There are three grades of 4x2 Mazda double-cabin pick-up
trucks for sale in Ecuador. All of them fall under the BT-50 label, all of them
are the same length and have the same interior, which brings the difference to
engine and horsepower. The cobalt-blue 2011 model parked outside our bedroom at
Ana Lucia’s house in Ibarra has 98hp.
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| Ibarra - Car dealership |
We had been looking for a car since our arrival, but it
wasn’t until almost a month ago that we went out to some dealerships in Ibarra
looking for a model which would suit us. I knew more-or-less what we wanted: a
double-cabin pickup of a recent enough model to have driver and passenger-side
airbags, in relatively good condition. 4x4 engines are several thousand dollars
more expensive than 4x2 engines here, and while there are some steep roads in
Quito nothing in our everyday routine requires the power and traction of a 4x4.
Chevrolet, Ford, Toyota and Mazda have factories in Ecuador or neighboring
countries, so as far as maintenance and ease of resale are concerned they are
all good buys. The Ford and Toyota pickups cost more new, however their rarity
relative to the ubiquitous Chevrolets and Mazdas lowers the resale value. We
were looking for Chevrolets and Mazdas.
There is no Spanish word for “refurbished” in the Ecuadorian
automotive industry. When an owner wants to sell their car they bring it to a
dealership (irrespective of mark) where mechanics inspect the mechanics. If the
vehicle is damaged to the extent that its legal operation would be impossible,
I suspect the owner pays for repairs or foregoes a significant percentage of
the resale price in lieu of paying. If the damage is not immediately apparent,
the owner can choose a third path: reclaiming the car from the dealership and
attempt to sell it on their own through mercado libre or one of the other
classified websites used in Ecuador. Often this path of resale involves
tampering with the odometer to lower its reading. Andres and Caroline had the
pleasure, to the sum of $2,000 in post-sale repairs, of purchasing their
Chevrolet Grand Vitara from an owner who chose the third path. (refresher:
Sandra is my partner, her sister Caroline is married with Andres, they have a
2-year-old son, Valentin).
Every car dealership in Ibarra is located on either side of
the main route into and out of the south of the city. The first dealership we
visited there had two used (“segundo mano” -- second hand) Chevrolet
double-cabin pickups, both with over 100,000 kilometers and asking prices over
$15,000. The pickups were well used and the tires looked in need of
replacement. At about $200 per tire that would have been $1,000 extra,
including service. We thanked the salesperson and headed south and across the
route to a Toyota dealership where we could see several segundo mano pickups in
the fenced-off lot. The first pickup shown to us looked worse for the wear and
had the same tire problems as the previous two pickups. As we prepared to leave
the salesperson let us now that the dealership had a 2011 model in very good
condition, and it would be in the lot the following day.
We were all immediately interested in the Mazda pickup. Two
years old, 48,000km (~30,000 miles) on the odometer, exterior and interior
almost spotless, barely any scratches on the bed: a trade-in by the owner to
finance an upscale purchase. For $19,500 it was $5,000 less than a brand-new
model, and the excellent condition was enticing. After a call to Andres to make
sure the price was right for the year and mileage, I said I’d take it. When we
arrived in Quito the next day, after my first highway driving in Ecuador (much
more comfortable and scenic than by bus), Andres told us that his friend who
works at the dealership hadn’t been there the previous day. That friend later
had told him that, personally, he wouldn’t have paid more than $17,000 for the
car. As a first time car owner, I was happy with that figure as a
“could-have-done better” amount.
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Lita - driving through a foot
and a half of mud flooded roads
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The pickup, being significantly longer, was at first far
more unwieldy than the small sedans I learned to drive in, but several weeks
later I’m comfortable enough to parallel park, reverse out of the sloping
driveway at Andres and Caroline’s house in Quito, and thread the pickup through
the gates of Ana Lucia’s driveway into a position where it doesn’t block her
garage. More importantly, I’m comfortable driving in the chaos of Ecuadorian
traffic.
There are plenty of traffic signals in Ecuador. Observing the
manner of driving in the country, one wonders why they bothered to put in a
single one. Traffic signals, legal priority, passing lanes: practical jokes on
the novice driver. The surest way never to arrive anywhere in Quito is to obey
the traffic signals. In the beginning, this manner of driving scared me because
I couldn’t understand the underpinning logic. How to predict what the other
cars will do; in other words, how to drive defensively? I observed traffic when
Andres would drive us to the grocery store and gradually I began to understand.
Traffic in Ecuador is completely logical. It follows skate-park logic. The
logic of the flow between multiple skaters in a skate-park is this: no one
follows any set rules of flow, everyone pays attention to the area around them
at all times and (usually) everyone conducts themselves to avoid collisions
between their person and foreign bodies. Replace “person” with “vehicle” and
you have the logic of traffic in Ecuador. Put simply, all drivers here drive
defensively. One learns to expect other drivers to nose-in at roundabouts and
quickly learns that if one does not use the nose of one’s car as a traffic jam
one will get nowhere, fast. This logic works for the sole reason that everyone
obeys it; in New York, where some drivers obey the logic of traffic signals and
other drivers obey a logic of chaos and disrespect, driving feels much more
dangerous. Gradually, I find myself more at home driving under these conditions
than in New York or even the over-ordered streets of Brussels and France. So
comfortable now am I, that we’ve been able to purchase more materials in Ibarra
and transport them to Chota, speeding up our building and allowing us to
complete the interior electric system.
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