Roy and Sue came over at about 10:30am and we had Igor ready and waiting to go for a drive. They left their car here at the campground and we all piled into Igor to head to the body and paint shop at La Manzanilla de la Paz.
It’s only about a half hour drive... almost half way to the shoreline of Lake Chapala.
They had some paint work done to their van a year and a half or so ago, and they highly recommended Julio at Mata Bros Body and Paint shop in La Manzanilla.
Julio was a nice guy, and even spoke quite good English. We encounter this often this area, as many of the locals have spent time in the U.S. at some point in their lives. It’s always interesting to me when we meet someone new how quickly both parties recognize which language is the better one to use. In this case, Julio’s English, while not perfect, was better than our Spanish.
Unfortunately for us, Julio’s shop is quite busy. He said he would need a months notice just to start the job, and that we should be prepared to leave it with him for a week. And, the price to paint Igor’s upper fiberglass cap would be 12,000 pesos ($835 CAD, $581 USD) which is a little more than we were expecting, and now that we’ve thought about it, it’s more than we want to pay. I know from my own experience in the business that when you are busy, you tend to charge more.
Maybe we can get it done in Guatemala for less money. We’ll do some shopping around here in Mexico over the next few months and see what other prices are like.
On the way back to the campground, we were going to stop at the ATM in Mazamitla just to pick up some cash. But I noticed something wrong with Igor’s brakes. I guessed (it turns out correctly) that there was a brake fluid leak somewhere. I still had stopping power if I pumped the pedal, so we bypassed Mazamitla and headed right back to the campground to pick up Sue and Roy’s car. They know a mechanic that they have dealt with in the past, and we followed them over there... only a ten minute walk from their house.
Igor, inside the mechanic shop.
One bay was empty, and they directed me inside. The guy got right to work, and we told him we were going to go to Mazamitla, then check with him again when we return. In this case, my Spanish was better than his English.
We went and got the banking done.
Mazamitla is a nice town to wander around.
We'll probably go do exactly that later in the week.
Back at the garage, the guy had the wheel and brake drum off, and said they were waiting for a brake line. He said he would call when it was ready. We went over to Sue and Roy’s house to wait it out. Still hadn’t heard from him by 4:30pm, and knowing that they close at 5:00pm, I walked over. Sure enough, they were just tightening up the bolts on the wheel.
Total bill including parts to replace a brake line, clean up the leaked fluid, and bleed the system... 1050 pesos ($73 CAD, $51 USD).
Can’t beat that!
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Great deal on this small Portable Power Bank.
And in Canada...
Nice price drop on this Bluetooth Automotive Scan Tool.
Jesse Moreno painted a side of our travel trailer. He's in Valle. I wish we had finished the project. The one side turned out quite well.
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