More Adventures With The Rav4

About a week ago, our recently repaired radiator sprung a leak - in the same spot that had been soldered. Last Monday it went back in to the shop, this time to Fredy, the young man who had welded the leak in our air-conditioner and not to Rauel who had soldered the radiator.  Fredy said he would remove the radiator and take it up to Las Fuertes, another little community up island, to a guy who specializes in radiator repairs. All the taxi drivers use him and our friend George, who is a taxi driver, had highly recommended him.

Don showed Fredy some other problems, like the recently replaced fan that quit working.  Fredy noticed that Rauel had replaced the fan with one that was too small. He said he would take care of that, fix the hood latch and call us when ready.

Friday he called. Don went to pick up the car and it wouldn't start! Someone had apparently left an interior light on and run down the battery. Fredy had one of his workers bring out another battery.  Then, with a big grin on his face, he said "don't try this at home", turned the battery upside down, and placed it atop the car battery so the plus terminals made contact as did the minus terminals.  He motioned for his guy to start up our car!! It worked, but wow! dangerous method.

Don paid the extremely reasonable bill ($215.00) and drove it home. Fredy also washed our car and even used those paper covers to keep the inside of the car clean, just like they do in the States. Never seen that here, though.

A little later that day, I wanted to use the car and it wouldn't start. Wouldn't even pretend like it wanted to. Great. Don called Fredy and he said he would come out and look at it (does your mechanic make house calls?) to make sure that it was only the battery. He did and it was just the battery. He swapped it out with an old, but still usable battery. After lunch Don drove in to the shop, picked up Fredy; they went to the auto parts store and got a new battery which Fredy then installed. Cost of the new battery: $132.00.

So, now we have our car back and it's working great. No more leaks, the air-conditioner is working very well. Hopefully no more problems this year. We're only on the island two more weeks.