Travelling with Your own vehicle always involves working on it, having it serviced and making sure that it stays reliable, especially when You plan to leave the beaten track and visit remote places. Franziska and I worked a lot on our vehicle mechanically as well as with all the periferals inside and outside of the car. 

Within the last 10 months of going across Canada up to Alaska and zig-zagging down to Central America we travelled about 50000 kilometers and at about each 5000-7000 kilometers we did what we call a "big service", checking and changing of all major fluids and doing a general checkup of the car. Going the adventurous path in major parts of our travellings with many dirt roads, a lot of 4x4 tracks and rivercrossings brings the disadvantage that You find heaps of loose bolts, broken parts here and there, inside and outside, and we found that "listening" to our vehicle while being on the roads was the most successful way of finding weak or damaged parts before they got serious.

Click on pictures to get a closeup.... (German: Fuer Grossbild klicke aufs Bild)

Somehow however in Mexico, we encountered a wave of problems with our car and we have seen many - too many - "taller mecanicos". This site will help me to remember, why and how I ended up getting a small mechanic myself and maybe one or the other experience might be interesting - maybe funny - enough for You to read...

The Break-down story... "Chetumal-Belize-Chetumal-Mahahual-Chetumal-Mahahual-Chetumal-Mahahual..."zum 6ten!"":

Right now (15th march 03) we're driving with music "full-up"... heading southwest through Guatemala towards the Sierras, where we're looking forward to visit some of the abundant volcanos in the south western part of the country. It's our selfmade medicine against the "noise paranoia" which evolved in the past 8 weeks where each of the noises we encountered while driving ended up being a big timeconsuming problem throwing us back to next big city in the aerea. It happened to be the city of Chetumal (Southeast Mexcio, close to the border of Belize) which just did not want us to leave.... at least 6 times! 

The first major and initial problem came up 6 weeks ago driving into Mexico city where our transmission (German: Getriebe) started to produce bad noises in the 5th gear while driving on the highway. Within a couple of minutes all gears were affected and we just made it to northern suburbs of Mexico's capital where we found a "taller mecanico" who offered to help us. Obviously Bearings inside the Transmission were worn down and

...                 ...Taking apart the Transmission No1...                   Camping life at the garage....

needed to be changed. Taking down the Transmission  with our 4x4 involves a lot of work as heavy and sturdy steelbars have first to be removed to get to it. But within only two days and a lot of sweat our transmission was taken down, spread in its hundreds of parts, rebuilt (fixed with 4 new bearings - as we were told...), mounted, and we were on the road again - ...off for Popocatepetl.

The most important rule if You need mechanic work on our vehicle is: " We apply this rule not only in countries like mexico. It's a general travellers problem, that You don't know how much quality a mecanic puts in his work, as You don't know the garage You're at. But more of these experiences later on... (or here...)

As things happened in Mexico city, I was not able to follow the work that a third party company finally did on our transmission. Actually I will never forget how I felt, when our transmission was taken apart within only 10 Minutes with all the hundreds of parts tumbling down in the mud and dirt, some 20 km's north of the garage where they unmounted the transmission. It was kids (10-14 years old...) doing this job and everything was done so rapidly and without taking care of anything. It was this feeling of "shit...., ok, ....that was it....".and after all these hundreds of parts disappeared in a dirty bucket, there was much more to do but  hope and see. I was given the promise that the transmission would be repaired and back together within 24 hours and we headed back to the garage where our Nissan was parked. Next day - we named this day our "lucky day"... - the transmission was indeed back together and we mounted the hole thing back into our truck again. 

I was then told to change the transmission oil after 3000-4000 kilometers but we did not get this far, when this wave of breakdowns started to move in:

Wheel bearing/Radlager (Mahahual 13th January 03):

While driving a very bad dirt road heading towards a beautiful small village named Mahahual at the caribean coast of Mexico, the bearing of the leftern back wheel gave up its breath and we ended up rolling to Mahahual with 5 km's/h with this terrible noise of scratching coming from the back axle of our truck. We parked our truck right at the beach across of the restaurant OXTANKAH in the heart of Mahahual. After we learned that there's no mecanic in this place we were more than happy when we encountered Pedro, the cook of the restaurant who offered us his help. "Menue Nissan" instead of his specialities "fried caracol, lobsters or great fish platters"... 

...

Well, the next day... - within minutes ofhis work it was obvious that he was experienced with our kind of problem and in a joint operation with driving to Chetumal (the next city 80 km's south) and back to get missing parts, our Nissan was finally healthy again after only two days. 

Broken drive shaft / Achsbruch

To be on the safe side (ironically speaking...) we shortly later spent 1 week camping in a garage in Chetumal, checking and greasing the other 3 wheel bearings, changing all the fluids of our vehicle and putting back missing bolts from the job they did in Mexico city. The transmission oil was quite bad and urgently needed to be changed.


Click on pictures to get a closeup.... (German: Fuer Grossbild klicke aufs Bild)
Dirty as we were after on week of working and camping in this garage we organised a visum for Belize and left Mexico. Only 30 km's south of Chetumal, just past the border to Belize close to the city of Corozal, the rear axle drive shaft broke. "Impossible...." was my first word, as this happened without an obvious reason driving with 60 km/h on a paved flat road "just impossible...!". 

Click on pictures to get a closeup.... (German: Fuer Grossbild klicke aufs Bild)

Well, to keep this short.., we ended up going back to Mexico camping in the same garage in Chetumal... and this time we were less lucky, as we had to have this drive shaft sent from Switzerland and needed to wait for another week for the part to arrive. We went to pick the part up at Belize city airport and finally after some more hard work we were on the road again. With mixed feelings about the quality of work in this garage we thought it would be a good idea to go for a testdrive. Mahahual 80 km's north with its bad road access would be perfect. Well, we didn't get this far...

Wheel bearing Nr. 2 - other side...

After a short testdrive in Chetumal, bad noises from the other side revealed, that the back axle wheel bearing at the other side was noisy and the center of the wheel was extremely hot. Examination showed bad work putting things together after the greasing job... - and as the mechanic did not care and many times was drunk, I had to change this bearing myself. Off again for a test drive... question "did the drive shaft break because of bad work too?" - we will probably never know.

Steering cylinder breaks and blocks steering / defekter Steuerraddämpfer blockiert die Steuerung

More work (mostly) by myself... and the next testdrive ends almost with an accident as a newly fixed steering cylinder breaks apart and blocks the steering. Inability to steer and a fullstop on a crossroad with tons of cars brings some action to this boring day... - new cylinder, some more work... - and finally on the road to Mahahual again, "let's test the car"...

We spent some marvellous days in Mahahual, visiting Pedro in the Restaurant OXTANKAH and finally went back to our beautiful lonely beach together with new friends that we met - especially also to get rid of all the dirt and grease of the last three weeks of camping in a garage.
 
Click on pictures to get a closeup.... (German: Fuer Grossbild klicke aufs Bild)

Leaving Mahahual: Right at a military road-check station: dead starter Engine, alternator dead too!

The military gives us a push start (real pushy military - ey!)... and back in Chetumal things reveal that a bad welding job of our last garage burned the alternator. No idea why the starter engine (Anlasser) does not work either but 3 different mechanics laying there hands on it can not help us to bring it alive. - Real fun-times... - push starting our 3.5 ton truck every time we stopped the engine. "...podrian usted ayudarnos.... - muy amable...." & co. .... but the best was yet to come:

Transmission/Getriebeschaden Nr. 2:

We suddenly encountered new bad noises from our transmission and some checks with dfferent mechanics revealed the diagnosis that our transmission probably had torn down bearings again. What to do? Ignore it? - ..well, we were definitely tired of another week of work & camping in a garage and we decided to go for a testdrive again to see if things were getting worse or not. Back to Mahahual Nr. 4. By now probably everybody in the village - as well as the friendly military checkpoint - knew us and at least it was fun to see these people again. Unfortunately the noises did really get worse and we figured out that there would be no way around another surgery on our car. 

This time we evaluated our garage for quite a while and we ended up settling in at a place that we can definitely recommend, if You should encounter problems with Your car in this region: Taller "Garcia" and his crew in Chetumal (at he main road driving towards the city from Cancun, --> turn right after John Deere).

Work was slow but precise (I loved it...) and bolts were put in buckets not to lose them. Within 4 hours our transmission was taken apart and closely examined. The 4 main bearings needed to be changed again and small needle bearings ("Nadellager" in German) were defective too. 

Click on pictures to get a closeup.... (German: Fuer Grossbild klicke aufs Bild)

In Mexico (10 weeks ago) they built in nameless bearings "made in Romania" - which obviously did not work - and I was amazed that we were able to find parts in Chetumal. Some other parts were fixed ore optimized by welding and hours of shaping them with sandpaper before the transmission was put back together.

Click on pictures to get a closeup.... (German: Fuer Grossbild klicke aufs Bild)

After three days of work and camping in Garcia's garage we were finally ready for a testdrive again. The engine and transmission sounded softly when we took off and when we drove towards Mahahual again we firmly believed that surfing this wave of breakdowns finally came to an end. We should be wrong...

First we realised that our starter engine still did not work constantly and kept us push starting our vehicle every second time. Sometimes at least "small hugi-mechanic" was able to shortcircuit the starter (it's the method that car stealers use to drive off without a key). But to make things worse: As soon as the engine was warm there was bad noises of scratching coming from the transmission again(!). A quick check of the Transmission oil additionally showed metal in the oil... 

Frustration and desperation. Franziska and I were on our limits..., two months of constant car troubles, dirt and mud... - should we drive to the next big port and ship home? This time I saw the high quality work at Garcia in every step and my desperation lied especially in the fact not being able to understand "why".

Well, after a great meal and a marvellous evening with Pedro and his family in Mahahual we drove back to Garcia. After another testdrive with new oil and the confirmation of of metal breakdown he offered to take the transmission as well as the clutch apart and check it out again.

Transmission/Getriebeschaden Nr. 3:

Whole process again and here's some pic's of myself to remember my mechanic carreer.....

  ... under the car (transmission problems...)    
  Putting the Transmission back ( third time...)

After another day of hard work master Garcia did some more handwork on certain parts inside the transmission optimizing their purpose with sandpapering them. There was no way to make a clear diagnosis, why we encountered as much metall in the oil again... and probably just the time will tell if our transmission is really fixed now. Anyway... - after another 2 days of hard work including the repairing of the defective starter engine, we finally took off for Mahahual again - unfortunately still with some noises from the environment of the clutch/transmission... - and we spent another day in Mahahual with Pedro and his family which by now have become great dear friends of ours.

Driving through Guatemala with very loud music shall help us now to get rid of our "noise paranoia" and set us back to our goals of visiting the great volcanos around the ring of fire, meeting heaps of  people, learning spanish and enjoying our ability to learn about these beautiful countries.

Did we break the wave of bad luck with our car now? .....We really don't know.

One thing is certain. We learned a lot about mechanics, made heaps of experiences and we made new friends for a lifetime in this part of the world which kept us for more than 2 months. My Spanish car-vocabulary is bigger than in any other language - including even my home language - even though I rather hoped to learn more words in the fields of nature, volcanism a.s.o... - but who knows, it might get handy again...

For some hints and tips and personal experiences in maintaining Your car while travelling - click here.

Special thanx at this stage to all the nice people & friends that we met and all the help and hospitality that we got....

Pedro&Family&Friends (more Pictures)                                                                     Garage "taller Garcia" in Chetuma (more pictures) 

Click on pictures to get a closeup.... (German: Fuer Grossbild klicke aufs Bild)

..so... - hoping to get more of this stuff like this again instead of mechanics in the future:
Click on pictures to get a closeup.... (German: Fuer Grossbild klicke aufs Bild)

With a big kiss to Franziska - who,  after all did not lose the nerves completely -
and leave me while I was lying under the car...