How to Register Your Car - Act I

I've been back in Cuenca for about 10 days now.  I've adjusted to the altitude all right, but not so much the life. 

The past few days we have being trying to figure out how to re-register/inspect Carlos's car.  Because of his plate number or ID number or something like that, he was the entire month of May to complete the process.  And you definitely need the whole month.

First of all, the process has changed.  Last year the process was overseen by the state, now it's a county issue.  We went online to try find what documents were needed, but couldn't find that anywhere.  We couldn't even find a phone number of who to ask.  But Carlos knew that we had to pay some fee at the bank.  But which bank?  Mami has said one bank, but last year he paid at a different bank, but he didn't have the time to go to either of those so he went to a third bank and found out that he could pay there.  A miracle (for many things in Ecuador not only do you have to pay at a specific bank, but at a specific branch)!

But we still didn't know what else we needed.  Finally, after talking with Mami, she managed to find a tiny slip of paper saying all the documents that were needed.  We only needed to pay two more fees at two more locations before we could take the car in to get it inspected.  This was on Wednesday night.  But Carlos was going to Quito for the whole day Thursday.  He couldn't do it.  So Mami, Papi, and I did.

On Thursday morning I walked over to his parents house so they could come with me to pay the fees.  I didn't know where we were going, but apparently it was close.  The first fee was for state insurance.  We walked about 10 minutes to one place, no they said, you need to go to another place and sort of gave us directions.  Another 10 minute walk and we discovered that we were a bit in the wrong direction and needed to turn around to find the place.  But we did eventually find it.

We started the procedure to pay the state insurance.  It would be $55.  For the year.  Including a fine. 

The fine part was $25 because the insurance had expired in March and we needed to pay that portion and a fine to reinstate it.  This is nothing like car insurance in the US.  It has nothing to do with the quality of the driver, it is purely based on the year and model of the car.  I don't even know what it insures.

However, I saw that last year Carlos had paid $80.  So I asked again about the fine.  Would it be the $55 plus the $25 fine.  No, the women answered, it was a total of $55 including the fine.  She looked at me like I was an idiot.  Didn't I understand?

Carlos later explained to me that the state felt that it had over charged people in 2009 so they recalibrated the rates for 2010 and people got a bit of a refund for overpaying last year.  But at the time I didn't know this and really felt that after we left we would have to return later for not paying.

The next stop was at the police station to pay a $12 fee.  When I got to the head of the line, the woman behind the counter informed me that the computer said we did not pay the year before.  This may have been because they were still integrating all the states data from the previous years.  So I needed to find a certificate saying that we did or pay $25.80 for the two years, including a fine.  I didn't remember Carlos saying anything about the certificate.  And the time to go and look for it was worth more to me than an extra $14.  So after consulting Mami, I went back to the counter to pay.  The woman wouldn't let me!  She ordered me to go and look for it!

I left the counter, having no choice of what to do.  I tried calling Carlos, but he didn't answer because he was in a meeting.   So we went to lunch.  I should mention that we did so much walking that morning and the sun was so strong that the back of my neck actually got sunburnt.

After lunch we took the car to the mechanic.  Since the car would need to be inspected and if it didn't pass, then reinspected, we decided to take it there for some maintenance (it's a 1975 Mazda pickup).  The muffler needed repairing, as well as the speedometer and fuel gage.  As far as I know it's still at the mechanics. I don't know what the bill will be, but I'm sure it will be less than $100.  Service is cheap here.

On the way back from the mechanics we went back to the police station to pay the $25.80 fees and fine.  Carlos had called during lunch and said that no, he did not pay that fee last year so we wouldn't be able to find the paper no matter how hard we tried.  When we returned there was a different women at the counter and when she tired to tell us to go find the paper I told her that my husband didn't pay the fee last year and that we were willing to pay for last year, this year, and the fine.  The money was finally accepted and we had our second receipt of the day.

Now that we have the fees paid we just need to wait until the car is ready and take it to get inspected.  Papi will be doing that for us, since I don't drive here and even if I did I have no idea where the place for inspection is. 

And that story will be the next act.