Buying Car
Been looking to buy a car to replace our old one (Nissan Primera) since last year. The old car is still working but it no longer got much power to go up hill, and there's always some knocking noise here and there. MOT is due in May and we doubt it will pass without some huge repair bills. The car has served us well as we bought it when it was 7 years old with 82k mileage. Now, it's 12 years old with 130k mileage on the clock. Great car...... will miss it.....

I want a small car, Sam wants a big car, so we decided to compromise and buy a medium size car.

It's a Ford Focus, 2L engine, 5 and a half years old with 39k mileage on the clock and cost us £3,500 after part exchanging our old car. Will pick up the new car next Sat.....meanwhile we got to sort out the insurance.

Car tyre
Since my last post on Agyo, our current car is jealous and decided to go on a strike by giving me a flat tyre this morning!

This morning, as usual, I walk to my car , didn't ever notice the flat tyre on the front driver's side (I know that's obvious and you should check all your tyres before your car journey but who doesn't that, plus I just assume all is well and good). Started the car and drove out of the parking lot, the car felt weird, strange rumbling noise.... Stop and thought I must be mistaken and drove abit further.... Stop just outside the building carpark and this time, I definitely think something isn't right. Step out of the car and staring in front of me is the flat tyre!!

Luckily Sam was still in and he came down to reverse the car back into the parking lot. So how now, we got a few options :-
- to replace the tyre which will cost about £100 to £150 (tend to replace 2 tyres)
- to rely on spare tyre for the time being and not go so fast on motorway
- to buy another car and not fix this car. We were thinking of buying another car to replace this car for quite sometime now, but we can't seems to make up our mind about which car we want (Actually, it's more on difference of opinions!)

Anyway, I didn't miss a day at work today cos I took the train in the rain....

Nevertheless, Sam will be going on & on & on about the countless items I broke (e.g. this incident, the last car breakdown, the more than 1 lightbulb)

Sam, FYI, you were driving the car when it got hit by a bus (I know you are going to say that you were picking me up on that journey) and when it broke down because the car battery was flat (I know you are going to say that we knew about the problem, but just had not fix it yet).

Update : Sam & Jaster drove the car (after fixing it with the spare tyre) to Kwik Fit to repair the puncture on tyre, costing 15 pounds in total. So the car is mended.

Toyota Aygo
I want a Toyota Aygo!!!

Specifications
- Length = 3.4m
- Width = 1.6m
- Height = 1.47m
- Weight = 1,180 to 1,245 kg
- Fuel consumption = 61.4mpg (combined)
- CO2 = 108
- Engine = 1.0 Litre VVT-i
- Maxi speed = 98mph
- Acceleration 0-62mph = 14.2sec

The running costs are low with road tax (Band B) of only £35, insurance class of 1 and high mpg.

The cost of the new car (Aygo Blue, 5 door, manual) = £8,395 (includes aircon, bluetooth)
AYGO XtraProtected Blue = £365 which includes :-
- Rear parking sensors
- mud flaps
- unpainted rear & side protection mouldings

We test drive it at Cambridge Toyota last Sunday and the salesman was brilliant and very patient with us. We love it (guess I love it more, Sam still love his big, luxury cars, like Ford Mondeo...) but it's too noisy in the interior.... I can live with it, but don't think Sam can....

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There goes my Aygo...... guess I better go frame the Aygo catalog as that's all I'm going to have....

Test drive

The air con in our car isn't working and it's boiling hot in UK (abt 27 deg cel). Thinking that the air-con unit is spolit and will cost us alot of money to fix it, we thought of prehap replacing the car with another second hand car. Shortlisted a car (Ford Mondeo) at Peterborough and we drove there on Saturday. The car dealer location was a petrol station turn into a second hand car sales.

The car looks what we expect, looks new and we made a request with the person-in-charge (seems to be only 1 person and we think he's the owner) to have a look inside the car. A moment later, he hand us the keys and left us alone to look at the car and he carry on with vacuuming his office...... Weird, shouldn't he try to sell us the car?? Or is vacuuming his office too impt... or prehaps he thinks that we wouldn't buy the car, so what's the point???

Anyway, we were satisfy with the car after inspection and process to ask him for part-exchange for our old car and to test drive his car. Because the MOT of our old car is running out soon and the air-con doesn't work, he only quoted us £200 for our old car!!! The annual road tax for the car is new which cost us £185 and is only 10 days old.......... deduct the road tax, our old car value = £15!!! OMG!!

We didn't bargain the price yet, thought we test drive the car first. However the owner wasn't keen for us to test drive cos he want us to decide on the part-exchange price first and that test driving his car will dirty the car.......What???? Nevertheless, we managed to persuade him to let us test drive the car. He drove the car out for us, place the licence plate, etc and with Sam at the driver seat and me near the passenger seat, he said 'ok, it's all yours'...... Errrrrr, he's not coming with us to test drive the car?? He's trusting us not to drive the car away and never come back?? Or is vacuuming his office that impt!!

During the test drive, we realise that the air-con in the car wasn't working too and it seems there's a intermediate problem with the car initially when the air-con is switch on. We were too honest lar and returned the car back to the owner and queried him as to the air-con and the intermediate problem. He mentioned that the air-con just need re-gassing and will be fully re-gased after we bought it and the car comes with 3 months warranty, so no need to worry. As for the intermediate problem, it was working fine when we show him what we meant, so unable to get an answer.

Anyway, we didn't buy the car cos why didn't he re-gas the air-con beforehand and want to wait till we bought it and that intermediate problem, hmmmmm, all too dodgy. Prehaps all along, he knew that he's not going to sell the car, so vacuuming seems to be a better option for him than a wasted time with us.

However, his response made us think that our car might also just need re-gassing in order to fix the air-con. So on Sunday, we drove to Halford for their air-con servicing which cost us £50 and the air-con in the car is fixed!!! Finally!!!

Drove the car today (Monday) to the garage for full service + MOT and received a call later in the afternoon that the brake pad needs changing. All in all, the full cost of change + service+ MOT comes to £311. Ouch.......

Looks like we might need to replace our old car soon as repair cost are on the increase.

F1 Night racing Singapore

Initially, I thought it's night racing in Singapore so that it wouldn't be soooo hot and it will look brilliant with the lights, etc. However upon reading the BBC, did I then realise that the reason that sound more likely was so that the time of the race suit the timing of Europe.

Comment by on BBC website by Patrick Head, co-owner Williams team

Will the night race in Singapore be a success?
I don't see any reason why it shouldn't be a good race. If I was Singapore, I'd be saying, well, we're putting up all this money, why don't we have a Grand Prix at the time that suits us? I'd be rather nose out of joint if I was told the only reason you're having the race on at that time is to suit Europe, or someone else.

MPH Earls Court 2007


Being such a big fan of Top Gear, we thought this is a show we can't miss and thus bought tickets this year to the MPH car show.


My favorite - a hotwheel truck!!


Such a cute car, but doubt both of us can sit in it comfortably.
Hmmm, what's that on the front of the car??


Yes, this was an ice-cream store, cute hor..


When do police even get to drive such a car??


This was the Toyota car that Jeremy and James drove to North Pole in the Top Gear's Polar special.


We bought the tickets that includes the theatre and we chosen some pretty good seats!! The show runs for about 1 and a half hours with some games, performances and introducing cars.


The best was the Suzuki football which makes all our money well spent!! I always wanted to watch that live.

Car Showroom

First time I been to car showroom but I wasn't buying a car, just to accompany someone!

The 3 cars we viewed :-

Honda Civic




Pro : Look great, dashboard speedometer look far too cool to give this a miss.
Con : Expensive!
Review from UK Autotrader : 8.8
Conclusion : If got the money, buy this car! It has the WOW factor.

Toyota Altis




Pro : Cheaper than Honda Civic
Con : The above photo were taken on a Limited Edition Altis. The 'normal' Altis is very woody looking. The stereo also very cheapo looking, didn't seems to fit in with the interior design of the car.
Conclusion : A BIG NO NO!!

Nissan Latio




Pro : Super silent. Very spacious, can even put a lady handbag in the glove compartment. Cheaper than Honda Civic. Impress with the keyless sensor.
Con : Still woody looking.
Conclusion : Buy this car. But if you got money, buy Honda Civic!