The ITV

I don't think that British people taking their car for an MOT  (The UK safety inspection) fret too much about it. It's just another job to be done, like deworming the cat. It's exactly the same in Spain. There's a technical inspection, the ITV, for cars and almost anything else that rolls on the road from trailers and caravans to lorries and tractors. The main difference is that the test in Spain can only be done done at specialist centres. If nothing has changed, in the 20 years since I last took a car for an MOT in the UK,  then any approved garage, service centre or workshop can do the MOT test there.

So the Spanish process is simple enough. I'm going to talk about cars. Different vehicles are treated differently with different test periods and different rules but they all use the same test centres. It can be slightly intimidating to be doing the test on a car while running alongside a four metre high 44 ton artic in the next bay along.

For the first three full years a new car is considered to be good to go. No need for a test. On, or a bit before, the fourth birthday the car needs to be tested. After that the test is every couple of years until the car reaches ten and, from then on, every year. 

The process is simple too. You show the vehicle paperwork in the reception office, pay the appropriate fee. Diesel cars cost more than petrol cars, there are differences between cars with and without catalysers and the least expensive test is for electric cars. I paid 44.53€ for the test on my petrol car. The fee paid, you and the car get sent to a sort of assembly line. The process starts at one end of a big shed and the vehicle processes through the shed with everything getting checked as you go.

The first part is all very hands on. Lights, headlamp alignment, horn, windscreen wipers, squirters, seatbelts - anything that the tester person can check with the car standing still. Sometimes the testers are very thorough, buckling up the rear seat belts, checking the quality of the wiper blades, and other times the checking of the smaller things is pretty cursory. It may be different testers, it may different test stations or it may just be the idea that newer cars need less checking. I tend to the latter because I noticed that the same bloke who guided my car through the test was much more thorough with a battered 19 year old Ford Fiesta, that went through a couple of cars before me, than he was with my four year old Arona. With the car still at the very start of the shed there's the emissions and noise check. Again there are different rules for different ages of vehicles. My 1977 MGB GT went through despite the slight blue haze from the exhaust. With the initial checks done you start to move through the shed. The rolling road comes first, to check the brakes. Then to the pit where there's an under car inspection - brake lines, exhaust, suspension joints, general health, bodywork rot and a steering check which involves riving the steering wheel from side to side and some other stuff that I forget.

None of this is particularly tricky. It's a perfectly sensible process and despite the usual moans from my compatriots that the Spanish test is a joke, in comparison to the, obviously, infinitely superior, British test, it's a straightforward process for checking compliance with European construction and use rules.

The funny thing is that, despite what I said at the beginning, for we foreigners it is actually a bit of an event. I know plenty of people who pay a mechanic to take their cars through for them. I know of one test centre that offers to take the car through for we foreigners. I think that, once again, it's the language. Not always though - it is also simply that it's a process that's a bit alien. My car has automatic lights so, in four years I've hardly ever used the light switch. I had to check the handbook to see how to put on sidelights, how the the rear fog light worked etc. Language wise though I have no real problem with conversational Spanish and my car vocabulary is OK too. Even then, sitting in a car with the tester standing outside and saying - left blinker (or turn signal, or trafficator, or indicator), both, brakes, dip, front fog, rear fog etc. - there is forced to be a moment when you either miss what is said or don't have a clue what they mean. The testers have accents, they mumble, they have shortcuts, they presume you know the drill, they've already done this forty times today and they are not at all emotionally involved in the process. This time for instance the tester bloke was much more interested in talking to me about my 20 year old Tag Heuer watch, and the Omega Seamaster that had preceded it, than he was in commenting on the steering castor angle. He was waving the paperwork around, with or without the all important windscreen sticker, as he talked about the beauty of Bulova Accutron watches to the point that I felt I had to interrupt to ask if the car had passed its ITV.

Knobs and knockers

I bought a new car yesterday evening. I mean new new. Pensions mean I have an income. Pensions mean I can get finance.

The registration letter has just flipped over from K to L and my new SEAT Arona has an L registration. There can only be about 23,382 cars in front of mine in Spain with that registration letter. So far I haven't seen another on the road.

I parked the Mini outside the dealer and drove away without saying goodbye after nearly 220,000 kilometres or around 137,000 miles together. The SEAT had just 10kms on the clock. They'd put a red cover over it. As though there would be champagne and stuff. It wasn't like that. I sat in the drivers seat whilst Juan Carlos tapped the screen where the radio should be to tell me that this activates the automatic parking and that is the on/off for the mirror blind spot warning and so on. He wanted to know what colour I wanted the ambient lighting! I remember my mum being dead pleased that her Ford Prefect had a heater and rubber mats - it's a long way from there to mood lighting in the doors. At least the Arona still has some things I understand like the steering wheel and a normal six speed gear arrangement. It even has a handbrake lever and not just a switch. I suspect there will be hours of fun trying to work out the park assist, lane deviation warning and even how to work the music system

I drove it home stopping off at Lidl to buy some brandy. It seemed fine, a bit sluggish maybe, the car, not the brandy. Maggie came out of the house to wave us home.

Filling up

I try to avoid the single petrol station in Pinoso if I can. They aren't ever actually unpleasant but they are a bit offhand. The staff sort of vaguely ignore me or talk across me to another customer. It's common for them to beckon for my credit card rather than ask me for it. Their reasoning may be that very few of we Brits speak any Spanish so it's not worth trying to talk to us but, whatever the reason, I don't like their attitude much.

It's not a cheap petrol station either. The diesel cost 1.439€ per litre today and the price comparison sites says that if I'd hunted out the cheapest petrol station in the province I could have saved 13 centimos per litre and got it for 1.309€.

According to the reports if I want to save money I should avoid Galp or BP stations where prices tend to be the highest. Repsol stations, which are the most widespread, have widely variable prices and the best bet for lower prices are the independent brands including the hypermarkets or Cepsa, the second most common brand. There is a common belief in Spain though that cheap fuel from the independents isn't to be trusted because it lacks the essential additives of the big names.

Apparently if I really want to save money I should make sure that I tank up on a Monday with diesel in a hypermarket in the province of Huesca. Conversely I should avoid stations at weekends, especially just before a Bank Holiday and especially on motorways or in rural areas. It's a Bank Holiday in Alicante on Monday and of course Pinoso is a small rural town.

The Monday thing is interesting. The EU asks Member States to report fuel prices on Mondays and Spanish prices are habitually a couple of percentage points lower that day. The petrol companies say it's because demand is lower on Mondays so they drop their prices to attract more trade. Critics say they do it to make their prices seem more reasonable.

Most of the petrol stations in Alicante and Murcia still seem to be attended service. The last few times I've filled up before today it's been in a service station near Fuente Alamo in Murcia. The first time I went there I didn't see anyone on the forecourt wearing the distinctive blue and orange overalls, I looked for, but didn't find, one of the signs to say service was attended so I set about serving myself. The pump fired up OK but as the fuel began to flow and I stared vaguely into the distance I felt a hand close on mine. "How much do you want?" said the attendant as he gently, but firmly, relieved me of the nozzle.

The fuel market in Spain is controlled by three big firms. Repsol and Cepsa  have well over 55% of the total outlets between them with BP being the third big player. Nearly all the refining capacity is with the same companies so that even independent stations and hypermarkets are ultimately buying their fuel from one of the big three.

Most people believe that these three companies operate a form of price fixing policy by not really competing too hard with each other. Even the independently owned but company branded stations get a message everyday to suggest appropriate pump prices.

But cars won't run without the stuff and we can't all live in Huesca so we mutter gently but ultimately pay up.

The cars out in Pinoso

I used to own a 1977 MGB GT. It came to Spain and it was beautiful. But poor insurance and a shortage of money turned it into a battered jalopy. I sold it on four years ago.

When we first arrived I had a five year plan. To be a local councillor. I expected my Spanish to improve and being a councillor would indulge an interest in politics and an idea of becoming a part of my new community. Part of the plan was to join a classic car club following Richard Vaughan's advice to join a group where a shared interest would make it easier to practice my Spanish. I joined the Orihuela SEAT 600 Club but somehow it never worked out. There were other Brits in the group and the Spanish, keen to make us feel at home, always coralled us into a little group together. I never had the courage to break away.

Even though I've been without a classic car for four years the secretary of the club continues to send me information about their activities so I knew that today they were out in Pinoso. I drove in to town to say hello. I didn't though; the ever present diffidence. I sat in the café where the group was having breakfast and didn't say anything though Jesús, the secretary, spotted me and came over. He also invited me to lunch. I won't go of course. I might have to speak.

No need to worry

Driving licences are a regular bar conversation topic amongst expats in Spain.

One line runs something like "We're European citizens, we have a European driving licence, we're entitled to drive." At the other end of the spectrum there's the "We're resident here so we have to change our licences for Spanish ones." Actually it's somewhere in between. Once you're resident there's a time limit on using the UK licence unless you register it with the Spanish authorities. It's easier and a bit cheaper to simply exchange. No need for another test or anything and for the first licence at least you don't have to do the medical.

At the beginning of July I took my licence to the local driving school, filled in a bundle of forms and handed over 75€ so that the chap from the driving school would do all the legwork for me. I could have popped down to Alicante, stood in a couple of long queues and done it myself but I chose the lazier, and much more expensive, option.

I forgot all about it for a while. The chap had said he'd phone when I needed to hand over my UK licence. Nowadays I understand that nothing much official happens very quickly, especially over the summer, and I trusted the bloke to do his job. But eventually I remembered and my British sensibility kicked in. I went to ask. 

"Should be soon," he said, "I've been getting the June ones back recently." 

"My problem," I said, "is calling into your office as you're not open on Saturdays." 

"No problem, I can always open up for you on a Saturday if I need to."

No need to worry then.