My Regular Workshop

I have been getting quite a lot of queries from my reader on the location of my regular workshop. Instead of replying to each individual email, I will post the location of the workshop in this blog so that the reader can find it themselves.

The workshop is located in Kampung Sungai Kayu Ara, Petaling Jaya. To get there, you drive along Lebuhraya Sprint heading towards the Damansara toll. Just before the toll, there is a ramp on the left that leads to Bandar Utama. Keep left and follow the road leading to that ramp. After you pass the BHP petrol station, on the left is a used car dealer called Petra Motor. When you see the Petra Motor signboard, immediately turn in to a slip road parallel to the main road. Go up the slip road and you’ll see a row of shops on your left.

The workshop I regularly visited is called Pusat Servis Kereta Hup Seng. They occupied the last two shop lots. If you are not familiar with that area, the Google Earth coordinate are latitude 3° 7'59.07"N and longitude 101°36'30.23"E. Or click this link to see the location in Google Map.

This is the entrance to the row of shops.

Just becareful as you pass through the tight entrance.

This is the view of the shop lots.

This is the workshop that I send my giant for service.

Yes, that white car on the hoist is my giant!

Hup Seng is an old fashion workshop that service all sort of vehicles. The owner is called Wong and he has been operating from this workshop for a long time. Beside his regular customers, he also provide pre-delivery maintenance service for imported used cars for another used car dealer. He is very familiar with servicing of imported used cars, including Toyota Alphard.

I am not promoting this workshop nor do I have any business relationship with the owner. I am just their regular customer for the last 15 years so they do allow me to bring my own spare parts and they charge me a nominal sum for services. If you do no want to source for your own spare parts, you can get from the workshop.

As usual, I want to put the disclaimer here. Readers who are interested to send their car to this workshop do so at their own risk.

If you need to contact them, call 03-77291029.

My Fuel Consumption After Service and Battery Change

As I was preparing to return to my home base after my six months assignment, I decided to drive my giant to the kiasu land so that I can bring back all my stuffs in one go. Since I have left the giant at home while I was away, I decided to send it for service before my journey.

The last service was done around March this year so it is high time to service again. I bought my own engine oil (Penzoil 5W-30 semi-synthetic) and oil filter (friom Wing Hin) and did the service at my regular workshop. All in it cost me RM112 only.


Also I decided to change the battery as I think it is getting weak due to the fact that it has not been recharged regularly as the car has not been driven that often.

The original battery came with the car probably has been used since it left the factory. I think the battery can still last quite a bit. However, since I am going on a long journey and driving in kiasu land I think it is safer to have a new battery and for the peace of mind.

I was pleasantly surprised with the mileage that I got from these two changes for this journey. I drove down to kiasu land, drove around the city for 3 days and then head back to KL. I was able to get 585km with a full tank of RON 95 petrol. That’s gave me approximately fuel consumption of 11km/litre. It seems the new engine oil and the new battery help to achieve such good fuel consumption.

I did another full tank refill at Pagoh, drove back to KL and then drove around the city and managed to clocked 530km. This is equivalent to approximately 9.0km/litre. I expect it to be lower due to the congested route I had to go through to my new office in PJ. I hope that I can continue to maintain this kind of fuel consumption and I will continue to monitor it regularly.

If your giant fuel consumption is deteriorating recently maybe it is time for you to look at these two items.

How To Move The Middle Seat Forward

It was a pleasant surprised to receive a call from a reader who resides in Indonesia while I was driving to KL. Since I was driving in the middle of the city, it was not convenient to speak to him over the phone. Anyway he contacted me via email to find out how the passengers at the 3rd row seat of an 8 seaters get out of the car if the passengers in the 2nd row do not give them a helping hand to move the middle row seats forward.


It is truly an interesting question but I guess I understand his situation. I regularly bring my family out in my giant and I can see those sitting at the 3rd row struggled to push the middle single-seat to the front in order for them to get out. I have to constantly remind them to use the lever at the back of the middle seat!

At the back of the middle seat, there is a black coloured lever that does the job as shown below.

Those at the 3rd row seat just need to push the lever down and this will release the middle seat from the seat rail. It also lowered the back rest of the middle seat to give the 3rd row passenger more space to move out. When the back rest is lowered, you will find it not easy to push the middle seat to the front as the backrest does't give you much to hold. The best way is to use your leg to push the lever down and push the lever to move the middle seat to the front.

If you leave the lever in the unlock position, meaning with the backrest lowered, the middle seat is actually not locked to the seat rail. If you were to brake hard or accelerate hard from standstill, the middle seats will move along the seat rail. This could be the reason why you heard those loud banging sounds from the middle seat when you brake hard or accelerate hard!

I haven't heard from my reader if he has some issue with the lever not functioning and it need to be fixed. If you are in the same situation, remember the black coloured lever at the back of the middle seat.

I Am Back - Hopefully More Blog Posts On The Giant

I got a few emails from my reader asking me why I haven't been blogging for quite some times. I do ask myself the same questions many times over and I guess I know very well why.


Procastination!
I guess that no excuse but looking back I know I have procastinated because I always think I will get to it later. Later as in when I get back to my car I will be able to complete my post so I'll work on it later. It drag on and eventually I have a vacuum period of few months without any posts.
In fact it is almost 4 months since I last posted.
I was on assignment to the kiasu land for six months so I left my giant at home. While I was there I constantly thought of writing something about the giant. However since I was without my car I just can't seems to complete my writing everytime I started. The reason being I always like to confirm my writing by showing the features/functions of the giant or I like to take a photo shoot of the subject that I am writing about. However since I was away i couldn't do this so I thought I postpone it until I get back to my giant.
Even the few times when I came back to town, there are many other things that took my attention away that I didn't manage to look at my giant and completed the posts. So it just keep dragging on this way until now I am finally back for good.
From the various comments I recently I also needs to review some of my posts to see how I can improve on them. One questions I keep getting query on is the door lock programming. I have been forwarding the same reply I sent to one of my reader to a few others that asking about the samething. I'll have to review that blog post to see if I can make it clearer and hopefully the readers will get a better understanding on how to do it properly.
I will work on my blog posts more often again.

Where Do You Get An Indicative Price?

Lately I have received many queries from my reader on what is the right price of the model they are looking for? I actually don’t have the price information but I do have a way to find out. I normally will call up my dealer to ask for specific model price but I also refer to the Star Classified on the latest market price.

In this post, I will show you how I find out the indicative price of a particular Toyota Alphard model.

You can either read The Star newspaper classified page or start with The Star homepage (http://www.thestar.com.my). I then click on the Classified link at the top left of the page, enter Toyota Alphard into the search box, select Cars For Sale from the drop down list and then click Search.

Usually I will get two to three pages of listing from the search results. I will then scan through the listings starting with the latest entries to get a feel of the prices. I normally discard those lists that have a price that is too good to be true or those that don’t list down their prices at all.

In the list shown above, the 4th entry has a starting price of RM150K which is rather on the low side and compare to the one listed above it.

Given the fact that the Approved Permit used can only be used for car below 5 years, the oldest model that they advertise will be from year 2005. Since 2005 is also the year when the new facelift model was introduced, therefore you should check the listing to see if it includes the wording “new facelift” or NFL. In the above photo, the first entry shows that it is NFL model with quite a high specification but the dealer choose not to include the price. A NFL model typically carries a higher premium than a PFL model. Check this post to see the difference between PFL and NFL model.

The other reason for the price difference between two 2005 NFL models advertised by two different dealers could due to the effect of exchange rate. Depending when that dealer brought in the car, they may be paying a higher duty due to the higher Japanese Yen exchange rate at that time.

In the above list, you can see that there is a difference of RM16K between the price of a ’05 NFL in the 1st entry and the 4th entry (see red arrows). Even though the later entry has a slightly better spec I don’t think it worth the price difference so I can only think it is due to the exchange rate effect.

I also normally like to refer to the listings of dealers who give prices of the model from different year so that you get an overview of the price range. In the photo above, both the 1st and 4th entry gave indicative price from year 2005 to year 2007 and I typically use these as a reference.

From what I have observed, the price different between each year is about RM10K or more. If you have the budget, consider getting a later model as they normally have slightly more feature than older mode. For example, AS model from 2006 or later have a camera on the underside of the left side mirror while the 2005 AS do not have this feature.

Let say you scan the list and you find the model that you are interested in and the price is within you budget, I would suggest you to call up the dealers to enquire if the unit is still available. Since the ads are not removed from the Star Classified until after the expiry date of that ad, that car may not be available when you see the ad after several days since it listed.

Let say that unit is still available, you should ask the dealer some basic questions like the year of manufacture, model, colour, specific feature etc just to confirm that it is indeed the car you wanted. Check out this post on what options should you choose for your Alphard.

If you are satisfied that the model you want is available from that dealer, take a trip to visit them to check out the car in person. Verify the year of manufacturing by referring or check the model code to confirm the specification.

Make sure that the giant has all the features listed in the ad. Also check out some of the features like LCD, Radio, DVD player, multi-function steering, front/rear camera etc are working. Start the engine to see if it is in good running condition. Open the engine bay to check the condition of the engine, the rubbers, hoses, etc.

Of course take a test drive of the car to test the power delivery as well as the suspension. Listen while you are on the move to hear if there is any knocking sounds from the suspension or rattling sounds the rear seats.

If you are happy with the car, try to bargain with the dealer for lower price. I normally start with RM10K less from the asking price as a starting point for the price negotiation. Do note that the method I listed above only show you the price of Toyota Alphard on sales in the central region. I heard that most dealers in East Malaysia especially Kuching offer cheaper price. However I am not familiar with their offering so I can’t recommend any.

I like to use the Star Classified because it is easy to use and I can copy the details for reference. Also the listing in the Star Classified usually include contact number that you can call immediately as you scan through.

If you like to see photo of the giants, you can also use MotorTrader to find the indicative prices. Similarly you can also refer to mudah.com to find the list of Toyota Alphard for sale. Both sites allow you to refer your search by year as well.

Happy hunting for your giant.