The key to successful overlanding… meticulous planning? Or just getting lucky? Maybe a bit of both. The real answer is ‘flexibility’. You never know what’s around the corner. Maybe a happy-thing, maybe a snagette, but you’re onto a loser if you can’t flex to deal with it. One sunny day in Belize, we suffered a badly cracked windscreen. We knew instantly that we had a bit more than a snagette on our hands. Here… is a ‘bad news – good news – bad news’ story of overlanding flexibility.
Planning to be flexible
Picture the scene… a fine October day in Belize… we’re tootling in Cuthbert down a super-smooth highway, minding our own business when suddenly… CRACK! A rock flicked-up off the back wheel of another truck, leaving a tennis-ball size, almost perfectly circular, deep crack, slap-bang in the centre of our windscreen. Bugger.
Could planning have helped? Well… Marcus did do a shed-load of planning for the tools/spares/ consumables we carry for Cuthbert, but he couldn’t plan on carrying a spare windscreen. Our ‘plan’ in such a situation (that’s ‘plan’ in the loosest possible sense of the word) was to be flexible… to make it up as we go 😊. Our problem here, is that the Iveco Daily isn’t sold anywhere in North America. No vehicles, means no spares.
Our first bit of good news was to find a windscreen repair chap in Belize City. But he looked, tutted, sucked his teeth and shook his head…. it’s too big and too deep. “Go to Mexico…” he said “you can get anything in Mexico!” We had our doubts, but his confidence roused in us a spark of optimism.
Off to Mexico
The Mexican border town of Chetumal has several windscreen places, but none could help. “Go to Cancun…” they said, “you can get anything in Cancun”. Again, we had our doubts, but off we went.
In Cancun we toured many different windscreen establishments. What they all had in common was an inherent inability to say “No Señor”. They looked at Cuthbert’s damage, measured-up (albeit a rather unscientific manner), took photos and studiously jotted-down notes. They clicked away on their keyboards, scrolled through screens and made the odd phone call. “Yes, we can get it by special order… come back tomorrow”.
‘Come back tomorrow’ became ‘come back next week’ which became ‘we’ll call you… blah, blah, blah’. After several weeks around Cancun we received a familiar piece of advice: “Go to Merida… you can get anything in Merida”. You sensing a pattern here?
About Turn?
In between the numerous Cancun enquiries, we made unsuccessful attempts to order from UK. Our usual supplier of Iveco parts said it was too fragile to ship; others quoted unfeasibly high shipping costs.
‘Plan A’ of buying one in Mexico and ‘Plan B’ of importing from UK looked doomed, so we turned our minds to getting one in Central America. The nearest Iveco dealer is in San Jose, Costa Rica – over 4,000km and eight border crossings (round trip). The thought didn’t exactly fill us with joy. And the cost of fuel, border fees, insurances and so on, is not insignificant. But it’s an option.
Fiat Idea
In Merida we passed a Fiat dealer and had a brain-wave. Hang on a minute… Fiat is the same company as Iveco!! Maybe… just maybe… they could get one for us!
Jose at Fiat checked his computer. No… he couldn’t order it. However…. (here’s a good news bit) if we could arrange for Iveco/Fiat in Europe to send one to Mexico through their internal supply chain, he could receive it and fit it for us. The Fiat supply chain takes around 15 days from Europe. “Whoop, whoop! We’ve cracked it”. All we had to do was find a contact in Fiat/Iveco Europe to put it in the supply system to Mexico for us!
After a few weeks schlepping around Yucatan, the heat and humidity were draining us. We’d enjoyed Day of the Dead but pined for cooler high-ground. On-line we found a Fiat dealership in Oaxaca. If we could arrange to have a windscreen sent there, it would be a great place to hang-out and wait.
En route to Oaxaca the lucky stars continued to shine on us: we found an Iveco dealer in Germany willing to send a windscreen. All we had to do was arrange with the Oaxaca Fiat dealer to receive and fit it! Sounds dangerously like a plan coming together, eh?
For reasons that will become clear later, it’s now time for a small digression… in San Cristóbal on the way to Oaxaca, we needed a new engine part to be sent from UK. It wasn’t critical but needed changing, so we bought it from our usual UK source and it was delivered within a few days by DHL Express to the campsite. Simples. Hang on to this bit of info… you’ll need it later.
Oaxaca Fiat… Or Not
On 6th December 2018 we arrived at the Oaxaca Fiat dealer. “No problema” said Juan cheerfully. He was happy to receive the windscreen through the Fiat supply chain from Europe and confirmed the 15 days normal delivery time. Next day, Iveco Germany confirmed it was on its way. Result!!
Looking back, it seems a bit naïve that we thought it would be with us in 15 days, but hey… we’re ‘glass half-full’ kind of peeps. Settling down for a short Christmas/ New Year break, we checked into the popular Overlander Oasis. Just outside Oaxaca in the village of El Tule (notable for the world’s largest circumference tree) the Canadian hosts Calvin and Leanne made us very welcome.
On 22nd December Juan of Fiat contacted us with a good news/bad news scenario: ‘good news’ – the windscreen was in Mexico City; ‘bad news’ – he’d received emails asking him: (i) for mountains of company documents for the import; and (ii) to instruct an import agent for the process ☹. He couldn’t do any of this and didn’t understand why it was required. This never happened with his regular supply chain of spares from Europe.
Cutting a long story short, it turned out that Iveco Germany had not actually sent the windscreen via the Fiat supply chain as requested. They’d sent it with commercial shipper DB Schenker, whose import process required copious amounts of commercial shenanigans. Juan explained this wasn’t Fiat’s regular supply chain process. Gutting though it was for us, we had sympathy with his situation – what he was being asked to do was administratively complex and expensive. It was not the plan he had agreed.
Costing the Earth
So, Fiat Oaxaca were out of the picture for the import; we had to find another way to extract the windscreen from customs. Unfortunately, as the package was addressed to Fiat Oaxaca, it would be difficult to switch to our name so that we could instruct an import agent. And in any case, we had none of the necessary corporate documents. After weeks of correspondence, we learned we could possibly instruct an agent ourselves, but the costs…!! The agent’s fee would be several times the value of the windscreen. Then, because it had taken so long, customs would apply (unspecified) storage charges. And the customs agent couldn’t confirm that his initial fee would suffice – there could be further ‘unknown’ charges. Doesn’t instil great confidence does it?
Iveco Germany was helpful and accepted responsibility for the costs. It was not really their fault, it seems they had been badly let down by DB Schenker. We understand that they had instructed delivery direct to Fiat Oaxaca and were not told of the complex customs process (although to this day it’s still not clear to us why they couldn’t use the ‘normal’ Fiat supply chain as we originally requested). Costs were racking up, but more importantly, they were unknown. We heard horror stories from expats here in Mexico of cases where costs escalated so high, they’d abandoned their goods in customs.
Butterfly Run
Meanwhile, back in El Tule… we were becoming a familiar sight to the friendly locals. We were weeks over our initial planned stay, but the hospitality at Overlander Oasis helped to smooth the frustrations!
By early-February we were concerned about missing the peak-season of the Monarch butterfly migration in Michoacan, around 500km north. We had no faith that the windscreen would ever materialise, so we went on a butterfly hunt. Our visa-time in Mexico was rapidly expiring, so after seeing the butterflies, our only option would be to go all the way back to the Iveco dealer in Costa Rica to buy a windscreen.
The Second Try
Just as we were enjoying the butterflies, a carrier pigeon arrived from Iveco Germany. They’d decided that rather than throw good money after bad with the import process, they would find another shipper to send windscreen No.2. Now here’s where our earlier digression story of receiving the engine part in San Cristóbal comes in…
We explained to Iveco Germany that we had received an engine-part (of much higher value than the windscreen) with no problems, via DHL Express – delivered within a few days from Europe to the campsite. Also, during the palaver of trying to get windscreen No.1 out of customs, DHL had confirmed to all concerned that had the windscreen been sent by DHL Express, it would have been a ‘personal import’, which is a much simpler process than the ‘commercial import’ with DB Schenker.
Given all this information about DHL Express’ service, we hoped windscreen No.2 might be sent that way. Unfortunately, Iveco Germany chose another shipper. Shipper No.2 was apparently informed of all the previous issues and confirmed they would deliver direct to us – no problem. Soon, windscreen No. 2 was on its way, guaranteed to arrive by 22nd February at the latest. What could possibly go wrong?
Deja Vue
Full of optimism (remember… we’re ‘glass half-full’ types 😊) we drove 500km back to Oaxaca to receive the windscreen. But then… bombshell! An email from the shipper’s office in Mexico City: “Please could you supply the following corporate documents to arrange the release of the consignment….” AAARRGGHHH!!!
After some, let’s say, ‘discussion‘ the shipper’s Mexico office sent us a legal contract document with two other (unspecified) parties. In it we should legally declare ourselves to be a Mexican company and/or Mexican nationals and acknowledge that we owe a debt in Mexico!!! Seriously, you could not make this sh*t up.
There followed yet more emails… “We are English, not Mexicans…” “No, we do not have corporate documents… we are tourists…” “What happened to the promised direct delivery service?” “Why the contract?”
Eventually the Mexico office supplied an (alleged) reason for the contract… “for audit purposes…” they claimed, “we need to prove the date of the purchase”. Excuse our language here… but what utter bull-sh*te. The windscreen was bought and paid for in Germany. Iveco provided all the information necessary when it was shipped – receipts, invoices, blah, blah, blah. What possible justification can there be for asking a tourist to sign this legal crap about a debt in Mexico??? Can you tell the anger is simmering by now? The resulting silence from our rejection of the legal contract was deafening.
New Hope?
Almost four months after we arrived in Oaxaca expecting a windscreen (what were we thinking??? 😊) time had become a major issue. It’s no problem for Cuthbert – he can stay for up to ten years. We only get a six-month visa, so we’ve gotta get out for a while. We’re flying back to UK for a short break to see our family, so we make one final attempt at email chasing. And guess what came back?? “We estimate delivery of your windscreen at the end of next week” Hahahaha… forgive our guffaws, but this is deja vue (again). We can’t change our plans to be here, but should it materialise, Calvin at Overlander Oasis has kindly agreed to take delivery on our behalf.
Thing is… our patience is now as dead as the Monty Python parrot and we’ve reached a state of indifference on the matter. If it does arrive in our absence – great. If it doesn’t arrive – okay – we set-off to Costa Rica. The delay has been so long, we’ve slowly come around to thinking that the drive back through Central America wouldn’t be so bad after all. It’s all about that ‘flexibility’ thing we mentioned.
Retrospective
Looking back on our waiting time, the never-ending source of comedy did bring its frustrations. But you can hold-off the violins… it hasn’t been too bad. There are far worse places to hang out for a while. For the first couple of months at least, in those early days of heady optimism, it was refreshing to stay-put in one place. Oaxaca city is beautiful, the climate is great, food is delicious, the company at the campsite is fun. Geek-boy Marcus used the down-time to do some advanced geekery and bought himself a CNC milling machine to make electronic circuit-boards (don’t ask… I have no idea).
We have missed the ‘overlanding’ bit of being ‘overlanders’ and it’s unsettling for us… we’re not used to the lack of control over our immediate destiny. The constant ‘maybe next week…’ syndrome meant there was no point in us continuing further north; it’d only be further to return if we have to go back to Costa Rica. We’re not sure what level of optimism or apathy we should be engaging, so we’re staying flexible! Tune in when we get back from UK for what will hopefully be the season finale episode of ‘Where’s that windscreen?’ 😊
For the final episode in the windscreen saga click here