thegarageblog.co.uk : It’s farewell to the sunshine and our Rav 4, and back to business as usual. Yep, the holiday’s over.

As the 14 wheels of the T.A.M. Airlines Boeing 777 touched-down on Heathrow’s runway 27L during the sunny afternoon of March 21st, I was reminded with a bump that my holiday had well and truly ended. With seat back upright, tray table stowed and 11 hour’s worth of in-flight debris littering the floor around my feet, I prepared myself for the disappointment of returning to ‘normal’ life after almost 6 weeks in the sunshine and bustle of South America with my family.

Feeding a stack of pound coins into the BAA parking ticket machine, I realised that it cost more to occupy a single space at Heathrow for 1.5 hours than to feed a family for a day in Paraguay! Struggling with several trolleys piled high with luggage, I was grateful that Jamie had come to collect us in my Mercedes Vito as it swallowed the whole lot with ease. I’d decided that I would drive us home and negotiating the exit roundabout at terminal 4, the smooth roads, courteous drivers and the fact that I was sitting in the right hand seat and driving on the left seemed as familiar to me as ever, and was quite a dramatic change from where I’d left just 20 hours ago.

As we’d turned left off Avenue Aviadores del Chaco and into the car park of Asuncion’s Silvio Pettirossi airport the previous afternoon, I’d paid my 60p parking fee and driven through the barrage of eagerly awaiting ‘attendants’, each one gesticulating frantically towards ’their’ vacant space. With the outside temperature approaching 37 degrees, the air conditioning on the Rav 4 struggled to keep me cool despite having 3 vents blasting on my face, and I was reluctant to open the door and step out into the humid fug. Switching-off the engine for the final time, I realised that I’d actually become quite attached to this little grey 4 x 4 that’d carried us for over 3000 miles without a hitch, and would be sorry to say goodbye to it . Now, I don’t normally get too attached to cars these days, and have tended to change them regularly, but I felt that I’d really had a ‘journey’ with this one.

The idea to send a car over from the UK in advance of our trip was made for several reasons. Firstly, we had a load of stuff that we wanted to send out to Paraguay for our house that was too bulky to take on an aircraft. An old (but enormous) TV, some boxes of toys and a bed being amongst the things that had to make the 7000 mile journey across the Atlantic to Buenos Aires in Argentina, and then up the Rio Parana to the port in Asuncion, Paraguay. A 20′ shipping container was far too big and expensive for these alone, plus we’d need to hire some transport to use for our stay so we decided that we’d send a car. Car hire in Paraguay is extremely expensive, despite Asuncion being one of the cheapest cities in the world to live-in, and to hire even a small and crappy car for just short of 4 months would cost close to £3500. We bought our 1999 Rav 4 on eBay from a lovely chap in Scotland for under £1500, and had it collected by a car logistics company who endured the 6 hour drive so I didn’t have to! Although it’d covered 154000 miles, it had a huge amount of no-expense spared service history, and had been a much-loved car by its previous owner. It drove perfectly, and despite the intergalactic mileage, it didn’t feel worn or knackered in any way. The decision to buy a Toyota was a ‘no brainer’ - they’re simply one of the most reliable cars on the planet, are highly regarded throughout the world, and particularly in Paraguay. Anyone who’s anyone (and wealthy) in Asuncion drives either a Toyota FourRunner or LandCruiser (unless they have a Mercedes) and the Hilux pickup is as common a sight on the roads there as the Ford Focus is in the UK. Although we’d have liked a Diesel version as fuel is much cheaper there, the 2.0 petrol model we bought was relatively economical, and a hell of a lot cheaper to buy.

My wife, who flew out a couple of months before me in order to prepare the house etc. had to also take care of the car importation process, including customs clearance, import duty payment and registration procedures. After an eye-watering amount of money being handed to customs agents, freight handlers and port authorities, my wife was allowed to drive the car home from the docks. Most importantly now, it had to be converted to Left Hand Drive as it’s supposedly illegal to use a RHD car in Paraguay! Now, this is where the fun really began as this isn’t an easy task on any car, let alone a modern 4 x 4 with airbags, power steering and air conditioning. At the recommendation of my brother in law, a local company in Asuncion was chosen that specialises in converting Japanese cars to LHD.

With the whole process scheduled to take a week, the Rav 4 was duly dropped-off at the workshop to have some major surgery. Now, I have to say that unless you understand how a car is put-together, you really cannot begin to comprehend just how much work is involved in this process! With the UK being one of just a few countries that drive on the left, our cars create huge problems for importers to countries that drive on the right. The first process in conversion is to strip the entire dashboard, steering column, front seats, centre console, carpets and most of the front suspension.

Things aren

As you can see from the photo, it doesn’t much resemble the interior of a car and at this stage I wouldn’t have been too optimistic about it ever driving again. Still, by putting my faith in the team of resourceful Paraguayan mechanics wielding a selection of spanners, hammers and hacksaws, the job was completed in a week and all for around US$500. The end result was a Rav 4 that looked the same, yet was somehow different. Most obvious was the fact that the steering wheel was now on the left, as were the pedals and all of the instrument panel. Less obvious were the little things that’d changed, but left me wondering exactly how. The thing is, during the conversion the only new part used was a LHD steering rack from another Rav 4. The rest of the bits were simply the old RHD bits, cleverly modified to fit their new location. The entire dashboard had been cut in half, then the bit with the instruments etc. moved to the other side and then the ends made up of glassfibre and filler. The whole lot was then sanded smooth and painted in a grey plastic-looking paint. Sure, you could tell it wasn’t perfect as the air vents were a bit stiff to turn on and off, and the switches were in slightly different places. Slightly disconcerting was the position of some bits like the cigarette lighter socket. This used to be in the middle, but now sat on the far left of the dashboard. It reminded me of the old joke about someone that’d had so many facelifts that their belly-button was now on their chin! Behind the dashboard, they’d modified the entire heater and air conditioning box by cutting it down the middle, moving the pipes and heater matrix to the other side, and then glueing and filling the whole box back together again. It was a fairly crude job and apart from some of the air leaking out of the side, it worked remarkably well. The clutch hydraulic pipes had been extended to reach the new location of the pedal, as had the accelerator cable.The brake master cylinder and servo had been moved to the left, and all the brake pipes extended to reach. All the wiring loom had to be extended and/or repositioned to reach the new dashboard location. Even the original battery had to go as the clutch master cylinder now sat where it should be. A much smaller battery was fitted and squeezed into the gap and seemed to ‘do the job’ although I wouldn’t fancy the chances of a start on an icy morning. Still, as the temperature rarely gets below 20 degrees, that should never be a problem! There’s actually loads more work required during the conversion that I won’t bore you with, suffice to say that it was a mammoth task job and certainly not one we’d ever consider undertaking at the garage, and if we did, not for less than £3000.

The point is that in order to do this conversion ‘properly’, it’d be totally uneconomic using new Toyota parts and would far outweigh the value of the car itself. The remarkable fact is that these craftsmen using limited specialist tools or equipment, working in 30 degree plus heat and using very few new parts, can do an acceptable, affordable and safe job of converting a car to suit the marketplace. Japanese imports are readily available and cheap to buy, yet are all right hand drive. Many people throughout South America are unable to pay the price for a ‘home market’ Toyota that was factory-made in LHD, so the conversion of Japan-spec RHD cars is big business there. WIth a steady supply of cars at bargain prices arriving via the free port in Chile, the marketplace is full of Japanese imports and they offer real value for money compared to the dealer-supplied models. I don’t think there were too many imported from the UK though! Anyway, after the conversion was completed, it was another few weeks and several hundred pounds more before we were given our set of Paraguayan number plates. As a result, what was formerly T958 JHL in its homeland, now proudly wore its new white and red plates with the number BCR 625. Even the mounting holes were in the same place so the new plates fitted easily and our Rav 4 now blended in with all the other cars, instead of sticking-out like a sore thumb.

After 3000 miles, untold tanks of petrol, a few spilled drinks, a new pair of wiper blades and one flat battery (I left the lights on!), the Rav 4 proved to be a dependable, practical and very pleasant way to travel. So, what did we do with it when we came home? Did we simply abandon it in the carpark at Asuncion airport? After trying to sell it in the local newspaper for a few days without any success (there’s just as many timewasters as in England!), we managed to negotiate a deal as part-payment for an extension to our home in Asuncion! When we return at the end of the year, we’ll have a lovely new carport for two cars. It’s a pity we won’t have anything to park there though! I think I’ll begin to scour the German Autotrader site and see what I can find to send over – I’ll just make sure that the steering wheel’s already on the left.