechanic could do the job. Not knowing who "any competent mechanic" might be, we went to an auto repair shop which had previously fixed a problem we had with vehicle air conditioning. They were very competent but not in the business of aligning headlights. They directed us to a shop which specialized in automotive electrical systems. While busy with other work, one person in that shop stepped aside, quickly checked the alignment of both headlights, fixed the one which was misaligned - and declined to accept any payment for the service - Taller Electromecánico y Baterías Bull.

We returned to Riteve and were cleared almost immediately when we got to the headlight testing station. But our exit was delayed because there were vehicles in the line ahead of us which seemed to be having some issues.

Friday, October 12, 2018

Eyes on Costa Rica - Update / October 12, 2018

Visits to this blog have now been recorded from 3740 towns, cities and other places located in 124 countries throughout the world. The most recent countries are Oman in Western Asia, Equatorial Guinea in Africa, and Zambia, also in Africa. Each is highlighted on the map below. While the vast majority of visits come from Canada, the U.S. and Costa Rica itself, it is clear that people from many other countries and many other places have their eyes on Costa Rica.



On the map, red dots (many of which are buried under other red dots) indicate places from where visits have occurred since September 29, 2016. Visits recorded before that date are not shown on the map.

In any given month, the number of countries from which visits to this blog are received is highly variable. The following chart identifies countries for the month of September 2018.



My video of "Landing at Juan Santamaría Airport, Costa Rica" has continued to attract interest not only through this blog where the video was first posted on August 26, 2017 but also directly through YouTube independently of the posting. In the first five to six months after the posting, the video was viewed about 1100 times. That number has now climbed to over 2590 views.

Thursday, October 4, 2018

September Weather, 2018

A weather summary for the month of September in Hacienda El Paseo/Grecia during the period from the beginning of April to the end of September appears below.

In Costa Rica, September falls in the middle of the rainy or "green" season and is generally marked by more days with rain and lower daily high temperatures. On rainy days, at least in the area where we live, a day often (but not always) begins with a sunny morning. Around 11 am to 1 pm clouds begin to drift in holding the high temperature down. Then the rain starts and will typically continue for two or three hours.

The number of rainy days in September this year was the most we have encountered in any single month since moving to Hacienda El Paseo. Even though we were not here during earlier months (January, February, March), it is safe to say that there was no month which would have had more rainy days than September. The earlier months were all in the Costa Rican “dry” season.

The current rainy or green season should continue until late November or early December. Then begins the next dry season.