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With all of the volcano ash, and my friend's reluctance to operate any of his vehicles today, we got started on a conversation about personal vehicles in Costa Rica. I am seriously starting to ask questions about moving down here, permanently.
He has 2 cars. One is a Hummer H1 that looks like it was rescued from a bomb crater, I mean a real P.O.S. In reality, it's gorgeous on the inside, and the powertrain and chassis were completely overhauled last year. Simply, everything is new or completely refurbished except for the outside of the body, but that outer shell looks like shit. Still, it's huge and solid. His girlfriend calls it his "Dick," as in compensating for his own tiny dick. He just says, "Yeah. But if another guy challenges me to measure dicks, I'll win."
The other car is a Toyota Rav4 with the V6 engine that was available for a while. It has been raised 3 inches and has an aftermarket suspension of some kind. I'm not a car geek, so that's all that I know. The car looks pretty much normal, inside and out.
Here is what he has told me so far. I see a lot of small sedans running around San José. Those are fine for the city and moving between the touristy areas, where the good roads are. For any kind of serious transportation, you need an AWD or 4WD vehicle. A pickup truck is OK, if you really need it. An SUV is better, it has a better weight distribution than a pickup, and you don't have an open truck bed that gets all nasty. Apparently, a week outdoors will give any vehicle in Costa Rica, especially in San José, a nice thick layer of dust, dirt, and other nasty jizz that just falls out of the sky on a regular basis. The numerous dirt roads will also get the thing pretty dirty in a short time.
Large wheels and low-profile tires are just nonsense in Costa Rica. Just one pothole or low shoulder, and that's a new wheel and tire, and probably some suspension repair work, too. He has 15-inch wheels on the Rav4. I forget exactly what is on the Hummer, but it has small wheels and large tires, too. They both have a full-size spare wheel and tire. The tires on the Rav4 are Mud/Snow tires. The tires on the Hummer look like those knobby tires that dirt bikes and ATVs have. The Hummer has composite run-flat inserts inside the tires. He says, "There are places in Costa Rica where you absolutely do not want to be stranded by a flat tire. And there are places where you will never be able to change a wheel/tire."
You don't want a pretty, new car. The Rav4 looks nice, but it doesn't look brand-new. "New is pointless," he told me. If you buy a new car, and you actually use the car, it's going to have some battle scars within one year.
The Rav4 is for daily use and regular trips. The Hummer is for going where that thing from Star Wars with the 4 legs would be better suited. As he told me, the Hummer is set up to maximize the chances of being able to continue moving, no matter what. There are places in Costa Rica, he says, where a vehicle breakdown is a serious threat to your life. He keeps survival kits and tire chains in both cars. The Hummer also has a removable snorkel, for the engine.
Now, even my friend admits that his Hummer is a true conspiracy-theory, paranoia-induced overkill vehicle. But, he also says, "You won't think that, when it gets you out of a wilderness situation that you don't want to be in."
What I got out of the conversation was, don't buy pretty or new, get something that can handle the potholes, the mountains, the bad roads, and the weather.
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..most ticos didn't have enough table scraps or disposable income to support a small dog in the home...the concept of empathy for the fallen.. is collectivist snot dribbling miserably down a crumbling wall of convenient xenophobic projection..the phrase pura vida is the sad lugubrious refrain of a people indoctrinated in dank little religio /governmental hovels to the call of 1920s communist educational architecture...ticos "actually" believe they do more than "produce a handful of rather weak shit on a daily basis" 
