What to do with a car when leaving Puerto Rico?

The simplest answer would be to sell it, wouldn't it?

But what if it is the beginning of spring, when both the surfers and the snowbirds leave the island, many of them also planning to sell their cars?

What if it is the middle (I am being optimistic here) of a worldwide economic crisis, a severe credit crunch, AND the biggest glut of cars - new cars, used cars - imaginable?

What if I have been duped into overimproving the car mechanically (practically new everything, high performance, heat resistance etc., low mileage), so it drives like a brand new car, while the outside shows signs of the car being driven in Puerto Rico: a few scratches, a small dent, where someone must have bumped into me on a parking lot... and fled ?

How many thousands of dollars am I likely to lose if I sell this car in Puerto Rico?

And how many if I do not sell it?

What can I do with this car other than sell it?

I do not need it in the US, because I do have another car there. A tad older, true, and with more than twice the mileage, but always driven on US highways, performing well, all services performed on time and without a hint of a problem. I plan to keep my US car - in the US.

But what if I decide to move back to Europe at least for part of the year?

Due to the peculiarities of my country's pension legislation, when I live inside European Union, my European pension income more than doubles. Something to take into account when I am getting older and might soon not want - or be able to - work at all, right?

Since I have owned my PR car for over a year, I am entitled to import it to Europe duty free - so shipping (around $2000) would be my only expense plus adjusting the car to European regulations: asymetric instead of symetric beams, etc.

Of course, I would have to factor in the higher cost of living in Europe and the nonfinancial aspects: both positive, like living in a multicultural, multilingual surroundings, with a plethora of high culture at my fingertips, both old and new; easier access to less processed food, hormone free, antibiotics free... but also an emotional cost of being across the ocean from my only daughter, my practically only remaining close relative...

But if I spent winters in Florida and summers in Sweden, or France (I would prefer Italy, since I know it much better than France, and love it, but in Italy I would be taxed to death, due to the peculiarity of Swedish-Italian tax treaty), it might work, beautifully even... for a while, at least, since the question is: how many more years will I be able to effortlessly hop on a plane and fly over Atlantic twice a year... with cats? And how expensive might it become?

I do not really have time right now, in the moving rush, to factor all these aspects into a meaningful equation, so I guess I'll just have to leave the car here somewhere for a few months or so, until I make the decision what would be the least expensive way to get rid of a car in Puerto Rico. Sigh...

No luck with the car... :-((((

Shock absorbers, fluid and coolant exchange... all of it is going to cost me today close to $900!!!
After I spent about $ 500 on it last month (starter, oil change, belts, air filter).
And it irks me that I have another car, waiting idle for me, on the mainland. :-((((

Boy, is life on this island expensive!!!! Sigh....

I think I'll just move in to Sears

Auto Center. Due to all the time - and money - I spend there recently.

After all the maintenance and the purchase of an ultra expensive high performance starter motor ( as if I were a rally driver, lol), my car developed a ticking (coughing ?) noise every time I turn the motor on and turn a wheel. I have no idea what it is and the Sears mechanics did not mention that anything was wrong. Sigh.

So today I need to go there again and make them check it out. Wish me luck. Sigh.

A car and .... a machete

I have had a series of troubles with my car lately.

It served me without the slightest mishap since last December, when I bought it (save for a routine maintenance like oil chnges, new battery and tires) till October, when I had to replace its starter motor (and have been price gauged really, really bad) , got a flat tire and - upon changing oil - learned (from Sears) that besides the oil, I need to replace two belts, change all the fluids and the coolant, air filter and something - all in all over $300 - again!

But yesterday my car trouble was my own fault entirely: I left my car keys in the lock. I was going to atted meeting yesterday afternoon and found out the keys were inside.

So I asked one of the coworkers, Joel, a really thoroughly talented guy, what should I do, and he threw his arms in the air, but then laughed, asked me to wait and in a moment ... emerged with a machete.

I have seen machete used to cut grass, vines, pumpkins, but I had no idea how easy it is to open a car door with a machete. Merely seconds!

I was impressed by Joel's abilities, greatful for his help... but from now on I'd rather not leave anything of value (like my laptop) in the car, knowing anybody with a machete can open it at any time within seconds.

Not that a guy with a machete would not be conspicuous on a parking lot of a mall, for example ;-)

My new - all in all - $400+ starter motor...

... or how to be taken to the cleaners (twice???) by car mechanics in PR.

In my last post - from less then two weeks ago (I know, I have been neglecting this blog) I wrote about the troubles my starter motor caused me... and that I had it fixed after a couple of hours of wasted time and a $ 130 in towing ($45) and parts and labor for the starter.

I thought the problem was fixed. But no... yesterday I went to the airport in San Juan to drop in my daughter, who was leaving after her long weekend visit. Parked the car... but when I was ready to drive back, the car would not start. The airport security came to help, noticed there was electricity: sound signals worked, lights worked, radio worked... but the car would not start.

They tried to bust it anyway, but to no effect. They said it was my starter. Whaaat? Said I?
I had it fixed less than two weeks ago!!!!

They shook their heads... So I called AAA, now knowing it offered services in PR.

A towing truck came in less than half an hour. The towing guy tried to bust it, also, not trusting the security people... and the same no result. Starter, he said. I repeated that I had it fixed less than two weeks ago. He, too, shook his head and towed me to the nearest Western Auto in Carolina.

"You need a new starter" - they told me. "It will be $ 170".

I reapeated that I had it fixed recently.

"He rebuilt your starter" they told me. "But it did not work. You need a new one. $ 170, will be ready in 45 minutes".

So there I was : 120 miles away from home, two deadlines looming and I have already taken too much time to entertain my daughter during the weekend and driving her to San Juan.

"OK", I said.

But after half an hour the guy, Carmelo, calls me back:

"We have a problem" he says." This is not the part you need. The regular starter won't work in your car". He did not explained why. He only shook his head, when I asked and continued: You need a special starter. There is one in Lakeland, Texas, which we can get here in one and a half weeks (he knows I am 120 miles from home, before he askem me that previously) ... and there is one on the island, which I can get in about half an hour, but it will be that much" and he shows me a price on the computer of $ 296.

I had a distinct feeling I was being taken advantage of ( you know , the Blink factor), but... what was I to do: renting a car, driving to Cabo Rojo and driving back in one and half a week would cost me more that the difference (of about $ 100) in quoted starter prices, so I agreed.

The part arrived within the half hour as promised and the car was fixed within a bit more than an hour. But the final bill did not show the price of the starter as previously quoted at the computer screen. It was the same as Lakeland price - if I remember correctly. Only a few other parts and services were suddenly added to come to a definitively not cool $301.

I have been taken to the cleaners: twice, presumably... though the first time might have been in a misguided wellmeaning....

Handy men and car mechanics - two groups I have very bad experiences with ... almast always trying to take advantage of single old ladies. That was the reason I sold my house in Texas when my spouse died and swore never to buy another one, so I would not have to be at handyman's mercy - or bother my neighbors every time I got a repair quote to verify just how badly they want to rob me.

But how WHERE can I live without a car, to be able not to be at mercy of car mechanics????

Making a grand entry... the WRONG way!

Mayaguez Resort and Casino - terrace in front of IFC meeting room

This morning I - inadvertently, I swear! - made a huge traffic stop when entering - by car - Mayaguez Resort & Casino, to attend a breakfast meeting of the Mayaguez International Friendship Club.


I pulled into the entry gate too far away to reach a parking ticket, so I stopped the car and got out to pick my ticket up. That went realtively well, although already inconveniencing a few drivers behind me... but when I got back into the car and tried to start it... nothing happened.

Again and again. I opened the mask, to see if battery screws needed tightening, messed with them a moment and ... hotel personnel started coming to get me off that spot. First they tried the jumper cables, but when these did not help, they pushed my car away, so the others could pass me.

I could not believe how many cars I managed to stop during this five minutes (?) of my car mishap!

I told the parking attendants I was about to be late to a meeting. "Don't worry", they told me, "your car can stay here until you get back and then we shall see what we can do."

Now, THAT, I call a first class service!


I enjoyed the meeting, got the tow truck called in by the parking staff, after they failed to start the car with jumper cables. "Starter" they told me "not the battery". The tow truck took it to Mercado Auto Electric downtown, a garage that specializes in alternators (don't ask me what that is, I have no idea), starters, generators, regulators and all things electrical.

The car is now fixed. Starter changed. Parts and labor total $68.78, which, I was told, is a very good price.

Tow truck was $45 and a very nice conversation with its driver, who told me about his adventures driving an 18-wheeler through the entire USA and Canada, when he worked there. He knew how to speak Spanish to a foreigner, and even threw in some English words, when I looked confused, so I understood quite a bit of it. Too bad I did not know I could have used my AAA in Puerto Rico, but I know now!

The worst was the close to 40 minutes wait for a coworker to come and pick me up from the garage, as it is downtown, tight spaces, hot, nowhere to sit and cool down. And, of course, after I pick up my car from the garage, I'll have to try and not get lost, among the maze of narrow, congested streets. But I'll manage somehow :-))

Yet another car, another cat and another dwelling

Uff, it was a busy weekend. Too busy to hang around in a hammock....

During the last week the old car I bought developed a problem and was stopping at changing gears, or just out of the blue and after some frustrating - and even scary - experiences I decided to return it to the friend I bought it from, and she agreed to take it back and suggested refunding all my money, but I insisted she keeps some of them as a payment for my using it for almost a month.

Then I went to a car rental agency, rented a car and went searching for another car to purchase.

First, however, I promised to spend part of the weekend in question with a visiting friend and was showing her all the local beaches from Aquadillla to Anasco, when near the Table Rock beach in Aguada I spotted a large white villa overlooking the beach, that bore a discrete sign of two apartments for rent. The owner was inside so we went exploring.

There was a nice, cool, and very white (white ceramic floors, white walls, white trims, white kitchen cabinets, etc.) two bedroom apartment with an ocean view both from the living/dining room - with a white walled patio - and from the second bedroom/study, while master bedroom overlooked a large tropical garden. This apartment has a private entry gate (white, as you probably guessed it), car parking for more than one car and a private part of a garden. And a washer and dryer is in a nook outside the apartment - just the way I like doing laundry in the tropics - al aire fresco.

I liked this apartment from the start, since - contrary to my experiences in Puerto Rico so far - there was nothing shabby about the place, and the price - for a quiet beachfront location - was far from astronomical. However one advantage of the place - it was unfurnished and thus I could do it exactly the way I liked it - turned out to be a short term disadvantage: it was unfurnished and I have no furniture here, and - with the necessity to buy a car asap - I felt like I could not start furniture hunting - even for a minimalist living - before Christmas, while my current place was rented till December 20, and I wanted to move by then.

I informed the new landlord about the dillemma and we found a solution: they had also a fully furnished and air-conditioned studio on the other side of the villa - yet also with a view of the sea and the beach, and I could rent it now and when I had time to go shopping for furniture I could switch to the two bedroom apartment - unless, of course, somebody else claimed it first. So I decided to take the offer and risk at worst renting the studio till the end of the winter season - or to look elsewhere again, if somebody claimed the larger apartment. So we quickly penned a pre-rental agreement, I paid a security deposit and we continued the tour of beaches.

My friend tried surfing in Rincon with a guide (she is my daughter's age), while I had fun snorkeling - there are coral reefs here and great visibility. We played too long and when we were done, all car dealerships were closed. We went home, where we found that our neighbors were hosting a parranda - a Puerto Rican - more temperamentful - equivalent of Christmas caroling with all kinds of Caribbean music, all kind of instruments, song, dance, food, drink - a loud and rowdy, deliciously fun party to which we were instantly invited.

So we went car hunting on Sunday morning. My visiting friend proved invaluable here, since I know next to nothing about cars, while she could even spot if a part of the car was repainted after an accident and such some - boring yet important - practical things. So after visiting about a dozen of car dealerships on highway 2 between Rincon and Aguada, and her turning up her nose at everything she saw, we narrowed it first to two possibilities and finally settled on a nice looking 2002 Mazda Protege.

I offered to pay with American Express, which has no spending limit, but they did not accept Amex - nor any other credit card - so I - a bit in a culture shock, since I am oerhaps too used to pay by credit or debit cards for everything - finally agreed to give them two checks: one for $1000 to be cashed right away and one for the remainder to be cashed 10 days later, to give me time to sell some shares from my brokerage account ( which I would have done to pay an Amex bill within a month anyway - I do not carry any debt) to my checking account.

I could have gotten financing for the car from the dealer, but learned that it would cost me 18% in annual interest (yes, yes, financing in Puerto Rico is definitively not cheap - and neither are cars) and the average return I get on my stock portfolio ( save for the international part of it, due to dollar being practically in free fall since the beginning of Bushe's and Cheney's Iraq misadventure) is less than 18% a year, thus a no brainer was to sell some stock instead of financing the car - and negotiating a lower car price for a cash deal as an additional sweetener.
(My daughter, however, an MPA and CPA that she is, became so horrified by my check postdating routine that she immediately tranferred the amount in question from her savings to my checking. We have our differences: I keep everything in stock while she keeps about $20000 - $25000 in cash as a buffer. Perhaps wise - and sometimes very convenient I have to admit.)

So, after a purchase agreement was finished and I got my temporary vehicle licence ( the permanent one is supposed to arrive within 30 days), I got my new car to take with me.
I wondered a bit about insurance, but was informed that a basic insurance is included in a sticker that every Puerto Rican car must have on their front windshield - if a police spots an expiring sticker, the car is towed away and the owner/driver fined. I only had to purchase a full coverage insurance separately.

Now, armed with two cars, my friend and I went to the car rental agency to return the rental. And there she spotted a tiny, abandoned kitten, no more than three months old: white and grey, with blue eyes, skinny, hungry for both food and affection. My friend said "hey, kitty, kitty" but the kitten took one glance at her and then one glance at me and...without a slightest hesitation jumped into my arms. Thus I became a "foster mother" of yet another kitty and had to stop at a store, purchase kitten food, litter, box, carrier etc. etc.

Before the nightfall the kitty ate an inordinate amount of food, made a lot of use of her new litter box, groomed herself meticulously and fell asleep on a pillow next to mine.



The local vet is closed today, so tomorrow we go to have her checked out, treated if need be and given all the protective shots a kitty requires.

Buying a car in Puerto Rico

It is a sad truth than when you live in Puerto Rico, outside of San Juan, which has some public communications in form of buses and a train, you need a car more than anything else (other than lodging, of course) .

It dawned on me already during my second day here, when I dropped off - at Aguadilla airport - my rental car, which took me from San Juan's airport to the west coast. The cost of a one day car rental from Hertz was $44 (with unlimited milage) + gas, the coast of a taxi ride from the nearest car rental to my new place ( less than 15 km) was $35!

It became even more obvious a few days later, when I wanted to visit a farmacy, a grocery store, etc. Puerto Rico - at least the part I live in (a rural area close to the beach between the municipalities of Rincon and Aguada) - is not walkable. The road is narrow, traffic fast and furious, no side walks of any kind + there is a new road or bridge construction going on on my way to anywhere, where driving alone is dangerous - since the part of the road that is open, is so narrow - and walking would be outright suicidal!

So for the last four weeks I was mostly stuck - and had to coordinate (read: beg) rides with colleagues who had cars and took pity on me - for the most pressing shopping trips.

Thus I soon started to look for a car, but first I had to make a decision of what type of car did I actually want, need, and was willing to purchase. Not having a car to take me to dealers I started looking at clasificadosonline.com, a good place to find a lots of things: real estate, rentals, cars, both new and used, appliances, furniture, even jobs, if you wanted – or needed – to be gainfully employed here.

Well, if I were going to do a lot of mountain driving, the safest bet would be a jeep or something similar, I thought… and almost fell for a cute 2-seater, Suzuki Sidekick. But they cost a pretty penny here and - not being sure how long I would stay in Puerto Rico I preferred to avoid spending so much money for something I might need for 6 months or so and the hassle of having to sell it if/ when I decided to leave. When I was in the midst of hesitating, one of the colleagues offer to lend me her old car for a week or so, so that I could be temporarily unstuck and could go see several possible choices.

I accepted – and – after finding out that she was no longer using that car, and no longer needed it, I asked if she would sell it to me. She hesitated a bit, insisted that the car go first to a mechanic, who would thoroughly check it out and fix whatever might need to be fixed, so that I could avoid any unpleasant surprises, agreed to sell it to me after I drove it, inspected and fixed, for another two weeks or so, to be dead sure that I really wanted to buy it.

And in that way I became a – so far tentative – owner of an old, but in decent working condition - Chevy Lumina – for $700!

P.S. I noticed that this blog post is frequently accessed by people searching for buying a car in Puerto Rico and - since this car purchase was a bust, I would like to refer them to the blog of my once neighbor, Chris, who successfully bought a short-term car at first attempt, while for me it took two. And you might also check out the dilemma you might be facing, when you buy a car in PR, what to do with it once you decide to leave the island.

Sustainability and a $2500 car

According to the recent automotive trends, soon there will be a $2500 car on the market, introduced by an Indian automaker and perhaps, soon after, about half a dozen of similarly priced models by other automakers, including such well known ones as Toyota and Renault.

Cars for the people, for lots and lots of people, who now have none. Can you imagine what that can do to the environment?

It is easy - and sooooooo politically correct - to see this trend as a horror scenario...

And yet I can't stop thinking of the other side of the coin: of the joy of all those, who, for the first time, will gain the freedom of movement. Because car to most of us is freedom, whether we perceive it as such or not. And to many it can also mean an opportunity to make a better living.

Born and raised in a communist country I - like most others there - was deprived that freedom and remember how I felt when, after I defected to Sweden, I purchased my first car, a used Volkswagen Beetle and was no longer dependent on commuting and moving around using only public transportation.

How could I now begrudge millions of others the same joy, the same freedom, the same opportunity ???

There should be other ways to take care of the environment, without limiting people's freedom of movement.

A basic car for the masses is not an ego driven purchase... (like a MacMansion, an environment "friendly" Hollywood star's mansion or ... Gore's mansion) but we need to make it - and all other modes of transportation, a lot more environment friendly.

A couple of years ago I had been offered an opportunity to work with an anti-car organization in Europe. They praised the imagined beauty of the earth's landscapes without paved roads, when all the cars were banned and removed.... and propagated banning and removing all cars.

But I thought, how are we to move through that pristine landscape??? On horse back??? Or on foot???

I refused to work with that organization, considering their ideas not only unrealistic, but counterproductive for the mankind - even though, theoretically, they might have been good for the environment.

Their approach to cars reminded me of an approach of American feminists towards modern technology that shocked me during an academic conference in Canada in the early eighties.

At that conference I happened to attend several discussions of a scholarly? feminist? movement? which - to my utmost horror - propagated turning our backs on technological development, on modern way of living, propagating instead creating and embracing small, isolated? labor intensive societies as women friendly. I was abhorred.

The communist regimes at that time still held a lot of the world's population hostage and those lunatic (pardon) ideas of perhaps well meaning, but totally divorced from reality American feminist scholars (???), who probably never experienced a day of life in a closed, labor intensive society, "free" from modern tools for work, transport, communication, were aiding communist and other authoritarian regimes. Communism - like other oppressive, authoritarian regimes - liked to isolate in order to control easier.

And how a renewed enslavement of women in the drudgery of a labor intensive work was going to aid their emancipation???

I tried to argue with them how much they were aiding authoritarian regimes and - generally - the oppression of women through propagating such models of society as desirable, but I was quickly labeled as a super reactionary black sheep and dismissed.

A feminist ( in the sense: pro emancipation) myself, I felt somewhat guilty being actually happy that nobody at that time listened to those women and their ideas did not take any hold, did not bring any fruit. Or we would have a world in which not even those anti-technology, anti-development feminists would like to live.

Similarly, an environmentalist myself, I do hope now that nobody will start propagating an anti-car, anti personal freedom of movement global police regime of sorts for the sake of environment.

Yes, environment is important. Very, VERY important. But so are people, their rights, dreams, aspirations and their freedom to pursue them. Sustainability to me means taking care of the environment while taking care of the people.

Let's save the planet through creativity, ingenuity, inventiveness, not through begrudging the people in less developed countries the standard of living that we enjoy... and don't want to give up. Let's think progressively, not regressively...... please.