#179 – The Expat Files: Car Security, Tinting, and Market Wisdom in Latin America

Automatically transcribed from the original recording; names and wording may contain errors.

[00:03] Hi everybody, I'm Johnny Mueller and you're listening to the expat files living in Latin America. The show that tells you what it's really like to live, work, play and or retire in Latin America. I tell it just like it is, not the version they give you in those glossy travel magazines or the picture they paint for you in those international traveler websites where they're only trying to sell you something. What's it really like for expats living in Latin America? Well, if you stick around a while you'll find out, so let's get started. Just got another slew of emails asking me about the cost of living down here in Latin America. Funny they should ask that, because I was just at a big produce market right outside San Pedro Sula Honduras, and this was one of those messy indoor-outdoor jobs that looks

[00:48] like it just took off and grew like a weed. Typical of the controlled chaos you see down here, anywhere the common people shop and hang out. Now you should know that even though these markets are nearly always in an older section of town that has asphalt and concrete roads, the vendors in their booths and kiosks and stalls don't respect the roads at all. So don't expect to be able to drive your car through any of these markets, you're gonna have to park it somewhere. And I suggest no matter what kind of car you have, you always park in a secure parking lot where there's a guard and a lockup, meaning there's a big fence around the place. Two reasons you don't want to park on the road. One is, there's a lot of skanky looking shady characters that walk around these markets simply because there's a lot of stolen things being sold there too.

[01:35] That kind of stuff, along with the usual, fruit, vegetables, eggs, chickens, iguanas, turtles and other things. Which means you don't want to park your car in the streets, in case these guys are checking you out to maybe steal your radio. But know this, if your car is parked on the street and you do get your radio stolen, you only have to walk a couple of blocks to find the right kiosks that sells radios and you can buy your own radio right back. And these guys that steal car radios, they don't break your windows. They use a stiff metal rod and they shove it into your door lock and that pops the lock mechanism and the doors open. But after they've done that, you have to take your car back to the dealer because you won't be able to fit your key in there anymore. Now you can't open your car door from the outside. That means you have to enter your car through the passenger door.

[02:21] Very inconvenient, I must say. And in my 20 some years down here, it's only happened to me once, but it's happened to Eddie about three times. But you see, that almost never happens when you're in a guarded parking lot. That is of course unless you make yourself a pretty obvious target. Then you might get nicked even there. The fact is, every expat that I know who's had his car broken into, was parked on the street. Now I'm not saying you don't get things ripped off when you are in a guarded parking lot. That does happen, but only to idiots who leave their windows open a crack, or they forgot to lock the car, or they left something in the car that was so tempting that they were just asking for it. So there's two things you have to keep in mind about parking your car in a parking lot. First of all, don't leave anything on the seats like computers or gift wrap packages

[03:09] or anything shiny and glitzy that looks worth stealing. Don't forget, the guards working there only make $2.50 a month. So what you have in your car could be quite a temptation for them. I mean let's face it, if a guy gets your laptop computer or your iPad, each product like that is worth 2 or 3 or even 4 months of a guard's salary. Awful tempting. And here's another thing Eddie told me, which makes sense. Because Eddie has restaurants and obviously parking for his clients, infrequently, but it does happen, one of his clients will come in complaining that something was stolen out of the car. While it was parked in Eddie's guarded parking lot. And the first thing Eddie does of course is point to the sign that's in every parking lot in Latin America that says, we are not responsible for damage to your car or anything

[03:57] that might be stolen from your car. Which is basically a get out of free card for any parking lot owner. Because everybody in Latin America knows you park your car at your own risk. And that doesn't matter if you park your car in the crappiest area of town or in the Marriott or the Hilton Hotel parking lot. They still have that disclaimer. And like Eddie says, anytime something's been stolen from a car that's been in Eddie's parking lot, it always turned out to be something valuable left on the seat. And nearly always the victim was driving a luxury high end car. Obviously an attention getter from the get go. And that's further proof why I always recommend you drive an average late model mediocre car. Nothing special. And here's a tip. Unlike in the US, there are no laws in Latin America prohibiting you from putting the darkest

[04:47] tint available on the windows of your car. I do recommend you have them tinted and as dark as possible for two reasons. One, if you have the darkest tint available, it's nearly impossible for someone standing outside of your car to see inside. So even if you leave something valuable on the seats, it's not the end of the world. And the second reason why you should heavily tint your windows is because the sun's so damn hot down here and penetrating. That tinting is one of the only ways to stop your dashboard and your upholstery from fading and cracking. Because we all know what the sun does in time to a car when it's not in a garage all day. After a while, the inside plastic and upholstery gets all faded and bleached out looking. And you really can never restore the original luster.

[05:34] No matter how much silicone spray or so called revitalizing stuff that just slather on. Hardware stores have rows and rows of that junk. They work half ass and only for a short time. But long enough for a used car dealer to make his weather beaten cars look halfway decent. Just long enough so that when you buy one, it fades and dries out and looks ugly again. Now when you have your car windows tinted down here, skip the car dealerships even though they offer to do it. They'll charge you 2-3 times as much as the little corner shop will. And the small outfits will do just as good a job and give you a 3 year guarantee too. So go ahead and get your tinting from one of those hole in the wall corner joints. They'll only charge about 40 at tops, 50 bucks, to tint every window in your car.

[06:22] And a car dealership will charge you 100 or more. And they'll use the very same products. Now if you have your car windows tinted up in the stays, that'll range from about 100 bucks using the cheap generic products, to 4 or even 500 bucks for the US products like 3M. Again, here's some more proof of how cheap it is to live down here in Latin America. Car window tinting is a quarter or less of what it costs up in the first world. And in fact, when you get your windows tinted, you'll have your choice of the generic product, the medium product, or the top of the line product, which has the longest guarantee, and those are generally US and European products. Now here's where you shouldn't skimp, and why should you anyway, when the cost and installation are so damn cheap. For example, you can get the generic product with a year guarantee against bubbling, blistering

[07:11] and tearing and scratching. Or you can get the top of the line 3M product, which has a 3 or even a 5 year guarantee. And believe me, nobody I know who's ever got the 3M product has ever had to go back for any kind of warranty repair. But when you're driving around, you often see what looks like bad window tint jobs. A lot of ugly bubbling and streaking. And guess where that tinting stuff is imported from? I'll give you a hint. It begins with a C, and it's not Cleveland. And get this, the price difference between the generic and the 3M first world product is 10 bucks. So for once, go ahead and splurge, drop a saw buck. You won't regret it. So when you do get your windows tinted, you could get the Oscuro, which is very dark.

[07:57] You could get the Medio, medium. Or you can get the Liviana, which is the light tint. Which one is best? Well I suggest you get the dark, the Oscuro. For all your side windows and the back window, that means from the outside, they'll look dead black. And no one will be able to see inside your car day or night. But for the windshield, I suggest Medio, which is medium. Because if you have that one jet black, like so many people have them down here. When you're driving, it'll be like looking through a dark pair of sunglasses, all the time and even worse at night. Which is really kind of annoying. So you might wonder if you only have a medium tint on the windshield. Won't people on the outside be able to look into your car at least a little bit?

[08:44] Well the simple answer is no. And that's because all your other windows are so dark, that it has the optical effect of making the windshield seem darker than it really is. But for you on the inside driving, it seems almost as clear as untinted glass. And I know some of this might seem hard to believe, because in the states they don't allow you to have dark tinted windows. But down here, almost everyone with a decent car has a heavy tint. After a while you get a kind of a feel for what the various tints and shades will do. Oh and by the way, down here they don't call it window tinting. They call it polarizado. Like the English word polarize. Again, they call it vidrios polarizados, meaning polarized glass. And the reason why they call it polarizado was because the first tinting films back in

[09:33] the 60s were polarized 3M films from the states, like polarized sunglasses. But anyway, back to getting your radio ripped off when you're parked on the street. Or sometimes even ripped off from a guarded parking lot. Now there's a very big market for ripped off car radios down here in Latin America in every country. But crooks have their favorites. They just don't steal any radios. They only steal the ones that have the pop off faces. You know what I mean. Which seems kind of ironic because those pop off faces were invented to foil crooks from stealing radios. In fact, there are two different markets for radios down here. One for that pop off radio face itself, the tuner part, and one for the main body of the radio. The part that's attached deep into your dashboard.

[10:19] And if you get that ripped off, there'll be a pretty unsightly hole. Exactly what you don't want to see when coming back from a shopping trip. So if you want to avoid that, here's an important tip. Don't ever put one of those aftermarket radios in your car. Always go with the one that's factory installed. Even if you're an audio guy and that radio sounds a little wimpy. Still, you should stay with the stock radio that came with the car. Even if back home, you had a radio that blasted out your neighbor's windows as you tooled along with your favorite hip hop tunes. Well too bad because if you go for a high powered aftermarket radio like a Blaupunkt or a Bose or even Pioneer. Any name brand with a detachable faceplate. In fact, any name brand at all.

[11:05] Well those are the kind of radios that crooks can sell easily. Especially down here, even guys with real pieces of junk down here often have really nice high powered radios. In fact it sometimes seems to us expats that their radios are worth more than their cars. Anyway you think these guys with these piece of crap cars pay retail price for their high powered radios? No way. They buy their radios at one of these big indoor outdoor markets. Where they sell everything from food and produce to candles and shoelaces and all kinds of clothes and tools and car parts and stolen cell phones, computers and radios. So for example a high powered Pioneer radio that might cost you 500 bucks will sell for a hundred or a hundred fifty at one of these big markets.

[11:51] And by the way throughout Latin America they'll often call the big city market La Terminal. The terminal. Now that doesn't mean the end though it sounds like it. The terminal or terminal actually means the bus terminal. The place where all the city's chicken buses sleep at night and they'll rev up their engines about five in the morning and head out on their individual routes. Then they'll come back at night to sleep again. Now the terminal is not one gigantic lot where they park all these chicken buses at night. Instead it's always located in one of the old dingy dirty sections of town where organized chaos kind of prevails. And as you get within a few blocks of it you can actually smell it and it's not pretty. There's garbage and litter everywhere.

[12:38] Stagnant puddles and ditches that you have to look out for and people hawking thousands of different items stacked as high as they can get them on kiosks, wheelbarrows and sometimes even from baskets on their heads. So these gigantic markets grew up where all the chicken buses congregate. Which makes sense because that's where the masses and throngs of the common people are. People with a very basic kind of lifestyle. And they really don't care if they're buying stolen goods. They only care that it's a lot cheaper than buying it at a retail outlet. Now not all the goods for sale are stolen of course or pirated. I'm sure that none of the food or produce or flowers are stolen. That stuff's coming in daily from truck farms. But it's obvious a lot of the durable goods are of iffy origin if you know what I mean.

[13:24] You know as the Italians would say, don't ask, forget about it, it fell off a truck. And you know for us gringos and expats it's a real trip walking through a market like that. I highly recommend it. But you have to keep the lowest of profiles. Just travel light, dress way down and think like a backpacker. Now it's not a problem for a guy to walk around the market alone. But I wouldn't recommend it for expat women. In pairs, okay. But alone, no. Because you see, it's just that you're mixing with some of the lower levels of society. And chances are if you're a lone woman and you look over your shoulder, there'll be a guy or two following you. Which I'm sure you know is not a very good feeling. Now that doesn't mean that you're in any trouble or they mean you any harm. They could be following you because they haven't really seen a gringa up close.

[14:11] And are just curious. That's what happens when you're off the tourist trail. Or they could be following you to try to sell you something. Stuff like that happens to expat guys too. And ladies, there's a chance that you're being followed because that person or person wants to hustle you. Because you know it's a prevailing rumor in Latin America that first world women, because they are liberated, they're morally and sexually loose. Especially young first world women on their own. If they're not accompanied by a guy, Latin guys think they're looking for a good time. So remember, all Latin guys have that idea in their heads. Because after all, they watch the Girls of the Playboy Mansion on e-entertainment television and the Kardashians too. So they think all American women are like that.

[14:58] And of course, there's another reason you might be followed. That's because the guy who seems to be tailing you, really does want to rob you. Now you can just about guarantee when you're at the central market, even if a guy has bad intentions, he doesn't want to assault, kidnap or rape you. There's just too many people in the market for him to be able to pull that off. And he knows it. The market may be chaotic and unpoliced. But the people selling stuff down there don't tolerate violence. It's a place of business. But if you're alone a guy can follow you and on your way to your car, he can get you in a blind spot where no one's watching and rob you. But he's much less likely to try that with a lone guy and almost never when gringos or gringas are in pairs or groups. The fact is Eddie and I go to the markets all the time, sometimes together, sometimes

[15:45] alone. And in 20 years I've never been hassled and neither has Eddie. Well I have to take that back. Every time we go to the market we get hassled a little bit, only because people are always coming up to you and asking you to buy their stuff. It is a massive market now, isn't it? But let me get back to car stereo robberies. Now what's obvious down here is that crooks do not like to steal car stereos that are standard equipment in a new car. Well it's not because they're not any good or they're not powerful, it's just that these days when a car comes stock with a radio, that radio's been designed just for the dashboard of that car and generally just that car model. For example, a stock radio for a Honda Civic will not fit a Honda Accord, just a Honda Civic. And maybe it'll only fit one model a year of that Civic, since year by year companies

[16:34] like to change the dashboard style just like they change body styles. And crooks know if they steal one of these radios, it's not a universal one size fits all. Like those aftermarket radios from Best Buy's series or Walmart. Oh yeah, I forgot, Best Buy is bankrupt. Anyway, don't go buying a beefed up radio. Keep the one that came stock with the car and no one's going to rip it off. Radio thieves aren't stupid and they know their cars. What they do is they walk up to a car, dark even black tinted windows and all. They shine a little halogen flashlight onto your dashboard and if they see it's a stock radio built into your dash, they leave it alone and move on. But what about when your car gets robbed in a guarded parking lot?

[17:20] Well Eddie tells me, of course the guard's in on it, but he's not physically in on it. He's not the guy at all involved physically doing the robbing. He's just paid off to look the other way. Then like Eddie says, the guard can actually play dumb very convincingly when you ask him if he saw anything, because he didn't. He was conveniently out of range when the act went down. So bottom line, let somebody else tempt the thieves, not you. Don't have an extra special car? Don't have a high end radio? Get heavily tinted windows and don't leave anything tempting on your car seats. Oh and I've had some emails from people asking me if it pays to install an alarm in your car. Well I'd say for sure it does, even though no one pays attention to the chirps and screams of alarms anymore now, do they?

[18:07] Even up in the first world. You hear those things going off all the time and nobody gives a damn. But car alarms are nice because they do have that anti hijacking feature. If someone does get into your car and doesn't push that hidden button, then in 30 seconds or so, the car automatically dies. But the problem is, thieves know where those buttons are. After all there are only 3 or 4 places you can actually install a button like that. It has to be in a place you can reach conveniently when you start the car. In fact the other day Eddie bought a car for his girlfriend and he went to a well known alarm place and had one of those things installed. And by the way, the whole system was just $100. And when Eddie went to go pick up the car, and the guy showed him where the secret button

[18:54] was, Eddie wasn't too happy with it. And he said, isn't there some place else you can put that thing? It's pretty obvious. And the guy said, yeah, no problem, there's two other places we can put it. Now if that doesn't beat all, in that particular car, a Toyota Yaris, there are only 3 places to put that anti hijacking button. Now I ask you, you don't think every car thief in Latin America knows exactly where to look? You've only got 3 choices, right? Anyway, Eddie drove the car home and proceeded to reinstall that push button on the left wall inside the glove compartment. Which is a pretty long reach and his girlfriend was a little pissed off about it. But at least now, Eddie can be sure that no car thieves know where to find it. And by the way, here's another thing that Eddie mentioned.

[19:42] Remember in a previous show I told you that Eddie's girlfriend's brother, the skinhead gang banger that wanted Eddie to give him a job? Anyway during one of their little talks, this guy told Eddie that some of the best car thieves are guys that used to work as alarm installers, naturally, since there's a lot more money in stealing cars than installing alarms. And even worse, this guy bet Eddie that for just a $50 or $100 bribe, he could get practically any alarm installer to give him all the tips and secrets on how to disarm them. Now isn't that a confidence builder? So bottom line, do get a car alarm with anti hijacking features, but do move that push button from one of the usual places. Go ahead and install it where there's a little bit of a stretch to reach.

[20:31] Now when talking about thieves breaking into your car, your car alarm should go off then, shouldn't it? Well you know, that doesn't matter much. For a thief who's just going to force your door open and just take what's on the front seat, a computer or iPad or whatever, it'll take a good thief about 10 seconds to do a move like that and then he's out of there. But if he's going to swipe your radio, that's a different story. In that case, you'll have to yank it out of your dashboard and sometimes there are some big bolts you'll have to remove. And for that he'll need about a minute or two at least. And all the while that car alarm of yours is going to be wailing away. But most of these thieves are smart and they work in pairs. So one of them is a lookout and when the other guy pops the door open, the lookout immediately reaches in and pops the hood latch while the other guy starts going for the radio, tearing

[21:21] away at your dashboard. Meanwhile the other guy, the lookout, slips under the hood of the car and clips the wires to that little horn speaker that's making all the racket. And of course those thieves know exactly where that speaker is mounted to. Why? Because that's their job. So in reality, that alarm speaker might only sound off for 5 to 10 seconds and then boom, it's gone. Therefore in the minds of the common people and us Gringos too, it's an absolutely normal occurrence. Alarm on, alarm off. Totally normal. Especially in big cities, that happens all the time. It's background noise to us. Just someone getting in and out of his car and resetting the alarm, right? Not a problem. Well if the thief does cut the wires to the speaker, there's nothing you can do about

[22:09] that, but the anti-hijacking circuit will still cut out the ignition. So the car won't start, even with the correct key. As long as the thief can't find the push button. Anyway to be double safe, that's why I always put my own ignition cutout circuit on all my cars. Sounds like I have a fleet, doesn't it? No, I only have two cars. But they both have a simple switch that cuts out the ignition so no one can start my car unless they know where that switch is. And I've got that one well hidden. And if you want to see how I do it, I've got the schematic up there at expatwisdom.com. It's a neat little trick and it'll probably cost you no more than 10 bucks to do it. Boy, did I get sidetracked there. Anyway, meanwhile back at the big city produce market. Usually called la terminal or terminal.

[22:56] Anyway, just lately, I was in the big terminal market in San Pedro Sula, Honduras, where I bought huge ripe strawberries for 50 cents a pound. Grown locally of course. And huge black raspberries for 50 cents a pound. And I understand in the US, both of those range from $1.50 to $3.50 a pound. And they're nothing like the gigantic ones you get here that I picked ripe and juicy and trucked in from close by. Then I had my choice of three kinds of avocados, ranging in price from about 25 cents a piece for some really ugly looking ones. The kind that never would make it to the states. However, they taste better than any avocados you've tasted up in the first world. I'll guarantee you that. And then there's these giant avocados that look like grapefruits.

[23:43] And they run about 60 cents a piece, as well as the perfect looking ones that you're used to eating up north, which are also between 50 and 60 cents each. And then I bought four giant ears of sweet corn, wrapped in plastic and shucked. I like that word. Though they don't use that word here in Latin America. Anyway, I bought four ears picked the day before for 65 cents. How much do you pay for yours? Then I bought three small pineapples, not tiny but small, three for a dollar. And I bought a pound of whole grain rice that you cook up yourself, of course, for about 50 cents. And you know, if you cook that up, you get a gigantic pot full. Now here you can buy a pound of unpeeled jumbo shrimp for about three to four dollars. But if you're on a sea coast, the Atlantic or Pacific, you can buy them right on the

[24:32] pier for two to three dollars a pound, unpeeled with the heads on, of course. Oh, and by the way, when you're at the terminal or the big produce market, you can play these guys off against each other because, for example, in one stall, they'll be selling tomatoes at 30 cents a pound and at another stall nearby, 20 cents a pound. So you tell the seller what you want to pay and that you can get them cheaper by X amount right down the street. That kind of haggling goes on all the time. Now here's a couple of market tricks that Eddie showed me because, you know, Eddie wasn't always rich. And in the early days when he was just starting out in his restaurant business, he'd go down to the market and buy damaged fruit and he'd get 25 to 30 percent off those already rock bottom prices. And when he got this stuff back to his restaurant, he'd cut it into garnish and salads anyway,

[25:20] so nobody knew the difference. Damaged fruits and vegetables are still good. So Eddie would buy damaged tomatoes and avocados and carrots, you name it, and bring it back to the restaurant. Now, I'm not talking about rotted or worm infested stuff, I'm talking about tomatoes and papayas and broccoli that got whacked a little bit too hard and it's a bit flattened or smushed, you know, far from perfect. So normal North Americans would never buy that kind of stuff. But Eddie's best trick of all, and I don't know why I never thought of it, probably because I don't buy tons of fruit and vegetables like he does. Anyway, what Eddie used to do, and he doesn't do this anymore because he doesn't have to, he'd drive his big old beat up pickup truck down to the El Salvador Central Market at about five o'clock at night when everyone was packing up their stuff and the market

[26:07] was about to close. The market's closed at sundown, which is about six o'clock, but these guys start packing up at about five. They have to put their stuff in a safe place, lock it up and pack it away for the next day. And the market actually closes a little bit after five because it's too dark and most of those little kiosks don't have electricity. Many don't even have permission to be there. But this is the third world, so life goes on. So Eddie says, go down at five when they're packing up, ask them the price they want for, let's say, tomatoes, then make them an offer about a third lower, and generally they'll take it, especially when it's a fruit or vegetable with a very short shelf life like an avocado. It's better for them to sell it now cheaper than to risk having it too ripe the next day. So Eddie said in the early days he cut his vegetable and fruit bill tremendously just

[26:57] by doing that very thing. Oh, and by the way, you should know that when you go to the big food and produce market, they always give you free samples. But I warn you, as willing as they are to give you a free sample, don't let them cut open a mango or a papaya or a watermelon and hand it over to you. Because chances are, the same knife that guy's using to cut the fruit is the one he used a few hours earlier to pick his teeth with and clean the dirt out from under his fingernails. I kid you not. So you can just politely refuse or whip out your own contaminated knife. At least they're your germs. You've been listening to The Expat Files, living in Latin America, coming to you each

[27:42] week from somewhere south of the border. And don't forget you can email me on anything at all about Latin America, The Expat Files at gmail.com. Once again, The Expat Files at gmail.com. See you next time. Nos vemos.