Cars for Sale in Costa Rica

[Sam Wilson]

Dear LiCR,

A friend tried to sell me his car -- he needed money and knew I sold my last car back in Jan. After a couple of good leads on cars petered out, I decided we could do fine without a car.  It has actually been pretty fun, and in less than 2 weeks of walking and biking, I could tell my computer guy body was starting to come around...  jajaja.  ;-)  Taking the kids to school every morning on a bike has really been nice.  However, the family has been grumbling a bit about us not going to the beach very often and I do enjoy just wandering the back roads from time to time, so after I passed on my friend's slightly beat up Isuzu Rodeo, I started looking to see what's available.  Anyone have favorite places they check for cars for sale?  The 3 main places I've been checking are:

http://crautos.com

https://www.encuentra24.com

https://www.olx.co.cr  

I'm kind of fond of big, old, SUV types.  Our last car was a Hyundai Galloper that I loved for 10+ years.  I drove that thing all over Costa Rica, up and down mountains, through creeks and rivers, all over beaches and hard to get to places. On my short list I'm looking at mid-90's to early 2000's: Mitsubishi Monteros, Nissan Pathfinders, Jeep Grand Cherokees, Chevy Blazers, Ford Explorers, a Ford Escape and a Land Rover Freelander.  Anybody have other favorites along these lines I should consider?  Or places to look?  We live in outback Guanacaste, but I'm making a list of cars to check out before we make a road-trip to the central valley to see various candidates with the intention of making a deal, doing the paperwork, and driving one back home over the next week or so.

If anyone has any tips or recommendations, please let me know!

Thanks,

Sam

[Berni J]

Easy peasy Sam . . . I just sold my trusty Series 3 4Runner  at a great price and bought a Series 4 4Runner at a great price on Encuentra24.  I don't much like the site but it seems to have a lot more cars of the species I was searching.  But it does not harm to troll them all.

Depending on budget - you say you want "looking at mid-90's to early 2000's" - there is only one car I'd look at - the series 3 4Runner  . . . . as I describe my former friend "The Beast – model 2001 Toyota 4Runner, a masterpiece of engineering genius often mentioned in context with other masterpieces such as the LHC at Cern, the Lighthouse of Alexandria and the invention of sliced bread."

I had the Mitsubishi of that era and thankfully it was stolen by someone with no taste.  It could not do 3 point turns while trying to escape an angry druggie, ate gas and oil and couldn't make its way through RTV without a lot of work every year.  No parts for Chevys, Fords or Jeeps.  Which leaves you with a Freelander - check out the prices on all the parts likely to fail (being a Brit that means most of it)?

A few samples below, Berni

For example something under 140,000 km like this:https://www.encuentra24.com/costa-rica-es/autos-usados/se-vende-ano-95/13022903?search=f_price.5000-14000|f_currency.USD|keyword.4runner  could go on another 100,000 miles easily $7K but a bit old.  

Or this one suits you well: https://www.encuentra24.com/costa-rica-es/autos-usados/vendo/12988124?search=f_price.5000-14000|f_model.4Runner|f_currency.USD - you could probably get it for $8K - it really might only have 80,000km - wowie - could last a lifetime.  Cept it is in San Isidro and may have been worked a bunch off road.

Few more miles but newer almost same price:https://www.encuentra24.com/costa-rica-es/autos-usados/toyota-4runner-1999-automatico/12437938?search=f_price.5000-14000|f_model.4Runner|f_currency.USD - looks impeccable on the outside and lives in an area without dirt roads.

[epicatt2]

Hi Sam,

[I hope this info is okay to post here (for you); I have no monetary interest this business but it may useful info for you . . .]

Suggest that you might want to check out this fellow, Allen Dickinson, who retired from Florida to CR. He's a friendly sort, honest and reliable.  He started his business (below) to assist EXPATS who are wanting to buy, sell, or have their vehicles serviced, fairly and honestly.  

Allen paired up with a tico mechanic and they've been in business for closing on five years, now.  They also offer several other services.  For instance, they can take your vehicle for you to Rteve to have its annual inspection and marchamo.

 

Contact Allen and see what he might have for sale right now.  (His inventory is changing continually.)  

 

Here is his contact information:

 

===

AUTO SHOP SANTA ANA

Allen, 8502-6305 (English)

Joaquin, 8815-7668 (Spanish)

Email = < allendickinson70 @ yahoo.com >

===

OK — Hope this helps . . . .

Paul M.

==

[Sam Wilson]

Thanks, Berni!

Yeah, I had a few Toyota 4Runners on my list but I don't recall what happened to them.  I saw one which said it seats 7 (which is what we are used to and like) but I thought they were much smaller inside.  Does officially seating 7 sound right for a 4Runner?  A 5-seater doesn't leave us much room with 2 child car seats.  We've got 4 little ones in the family now...  I've been calling about cars for the past 4 or 5 days now and they are starting to swirl around and blend together in my dreams.  I really thought I was dreaming when I found the Chevy Blazer with the Hyundai Galloper engine -- but I found it in my browser cache the next day so it must be true.  Some of the stories!  ;-)  I found one that was behind on marchamo for 10 years!  Another that was being held hostage in the taller -- so the guy needed to sell it so he could get it out of the shop.  Another crazy lady who called us back because she thought we were selling a watch -- she didn't really want to sell her car and was mad at her brother for putting the ad online.  I fairly quickly figured out how to weed out the fraud ads of cars that were stuck in Aduanas -- great price (+pay barco +pay import tax!) 

I agree about the lousy Encuentre24 website.  I hated weeding through 100's (probably 1000's) of little sedan ads to find the few SUV ads I was looking for.  At least CRAutos lets you search by Estilo:  Sedán / Pickup / Todo Terreno / etc.  The OLX site is similar to Encuentre for searches.  By the numbers, in the Used Car category, CRAutos has 13642, Encuentre has 22335, and OLX has 9950.

I've got my list narrowed down to 8 candidates now, but I need to go back and review the Toyota 4Runners again.  Gene also has one that he likes.  But I can't remember why they fell off my list unless it was lack of roominess.

Got my list down to 5 already while I was writing this -- 2 of which we've already talked to the owners.  3 calls tomorrow and I could be done!  ;-)

--

Sam

On Sat, Oct 6, 2018 at 6:24 PM Berni J <bern...@gmail.com> wrote:

Easy peasy Sam . . . I just sold my trusty Series 3 4Runner  at a great price and bought a Series 4 4Runner at a great price on Encuentra24.  I don't much like the site but it seems to have a lot more cars of the species I was searching.  But it does not harm to troll them all.

Depending on budget - you say you want "looking at mid-90's to early 2000's" - there is only one car I'd look at - the series 3 4Runner  [ ... ]

On Saturday, October 6, 2018 at 4:50:22 PM UTC-6, Sam Wilson wrote:

[ ... ] so after I passed on my friend's slightly beat up Isuzu Rodeo, I started looking to see what's available.  Anyone have favorite places they check for cars for sale?  The 3 main places I've been checking are:

[Berni J]

Encuentra does let you select a car - stick the car you want in BUSCAR at the top.  Yes there is a lot of shady stuff out there particularly in the cheap seats.   If a 4Runner says 7 seats it means there are 2 jump seats in the trunk - pretty rare to find that here - the interior otherwise is quite big enough, Berni

[Jorge Hoepker]

If you need 7 passenger seating I highly recommend the Hundai Terracan, diesel, 4x4. We had a 2005 for years and used it for tours and later on for construction with a roof rack. 4x4 had very strong torque and I actually pulled out some Bobcats and Backhoes building in remote locations in Costa Rica. Toyota, and Mitsubishi also make seven passenger vehicles, but are more expensive. We now drive a Kia 2700 one ton crew cab truck that seats 6. Great for work with tractor like 4x4, but rides like a buckboard and hard for the wife to get in and out of.

Another is to check out rental places when they get rid of cars.  

Best of luck! Jorge Manuel Hoepker D. 

Costa Rican-American construction done right the first time.

JMH Constructora Ltda. (506) 8892-3220

Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android

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[Sam Wilson]

Thanks, Jorge!

I really liked the 4x4 diesel Hyundai Galloper we had for years -- for some of the same reasons.  I always pulled folks out of ditches and always drove out of any I found myself in.  Great tough car that I bought years ago for a hot date and drove it all over Costa Rica.  I haven't seen any Terracans yet, but I have been taking a look at newer Hyundai Gallopers and Mitsubishi Monteros.  We are planning a Cars for Sale viewing tour of Alajuela/San José this week.  Last night I weeded my list down to 2 candidates after making more phone calls, but I'm trying to build it back up again before we hit the trail.  I plan on hitting the big city with personaría and cash in hand, making a deal, doing the traspaso, and driving our new wheels back to Guanacaste -- I really don't want to make 2 trips.

Paul, yes, I thought about Allen Dickerson's cars for sale, but I haven't seen him post a list for some time now.  I don't have any trouble doing RiTeVe myself, and one of my yernos is a good mechanic, so I am pretty well covered in regards to those things...  Do you know if Allen's got a website listing cars for sale?  As I recall he's got a shop in Santa Ana and I'm pretty sure I've seen their Facebook page:

AUTO SHOP - Santa Ana

https://www.facebook.com/AutoShopSantaAna/

But I haven't seen any listings -- maybe they are there?  I'm not much of a Facebook user these days so perhaps to others it might be more obvious...

I might try to do a swing past all the car dealers in Grecia on the way into the GAM, but otherwise I'm really trying to get this figured out before we come down off the volcano...  ;-)

Thanks again to all for all the good ideas!

Sam

On Mon, Oct 8, 2018 at 7:56 AM 'Jorge Hoepker' via Living in Costa Rica <costa-ri...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

If you need 7 passenger seating I highly recommend the Hundai Terracan, diesel, 4x4. We had a 2005 for years and used it for tours and later on for construction with a roof rack. 4x4 had very strong torque and I actually pulled out some Bobcats and Backhoes building in remote locations in Costa Rica. Toyota, and Mitsubishi also make seven passenger vehicles, but are more expensive. We now drive a Kia 2700 one ton crew cab truck that seats 6. Great for work with tractor like 4x4, but rides like a buckboard and hard for the wife to get in and out of.

Another is to check out rental places when they get rid of cars.  

[Wm. Paul Mitchell]

Mornin' Sam,

Never was aware that Allen posted a list of things for sale (I'm no fan of Facebook, BTW), but a phone call or email to Allen should get you that info easily.  Reports have indicated that he is fairly prompt about replying.

I suspect there's no list because his offerings are ephemeral, coming in & selling fairly quickly.

I believe that one of the benefits of Allen's used vehicles is that the majority of them were owned by expats such that there is a reliable history for a vehicle in question, something which is not necessarily the case with various other dealers of used vehicles in CR.

OK — HTH

Paul M.

==

[Berni J]

Expats reliable?

Yes Allen does get back promptly to email.

As for Grecia, I have trolled them in the past and never found anything nice - lots of "stuff" but not so nice . . .  Berni

[Sam Wilson]

Jajaja!  I was thinking the very same thing, Berni.

I've looked at just one from an expat so far and it was the most beat up of all...  Depends upon the expat of course.  Gene takes better care of his cars that his women!  jajaja...  Of course that is not true, his women always have a big smile on their pouty lips, but his cars are very well maintained also.

I've decided this time around to just skip anything that I'd need to have worked on before it would pass RiTeVe -- even though I've got both a mechanic and a body shop that owe me money...  Still, the expat car I looked at would have me buying things so either of those two could provide free labor to pay off a debt, and then there's the theory that if a neighborhood has broken windows then there's bound to be more ugly going on under the 'hood.  ;-)

Yeah, I've never gotten excited about what I've seen in Grecia either, but since it is on the way to the Emerald City, I thought maybe we could stop to use the bathroom, grab a cup 'o joe, and look out the window at some cars to get us warmed up before we get to Big Town.

I'm getting an email off to Allen as we speak -- you never know where the hungry fish will be lurking...

BTW, another Cars for Sale website I found that has a couple thousand or so is:

todoBUSCO.com

https://carro.todobusco.com/costa-rica/buscar/venta-de-vehiculos-en-costa-rica

I only found a few that interested me, but maybe some place to keep in mind in the future.

--

Sam

[Berni J]

Just in case epicatt is reading this, I really do think he's the best - well except for his expats comment :-))  There's a funny book about CR written by friends/gringos/expats called Radical Sabbatical - it tells the story of trying to buy 2 SUVs on a day trip to the central valley and the horrendous aftermath of that successful mission.  It was about a year of torture caused by duelling Gallopers I think they were - both bought at Bargain prices.  A Bargain with the devil.  I always wonder who bought them?

Steer clear of dark green Gallopers.  :-))  Berni

[Sam Wilson]

Berni,

Jajaja... yes, one must be careful about such things.  At least in this case, it was not me.  I bought mine in Liberia for a hot date I scored with a young police woman working at the airport...  Of course for such a thing I threw all caution into the wind -- however I did bring a mechanic friend with me to look at the Galloper before I promptly tossed my money down.  He did find an easy problem he could fix and I knocked a little off the price because of it.  In the end the Galloper worked out great!  I never spend a dime on maintenance on it for over 10 years besides fixing whatever the fine folks at RiTeVe said were grave.  Sometimes that was just ¢10 mil worth and sometimes ¢200 mil worth, but even then that's not much for annual maintenance on a car...

The hot date worked out wonderfully!  I still wince thinking about it.  I spent about 3-4 wonderful weeks touring Costa Rica with that young hard-bodied lady.  We were damn near newly weds by the end of it...  I think it took more than 3 weeks for me to recover, with strange bruises in places I didn't even know could bruise!  jajaja.  Unfortunately, afterwards I had to change my phone number seeing as how while I was still in recovery, I hooked up with the future Mrs. Sam and well, you know how Ticas don't like to share!  ;-)

Uhm... yeah, not to get too far off track here, I submit yet another Cars for Sale site with a couple thousand cars for sale:

mercado libre - Autos, Motos y Otros

https://vehiculos.mercadolibre.co.cr

I found one I liked out of that entire batch.

--

Sam

On Mon, Oct 8, 2018 at 12:49 PM Berni J <bern...@gmail.com> wrote:

Just in case epicatt is reading this, I really do think he's the best - well except for his expats comment :-))  There's a funny book about CR written by friends/gringos/expats called Radical Sabbatical - it tells the story of trying to buy 2 SUVs on a day trip to the central valley and the horrendous aftermath of that successful mission.  It was about a year of torture caused by duelling Gallopers I think they were - both bought at Bargain prices.  A Bargain with the devil.  I always wonder who bought them?

Steer clear of dark green Gallopers.  :-))  Berni

On Monday, October 8, 2018 at 11:31:56 AM UTC-6, Sam Wilson wrote:

Jajaja!  I was thinking the very same thing, Berni.

I've looked at just one from an expat so far and it was the most beat up of all... 

[epicatt2]

[epicatt2]

On Monday, October 8, 2018 at 10:56:34 AM UTC-4, Sam Wilson wrote:

Paul, yes, I thought about Allen Dickerson's cars for sale, but I haven't seen him post a list for some time now.  I don't have any trouble doing RiTeVe myself, and one of my yernos is a good mechanic, so I am pretty well covered in regards to those things...  Do you know if Allen's got a website listing cars for sale?  As I recall he's got a shop in Santa Ana . . .

==   ==

Sam,

In case you were not aware, Allen is currently the editor of ARCR's El Resdiente magazine but he is definitey still operating Auto Shop Santa Ana.  But since a bit of this time is also taken up with the magazine I can see why he prolly doesn't advertise cars, etc., anywhere online.  Besides he has been established long enough now that I'm sure that he gets lots of business generated by word of mouth.

But to answer your question more directly I'll repeat that I never have been aware of Allen having any website where he advertised cars.  That said it seems more prudent to phone or email him directly.  You never know what he might have available at any given moment and a call or an email costs nothing.  I will say though that I have seen him once in a great while to post something on one or the other of the CR discussion boards in reply to someone who'd asked about him and his services.

HTH

Paul M.

==

[Fred Hampton]

Hi Paul does anyone know his telephone  number or email?  He has been mention a lot in the past week but no way to reach him.  I know nothing about cars and my grandson is wanting one when he turns 18.   Any information would be appreciated.

Fred in Pava

 

--

[Sam Wilson]

Hi Fred,

Here's the shop phone: 2282-0252.  And here is their Facebook page which has a place to contact them.

AUTO SHOP - Santa Ana

https://www.facebook.com/pg/AutoShopSantaAna/

Note however that the map they have on Facebook and the "Get Directions" link take you to the wrong place.  The actual address of the shop is as it says in the text: 50 mts. Oeste, 50 mts. Sur from the Santa Ana Ekóno.  I'll email you Allen's email address via direct message because I'm not sure if he wants it published on this public forum.

I cannot recommend Hyundai Gallopers highly enough!  Great protection for a young driver.  Maybe not so great for others on the road with him... jajaja.  

Good luck!

Sam

[Fred Hampton]

Thanks for the information Sam.  I have mixed thoughts on helping him buy a car.  If he got hurt I would never forgive myself for making it possible for him to have a car.  He would be happy with a motorcycle but I would not sleep at night worrying about him and a accident. Anyway thanks for the information.

Good Night,

Fred

 

--

[Sam Wilson]

Fred,

I'm still a young guy, but I'm on my 3rd set of influencing young ones.  I wish I had been more thoughtful and wise about it the first couple of times.  But I suppose I was too busy trying to figure out how to live my own life.  Probably a bit selfish.  For sure it was...  This time around I'm doing a much better job of it.  Helping this set of young ones fulfill a large percentage of their potential is regularly on my mind.  That has forced me to consider how I can best wind them up before they spin away.  I know now that the influence I have on our 5, 6, and 7 year olds will never be greater.  My goal is to teach them how to cope with the dangerous and the bad... as well as with the good.  If I could download a well seasoned set of experience into their moldable minds I would, but with current technology, I can't.  So my approach is to try to teach them skills that will lead to success in life and how to recognize and avoid the dangerous things that keep parents up at night.  But I don't wrap them in bubble wrap to avoid a scraped knee.

I've done so many really dangerous and stupid things as a kid (and when I wasn't a kid) that there is no doubt in my mind that it is just wishful thinking of us parents that our kids won't be put in, or get into, tough spots.  Tough situations where it will be up to them, on their own, to get out of the tough spot.

Eventually that boy will get a car whether you help him or not.  Eventually he will quite likely find himself barreling down a dark, slippery road drinking beer with his screamin' buddies, or worse.  Helping him get a sensible car and teaching him how to be a good driver and how to avoid dangerous situations like that is better than wishfully thinking it won't happen.  Wind him up as best you can.  Convince him to wear a seat belt and be responsible while you can.  But for sure he's gonna be a man making his own way some day.  You can't prevent all the hurt.  You can try to mitigate it.  Kids buy motorcycles when they can't afford a car.  I don't want to tell anyone how they should raise their kids (or grandkids) but my approach when our young ones get a little older will be to buy them a tough old tank of a car that will hopefully protect them when they eventually do spin out of control.  I've got a few years to convince them the wisdom of seat belts and to show them by example how to be responsible, defensive drivers.  (Okay, Gene... you can quit rolling on the floor with laughter!  I'm trying to have a serious conversation here!  Don't give me none of that "practice what you preach, crap!"  Good advice is good advice, right?)

Anyway, enough of that!  ;-)  Consider the vaulted Hyundai Galloper.  An old tough warrior of a car that your grandkid will not be able to do much hot roddin' in, and when it comes to crunch time, odds are he'll be less crunched than the other guy...

Yeah, skip the moto...

--

Sam, who still has an awful lot of practicing what I'm preachin' to do!  jajaja.  That being said, as LiCR as my witness, I'm gonna take these kids out to the farm this weekend and teach them how to build a fire.  Hell, yeah!  We'll play with sharp knives and explosives all within the stated goal of learning a useful life lesson...  ;-)

[Gene French]

Really....i was not laughing...i admire the philosophy...i respect what you are doing with the little ones...they need you ....

I also am a firm advocate of the nonbubblewrapped kid theory...

Besides the discipline treatment i also advocate for ..

1. A sip of your beer

2. A puff of your cigar

3. Sharing of yourself and your time...

Is good for their state of being...mind body and soul...

Life is not perfect...neither am i...

I dont expect my kids to be either...

I just want them to survive...and be productive...

Thumbs up sam...et al!!!

Pura vida

Gene

Sent from BlueMail

[Berni J]

Yea skip the moto - with you Sam all the way.  I'd suggest a 76 Eldorado - now THAT is a crumple zone!!!  Candy-apple red would be nice - hard top of course till the kid gets older - then over 22 they get a convertible same car.  By then they will be safe to drive a bike anyway - my first was a horrid BSA 250.  Then a Kawa 750 H1 750 triple 2 stroke suicide machine.  By then I knew how to roll the first time I slammed into a wheel well of a car pulling out a side street.  It IS going to happen.

Berni

[Gene French]

I had a 305 honda scrambler...

Then a 59 harley hard tail  .  .

Then an indian scout....dont remember the year....never restored it fully...didnt ride much...

Those were the days...only by the gra e of god we all made it!!!

I like a pink 59 caddy convertable myself....

Sent from BlueMail

[Fred Hampton]

Berni,

 

We know it is going to happen but we pray it never does.

Fred in Pavas

[Berni J]

I did learn a new thing that day - the value of the human shock reaction - you can actually walk with a broken knee cap until the shock wears off and after you have declined medical assistance :-))  Berni

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[Sam Wilson]

LiCR,

Well, Car Buying in Chepe worked out well -- it was only a 3 AM - 11 PM ordeal, just like all of our trips to the Big City.  ;-)  We started out with a plan, which as often is the case, fairly quickly required "executive adaptation".  3 times I had whittled a 20+ car candidate list down to 4 or 5 and the details of the best of the best were jotted down on physical paper, as well as saved as screenshots on a lap-top, as well as saved off as printed webpages.  Our Best of the Best were located in a rumbo directo from Palmares, through Alajuela, Escazu, Curridabat and all the way to Cartago.  Besides our cash in normal places (my pockets and wifey's purse) I even had a few million colones cash wrapped in paper bundles hidden in a sock buried in one of the kid's backpack that nobody else knew about -- extreme torture wouldn't have been able to find it!   Each of the owners had been contacted and knew we were coming from far away to see their car on Wednesday and each told us that would be fine AND that everything was in order with their car for traspaso so we could actually make this an in and out deal where we drive home a car that afternoon.  I carried a fresh personaría and both new and old passports.  What could go wrong with such a well laid plan?  ?-)

After about 3 hours on the road, our 2nd stop guy (one of the top 2 on the list) sends me a Whatsapp message saying he's got a doctor's appointment in San José he doesn't want to lose, so perhaps we can look at the car some other day?  Nope - this is a 1-day in and out mission, we're not coming back tomorrow.   So we skip the 1st two stops and head straight to Curridabat.  My yerno who was driving got nervous as soon as we hit Paseo Colon so I took over chófer duties and showed them how an ex-NYC cabbie navigates downtown Chepe during rush hour.  My wife who is used to that explains that I never get lost in San José and I know where everything is (yeah, right!) like it is some inherent gringo world-traveler thing.  I've never seen so many white knuckles in one car before!  jajaja.

The 1st car I made a deal on after we knocked the priced down a few ¢100 mil looked nice.  Everyone except the wifey liked it.  This was a 4x4 with manual transmission and she has this fantasy notion that if we buy an automatic she actually could learn to drive it.  The last time she tried and gave up on learning to drive was about 5 years ago, but it was driving a stick.  Then the owner tells me, just a sec and he calls his lawyer for a consult for about 10 minutes before he comes back and tells me there is a problem with the documentation.  Turns out the car never was fully transferred into his name and the previous owner failed to sign some document.  He thought he could get that straightened out by next week (said he had already been working on it for a week) then offered to drive the car up to Guanacaste when the paperwork was in order where we could do the deal and he'd bus it back home.  I told him we'd be in the area for the next couple of hours, to call me if he got it straightened out.  

The 2nd car I made a deal on was tougher.  The car was in good shape and I already knew the owners had dropped the priced ¢300 mil.  I couldn't find anything wrong with the car to use as haggle point, except that when I did the white-glove treatment on the bottom of the motor I got a smidgeon of oil on one of my fingers.  I felt bad about trying to squeeze them over what in reality was cleaner than any motor I've ever owned before.  But, we reminded them that we had earlier asked if they were open to offers and they said yes.  So the old man relented and knocked ¢100 mil off their asking price.  I smiled and shook his hand saying, "¡Cien mil entre amigos no es nada!  Vamos al tinterillo..."  I don't think I've ever heard anyone call a lawyer that in Cost Rica, but the old man thought it was funny.  ;-)  

The lawyer was pretty good and figured out the 1st passport I gave him which matched my data on the personaría was expired, but I had my new one ready and laid it on him.  The old man mentioned a previous lawyer had put a lower value on the car in the registro so the taxes would be less, this guy stuck with that and used the artificially low valor hacienda I had already noticed in the registro.  Nice lawyer, I thought, and then at the end it was clear why.  As previously mentioned, the taxes and fees on a car transfer are 3.5% of the valor hacienda or sales price, whichever is higher, plus 2% of the same for the lawyer.  In the end, the lawyer charged me the 5.5% on the higher sales price (rounded up) and logged it in his books as 5.5% of the lower valor hacienda.  I had previously calculated up what the fees should be using each of those values so I knew exactly what he was doing.  I weakly protested that his fee was not what I had calculated, and then let it slide.  I win in the long run due to lower marchamos.  He cheated the government and turned his fee into almost 5% of the purchase price rather than the 2% the rules call for.

Bottom line is we made it back to Guanacaste with a new set of wheels that my wife likes and my kids have bragging rights in kinder -- one told me her friend said, "I wish my dad would save up some money and buy a new car!"  ;-)

Thanks for all the good tips y'all.  Maybe next time in San José we'll actually make it over to an undiscovered Mexican Restaurant I spied on a snippet of a zoomed in map.  I always try to hit Jalapeños, but has anyone here tried Las Leñitas on the Zapote shortcut in eastern San José?  Hmmmm... my mouth is watering just thinking about it.

--

Sam

[Berni J]

Great tale Sam!