IT shows are seeing record attendance and sales, condominiums are being snapped up, car prices are rising, and COE prices are surging forward. Aren’t we supposed to be in the midst of a economic crisis? The latest round of COE prices is showing a clear upward trend in prices. The big car category for example, rose from $200 in January to top out now at $16801.
It would happen again sooner or later. The front of my Honda Stream bumper got nicked by a curb that was just slightly too high, and now there is a streak of black plastic revealed in the front left corner of the bumper. Unlike the previous incident which scratched mostly just the underside of the bumper, this time around the scratch is slightly more obvious from the front.
$15 car wash? I was quite surprised that car wash has become so expensive. Over the weekend, I was at the car wash at one of the SPC petrol station. The attendant informed me that the car wash price was $13, without vacuuming. I was shocked. I thought it should have been $6. Perhaps I had heard wrong. While the car was being washed, I looked at the price list put up on the wall. $7 for a saloon car, without vacuuming. Hmm, even in this period of economic difficulties, car wash services can still up their prices!
Ever since I started driving my current Honda Stream, I’ve never been able to get any fuel consumption reading below 9.0l/100km (at least not under “measurable distance in reasonable driving conditions”). But this is what I got recently: 7.9l/100km. I was really happy. It wasn’t even wholly smooth going highway driving conditions. There were some bits of city driving, although much of it was indeed on the highway.
We all know that proper tire inflation is important. The big question is, what is the right tire pressure? Under-inflation leads to premature tire wear and increases rolling resistance (and hence decreased fuel efficiency). Over-inflation, on the other hand, may lead to decreased grip on the road. My Honda Stream has been running under-inflated for some time. At my last servicing, I had instructed the service centre to have my tires inflated to 250 KPa. I suspected the message didn’t get across.
Times must be bad, so car dealers are even coming to NUS to sell cars. Or perhaps it isn’t so bad afterall, so much so that our dear students have become a lucrative market for car dealers to target. Well, it’s one of the more unusual bazaars at NUS. There’re a couple of other booths, such as Automobile Association of Singapore, V-Kool, and one selling stickers. It’s a mini motoring fair.
Just announced by Transport Minister Raymond Lim, the number of COE available in the coming quota year will be slashed by 24%. Ouch. That is a humongous cut. I guess the government has had enough with $2 and $200 COEs. Time to take action. Particularly with the gloomy economic climate, where fewer new cars are expected to be purchased, something really drastic had to be done to prop up the COE prices.
Cars are expensive in Singapore, so it is no wonder that owners try to keep their cars in perfect condition. One of the things they do is investment in a paint protection system. Not unexpectedly, where there is a demand, there’ll be an endless selection of paint protection solutions in the market. We all want the “perfect” solution that maintains the showroom condition shine, gloss and cleanliness, with minimal wash and maintenance. Of course there’s no such thing.
My Stream hit the tarmac as it exited the car park at Thomson Medical Centre last week. The slope as you exit to Thomson Road is way too steep. The underside edge of the front left-side bumper got scratched. Quite a lot of it got scratched actually, although they are all quite little bits. The fortunate thing is the scratches are all not very visible, at least not if you don’t purposely look for it. I got some touch-up paint from Kah Motor and just got the scratches covered up. Let’s wait for tomorrow to see how it looks.
Washing a car for one hour burns 314 calories, according to the Health Status Calculator, for a person weighing about 70kg. My 2.4km jog burns only 171 calories. It seems more fun to be washing car than to jog 2.4km. Well, except that one hour is a long time, and I don’t have a lot of hour-long time slots to spare.
I think we had 11 oysters each, from The Line restaurant at Shangri-la Hotel. It's a big buffet with plenty of food.
Lunch at Lerk Thai some weekends ago.
