Pathfinder passes RTV ! yea

Owning a vehicle in Costa Rica is something else. Import duties are set so high that it is not practical to drive your personal vehicle here. But if you choose to, it can take months to get the registration changed over and often winds up costing as much as the equivalent vehicle purchased here. So most folks find themselves purchasing used vehicles worth about half of whatever they drove at home. In my case, this is a 1989 Nissan Pathfinder.

Now, a few years ago, the Costa Rican government implemented a Technical Revision System that must be passed annually to keep a vehicle on the road. It is owned and was set up by a Spanish Company with unrealistically high standards. Like most such organizations, it concentrates on alignment, brakes, emmissions, lights, and tire condition.

Bearing in mind that these are 20 to 25 year old vehicles we are dealing with, you can imagine preparation for RTV as a sort of swap meet for owners of compatible machines. There is a service station across from the RTV centre that tests emissions and will do any last-minute adjustments that might be necessary. Vehicles often get tuned for the test and then de-tuned afterward.

It almost always requires two and sometimes more trips through the RTV torture chamber and I am delighted to announce that I made it through on my second pass this year. I rarely use a car here and the gas and maintenance costs are through the roof. Maybe it's time to sell.