When Your Vehicle Breaks Down in Costa Rica

Yesterday morning, we drove to Compre Bien (a grocery chain) in Grecia to buy some groceries and supplies. That done, back home we went. As we pulled into the front entrance to the complex where we live, our vehicle stalled, stopped and would not restart.

Johnny, one of our front gate guards, the groundskeeper and one other fellow came out unasked to push our vehicle into a shady spot. 

Lance phoned Carlos, our mechanic, and was able to reach him. Carlos and his assistant arrived in good time and looked everything over. He did some tests but it was apparent that our vehicle would have to be towed to Carlos’ shop. He phoned a tow company that could pick up our car around 1:30pm.

Carlos has a special arrangement with Enterprise car rental and he booked a rental vehicle for us at the same time. If you have a car in Carlos’ shop, Enterprise offers special low rates and they deliver the rental to the shop. We didn’t know how long Carlos would need our car and we didn’t want to be without wheels.

We piled into Carlos’ car, along with our groceries, and off we went to wait for the rental vehicle to be delivered. On the way, we provided Enterprise with drivers’ licence numbers, credit card information and so on via phone to speed things up. We had to wait a while for the rental car but it was worth it as they substituted a much larger car for the one we booked but at the same price. It’s a 2020, hardly driven, Honda RAV 4. Really nice.

Here it is at our house with the Cat giving it a thorough inspection:

Arriving home, we saw the tow company picking up our Subaru so I was able to get a photo of the action. In Costa Rica it seems that tow companies mostly use flat bed trucks instead of the hook and chain trucks that I am familiar with. Here’s our vehicle heading off to Carlos’ Vehicle Hospital. 

We haven’t heard as yet what the problem is with our wheels, but Carlos is a great diagnostician and mechanic and has been caring for our Subaru for several years now.

So when your vehicle unexpectedly breaks down, you can treat the matter two ways:

Cons: My car won’t run! It’s going to cost money! What am I going to do?!! This is so inconvenient!! What about our groceries? 

Pros: Well, at least the car was polite enough to keep running until it got pretty close to our house. Lance had Carlos’ phone number and he reached Carlos right away. Carlos showed up in good time. Carlos arranged for the tow and a rental vehicle. As indicated, Enterprise delivered our rental right to the shop and we got an upgraded car for the same price as a small one.

Also, because the car is a rental (read: tourist) we are not under any constraints on the days we can drive it. We just have to obey the 5:00 pm curfew imposed because of the Covid-19 restrictions.

I think you can apply this coping mechanism to all sorts of inconvenient things that unexpectedly happen. Just make sure you always have a Plan B.

Information on our mechanic: Carlos Morera, Superior Automotriz, tel: 4033-6045/8834-1692, Grecia, Alajuela, Costa Rica.