subject: My Blue 2011 Yamaha Genesis Gxt200 - Bought And Broke In Costa Rica [print this page] The red one on the showroom floor was nice, much taller and than my little blue Honda 125 that had been a factor in my back to shutting down for a month because of the horrible roads in Costa Rica, and at the time I had just a bit of extra money so I said I'd buy it in my very broken Spanish. But that one wasn't for sale, just for looks for the day and apparently would be picked up by its new owner the next day. So I had my choice of waiting a week for a blue one or 15 days for another red one.
I chose the blue one. It looked great in the ad photos, though I could tell they did the old inverted flip trick in Photoshop because the idiot beginner photographer decided to only take shots from one side of the bike. This happens a lot in advertising - perhaps they should have a photography lesson or two in the marketing curriculum at major universities.
Regardless, after waiting ten days, my bike arrived, but of course in Costa Rica, things aren't that simple. At Honda they had been, but at that time I'd only been in Costa Rica for a few days and things seemed just fine. After a few months, I'd realized that most things in Costa Rica just take some time. At Honda, they'd sent out the paperwork to their lawyer after I picked up the bike. All I had to do a couple weeks later was stop by the dealership and sign something, and a couple more weeks after that my license plate had arrived there at the dealership, at which point I could stop lugging around my sales receipt and legal documents showing I owned the bike for fear that the Policia may confiscate my brand new moto. They tend to do a lot of that here.
But I wasn't allowed to drive my new Yamaha off the lot until I signed the piece of paper that they're lawyer had created, the sales agreement I guess. But it was Saturday, and the lawyer wasn't in until Monday. I decided to come back on Tuesday, either just to be sure or because I'd begun settling in here in Costa Rica and started to act a bit more like a local. On Tuesday, after finishing the deal, I was informed that I needed to drive the bike over to the lawyer myself to sign the paperwork so I was escorted a couple kilometers away into an air conditioned office, waited about 20 minutes, and then signed two papers, one I got to keep, and was finally on my way.
Only a couple times in the next week did someone take a good look up and down my new, clean moto, and then ask me if this was the one made in China? Yes, I'd say, and they'd walk away shaking their heads. I wondered what the big deal was that it was made in China. The Chinese seemed like nice people, hard workers.
I liked my spanking new moto, and my first trip of any length was after I had only about 300 km on my new, beautiful, easy on my back dirt bike. Well, about 150 km, including a ferry ride, away from home, my 10 year old son and I were rounding the curve of an on-ramp when the bike decided to die. Fortunately, with the Honda, I'd learned the trick of changing out the fuse, so I located the fuse on my new blue 2011 Yamaha GXT200, wondered why it had only taken 300 something km's to blow, swapped out the fuses, and we were off again for another 50 meters. The bike died again, and I knew something was wrong.
At the side of the road, my son was already complaining of thirst. It was hot, and I unstrapped our luggage from the rack so we could make the trek up to the nearest gas station for a jug of water. I decided to leave the old helmet with the bike. I'd done this several times in our hometown of Montezuma, and nobody in their right mind would want to steal it - it was gross, dirty and filled with the sweat of me and my 10, 14, and 17 year old boys. But that didn't stop one nice fella on a bicycle, whom we had smiled at on our way to the gas station, from swiping it up, even in our predicament.
A short time later, we were back at the bike, a helmet short, when a nice young Tico pulled up and MacGyvered together a couple new fuses which both blew immediately, so he left sort of rejected. Then another guy came by while I was trying in my best Spanish to explain to the Yamaha dealer where on the road we were stranded, and this new nice guy chatted with the Yamaha guys and told them where we were. Then he rigged my bike together, having bi-passed the fuse altogether, phoned the Yamaha guys back telling them not to come, and hopped back into his car ready for me to follow him to the dealership. While he was doing all of this, a small electrical fire started in the wiring underneath the ignition of my new bike. I honked the horn at the man in front of me, shut off the bike again, and handed him back my cell phone.
When the Yamaha guys showed up, they, two of them, were on another Yamaha motorcycle, a nice sport bike that I'd wished I owned right about then. I wondered for a brief moment how in the world they expected me and my 10 year old son to fit on that bike with them with my new 2011 GXT200 at the same time. Didn't I just tell them it was dead and to bring a truck?
After a quick look, they agreed; the bike was dead. They made a telephone call and one of them drove off for a moment. I'd thought he went to pick up the truck, but I guess the Yamaha dealers in Costa Rica don't have trucks because when he pulled up again, behind him was a Taxi truck. We lifted my new moto up into the back, packed our stuff into the cab and finally were off to the dealership.
Upon arrival, I was told that my warranty does not cover the taxi ride and so I had to fork over $26 bucks and another $160 for a new helmet at the dealership.
It is Costa Rica, so expecting to find all the parts in one place to fix the problem with my new bike, which had by now lost a bit of its shiny, just-out-of-the-package luster, was a tall order so I had to drive back without a new ignition switch, having to disconnect and reconnect two sketchy wires in order to shut off and start the bike. The ferry ride was interesting with a few gazers at my new bike, heads shaking and big smiles when they saw me connecting the two wires together so I could start it. China.
The next morning, I went to my local dealer to have my brand new, shiny 2010 ignition switch installed in my run-down 2011 Yamaha, but I had to wait until 10:30 when the mechanic finally arrived. It was Saturday; what did I expect? Then I got my brand new key, puny and supplemental to the original Genesis key that now only worked for the gas tank. Yippy. Two keys for the price of a cab ride and a new helmet. What a trip.
So it was.
Shortly after, I got a phone call from my salesman at the dealership that my new license plate was in, so up I cruised on my mostly new 2011 Yamaha Genesis GXT200 and was handed the license plate without even holes in it. At the Honda dealership, they installed the plate for me without even having to ask. When I asked the Yamaha dealer, he said his mechanic was not in, but I could have it installed at a services station for only 3000 Colones, about 6 bucks. Well, flustered and tired of spending money on my new Yamaha, I wanted to make a point so I waited for the mechanic to return (two days later) and had him drill the holes and help me put on my new license plate which is now somewhere on the side of the road.
A hundred bucks later, I'm still waiting for my new license plate, the one that the lawyer (the same one that does all the work for Yamaha) said would only take 3 days to receive. It's going on 3 weeks now. Pura Vida, Costa Rica. Pura Vida, Yamaha.
