BMW has released a new BMW TV app for the iPhone and the iPod Touch. It’s available free at the iPhone store. Basically you can view BMW TV videos from the app, but it’s not like you couldn’t do that already via the iPhone/iPod Touch’s YouTube app and the BMW YouTube Channel. Watch a video about the app after the jump. Click here to read the rest of BMW TV now available at the App Store
Kia has already started dabbling in motorsports in Europe but the car above is part of its US motorsports program which it unveiled at the 2009 SEMA tuner car show. Two Kia Forte Koups built together with the Kinetic Group will be racing in the 2010 GRAND-AM KONI Sports Car Challenge Series in the Street Tuner (ST) class.
The ST class uses race cars based on production vehicles and uses weight and intake restrictions to maintain a level playing field for all entrants. The two Kia cars will be piloted by Nic Jonsson, Andy Lally, Adam Burrows and Trevor Hopwood.
We probably won’t see Mercedes-Benz Malaysia offering the E-Class Wagon here in Malaysia but for wagon lovers you’ll probably enjoy these videos. Click here to read the rest of 3 promo footages of the W212 E-Class Wagon
Toyota F1’s race at the Abu Dhabi GP is apparently their last, as strong and intense rumours point to a Toyota board meeting to be held on the 15th of November to come to a conclusion that the company should leave the sport. We could actually know the outcome as early as 8th November 2009.
If Toyota really leaves the sport, this would open a grid position for then new Qadbak Sauber team, the team that used to be the BMW Sauber F1 Team. Toyota was supplying F1 engines to Williams this year but Williams will go with Cosworth engines next year.
Another Japanese company also announced it would be leaving F1 recently. Tyre supplier Bridgestone has announced it will leave at the end of next year’s season to focus its resources on other development. Bridgestone has been the sole supplier of F1 tyres for the past 2 years, and have been a supplier since 1997.
As for Kobayashi who was standing in for Timo Glock who has a back injury, the promising driver says he would most probably have to go back to Japan to work for his father’s sushi restaurant. Maybe he can build the business and then recruit all the chop shop owners here that will be out of a job soon.
Mercedes-Benz decided to showcase its new E-Class Estate’s interior capacity by building a 400 meter long slot car track inside it. A publicity stunt no doubt but still makes an interesting watch. Look for the video after the jump. Click here to read the rest of VIDEO: 400 meter slot car track in a W212 Mercedes-Benz E-Class Estate
MITI has posted a statement on its new MITI blog clarifying a few points in the NAP Review, specifically the end-of-life policy and the annual inspection for road tax renewal. Hopefully this will clear some of your doubts on the exact timelines of certain things to be implemented.
Firstly, I think the most feared part of the review for all of us is the announcement of an impending vehicle end-of-life policy. There have been plenty of comments from readers on how this policy will negatively affect them and their qualify of life. I particularly like this story about the old atuk who drives a Pajero diesel to his surau.
MITI has revealed that the government has not set a Vehicle End-of-Life Policy in stone yet. It has merely announced intentions to develop one, and they (Ministry of Transport who are in charge of developing the policy) claim they will take into consideration views of all parties through consultations with consumer associations and NGOs. There is no mention which associations and NGOs these are, but I sure hope they fight for us. I hope we end up with a reasonable end of life policy with the option of extending your vehicle lifespan at a cost, similiar to the act of buying a new COE for your car in Singapore.
Though the NAP review document seemed to lead us to believe 2010 is the start point of our yearly Puspakom nightmares, MITI has clarified that a start date for the annual vehicle inspection for road tax renewal has not been fixed yet, so it will not be 1st January 2010. An effective date will be announced later.
In the statement, MITI Secretary General Tan Sri Abdul Rahman Mamat said the whole idea of the annual inspection was to ensure vehicles over 15 years of age are safe and roadworthy. He compared the inspection to the current rule where commercial vehicles have to go for an inspection every time their road tax is due for renewal. Commercial vans, pick-ups, 4X4s and etc are currently charged between RM50 to RM70 for inspections, and RM25 for reinspections.
So all in all, the NAP has given no allowance for a drop in car prices except at the higher end of the market, and that is only if the manufacturers decide to take up the carrots offered, but that looks a little unlikely at this point of time. Even the premium boys have set up shop in Thailand – did you know some CBU BMWs come from BMW’s Thailand plant in Rayong?
We will now lose the option to use good condition used parts for our cars, have to spend extra cash on annual car inspections, and finally the big bang is face the possibility of a reduced fuel subsidy once the Mykad subsidy system is implemented, together with high car prices. That wraps up what the NAP Review 2009 and Budget 2010 is all about for the common motorist.
Under Section E Part VI of the NAP Review, the government revealed that it would be implementing a full Vehicle End of Life policy which would come in stages. A roadmap will be formulated by the Ministry of Transport to lay out the steps towards the scrap policy implementation, but the first step is already here – a mandatory yearly inspection for cars older than 15 years in order to get their road tax renewed. Why 15 years? Could that be the vehicle age that they are looking at to enforce scrapping in the future?
According to the NAP review, Malaysia currently has 2.7 million cars on the road that are 10 years or older and the country has a very low vehicle scrap rate and a relatively high average vehicle age. With so many people having to go for 7 to 9 year loans to buy their vehicles, is this really a surprise that after suffering financial burden for so long, you would want to reap the benefit of your transportation longer?
There are currently a few situations where we go to Puspakom for their dreaded tests. It is an open secret what kind of environment that place is. A friend of mine had his tint test failed repeatedly even though his car windscreen was clear and had absolutely no tint. He argued that he should not be failed and somehow he ended up passing but with some rubber parts of his car damaged. When my E30 was sent for an ownership change inspection (B5 test), it came back with a broken glovebox latch and all the rubber trim around the door utterly raped.
If you are a straight shooter the only cash you will have to pay during these annual road tax inspections are the Puspakom fees itself. Right now there are two tests for private motorcars – the transfer of ownership test and a voluntary test which most of the time is not really voluntary – you may need certificates from these tests to renew your insurance these days. The ownership transfer test involves checking your vehicle identity (chassis and engine), chassis frame condition, and tinted glass. The voluntary inspection checks more stuff – identity, above carriage, emissions, brakes, suspension, side slip, speedometer, headlamps, undercarriage and tinted glass.
The voluntary test goes for RM50 (according to this Puspakom pricelist) and the transfer test costs RM30. So you can expect this annual inspection for road tax renewal to probably cost around these prices as well.
The Edge as always has a very interesting and revealing interview with Proton’s managing director Datuk Syed Zainal Abidin Syed Mohamed Tahir. The ex-Perodua man has been at Proton’s helm for about 4 years now and I think most of us agree that under his leadership Proton has taken a turn for the better.
Here are some key points in the story:
Read the full interview here.
The sohu source seems quite certain that this is a Proton/Europestar car. One possibility that I can think of is this could be a Chinese market only car that Proton, Lotus and Europestar are working on together.
UPDATE: Thanks to all readers that pointed this out – this is a restyled Proton GEN2 for Europestar. More updates later – Source Click here to read the rest of Europestar develops own styling for GEN2
The hot topic for last week was the new National Automotive Policy Review, a so-called ‘facelift’ for the National Automotive Policy that was first born on the 22nd of March 2006.
The NAP review is a disappointing one, with the prices of cars to be pretty much the status quo for a long time to come. In fact, the prices of hybrid cars are sure to go up once the 50% excise duty rebate ends. But there are parts of the NAP that have significant negative impact on us as motorists, one of which is the announcement that the import of used parts will be prohibited from June 2011 onwards.
Car companies and parts manufacturers do not survive on just selling you your car, which is a sum of parts from various OEMs. They also earn a significant portion from the sale of replacement parts, which you will inevitably need as parts are not designed to last forever. Not sure if the word greedy is justifiable but sometimes these new parts can be priced quite exhorbitantly. Which means used parts are very popular and are pretty much key to the sustainability and/or viability of keeping an old car running.
Banning the imports of used parts and the halfcuts which contain them would mean if your City’s CVT transmission dies, you are unable to source a good condition used one from a Honda Fit Aria halfcut that had been scrapped in Japan due to the country’s scrap policies. It means that when my Proton Perdana transmission finally dies and is beyond a refurbishment, a used one sourced from a Mitsubishi Eterna will not be an option – I will have to buy a 2nd hand Proton one or a NEW one, which I probably will not be able to afford as I am not the Perak or Terengganu Mentri Besar(s).
Of course, these situations will not happen right after June 2011 as there is bound to be existing stock in the country, but that will run out sooner or later. And then what? We cannibalise each other’s cars for used parts, whether willingly (scrap) or not (theft)?
And then there is the total disregard for the livelihoods of the chop shop businesses which have been run for decades and suddenly have their main source of income taken away from them. I visited a few chop shops and interviewed their owners over the weekend, curious to see how they were reacting to this piece of bad news.
One chop shop did not even know that such an announcement had been made. Danny of Soon Loi Sdn Bhd in Batu 11 1/2 Cheras said that he had been unaware that the government was planning such a thing and he and his wife was clearly in shock. I felt really bad watching their reaction. At first they were talking normally and keeping their cool but after awhile you could see they were quite emotional about it.
Their chop shop is a family business and has been running since the 70s. Danny is now the 2nd generation, taking over from his parents. He said chop shops have been around since before he was born and did not understand why the government suddenly wanted to stop the import of used parts.
The government’s justifications for this move are ’safety and environmental’ concerns. From my view I see it more as yet another way to discourage us from using our old and hardy classics, instead driving us to buy new budget cars instead of that RM20k Toyota Corolla AE101 which alot of people are much more comfortable driving as a daily driver than a new car. The common sentiment is that old cars tend to last longer and have better plastics than new cars today and in many cases I find that to be true.
According to Danny, the parts in his stock consist of over 80% overseas imports and only about 20% local parts. I asked him what was he going to do when the new rule is implemented. He said he could not do anything but to look for local cars to ‘cut’ instead of getting halfcuts from overseas.
From a consumer perspective this means certain ‘upgrades’ such as fitting a Cortina 4-speed with a 5-speed manual from a Ford Sierra would be impossible as the Sierra was never really sold here. From the chop shop owner’s perspective, business will be A LOT tougher than usual. To quote his wife’s exact words, “Mati loh!”
I tried looking for a more premium chop shop and found Happy Auto Parts in Sungai Besi which specialises in continental parts. This is near the Auto Bavaria Sungai Besi showroom. There were plenty of BMW E34 front clips there, and there was even an E39 pre-facelift front clip. The owner CM Tan also operates a workshop in the same premise so at least he has something to fall back on when his chop shop business runs dry. Being a specialist BMW used parts center, 100% of his inventory are from overseas.
CM Tan says that the business of a chop shop is not easy to do. You have to build your relationship with your overseas suppliers over a long time – this can be years and years. According to Tan, sometimes even when you find some good cars to be clipped, it doesn’t mean the overseas supplier will sell them to you. There are so many chop shops from so many countries fighting for these cars.
You also need to have a trained sharp eye to judge what cars are suitable to be clipped and he claims that with the 1 week warranty that most used parts have, the return rate for a lemon clip can be so high that you can potentially even lose money on it, or just break even.
He likened the government’s new rule to telling medical students that have given their life to training to be a doctor for many many years that they suddenly are banned from practicing medicine. He has been in this business all his life, what else can he do?
It’s really quite unfair, when you consider that in another segment of the industry, Open AP holders have gotten hints of the system being scrapped for many years now. Only when this NAP review was released have the government somewhat put their foot down and said the system will be terminated by 31st December 2015.
That’s over 5 years of lead time for them on top of the many ‘hints’ that they’ve been getting for quite sometime now, and the RM10k per AP to be charged from 2010 onwards was to go to a special Entrepreneurship Fund that will help these ex-Open AP holders diversify into other businesses.
So much lead time for these Open AP holders to move on to other things, and so much help for them to start new businesses (on top of the money they’ve been earning from the APs so far), but on the other side of the spectrum, used parts dealers only get less than 2 years! I asked both CM Tan and Danny what they would be doing now that they’ve learned about the news – would they bring in more inventory so that stocks would last longer while they figure out what to do with their lives?
They feel it is hard for them to make a decision like that as the government and/or relevant ministry has not released any hard details on how and when exactly this used parts import ban would take place.
It remains a small paragraph in a long document for now, but one that will cause them sleepless nights until the picture is made clearer for them.
