Toyota Vios (Yaris) crash vs. Camry

This is mildly disturbing, especially for a Vios owner.




Don't hit anything big, much so a Camry...


The Honda Fit surprisingly does better being rammed into a Honda Accord.



And bear in mind, these units are actually better equipped safety wise than our local consumption units. Drive at your own risk.

Baby Adrianna at 1 years old

16 more years till a driving license.

Starting them young or spoiling them rotten?

Ferrari Beline Type I/II/III Child seat

Great TV ads. AUDI

These are some of the best Ads seen on TV by a car maker.

Sheer marketing brilliance.

I've watched them originally on TV many many years ago, but I've decided to put some here as a collection.




(in case you can't see the logos, from left to right, Alfa Romeo, Volvo, BMW, Mercedes Benz)



Ironically, thier 3 best ads don't even show the cars.....

With these sort of ads, little surprise Audi has been propelled from junk status in the 1980s and 1990 (I'm sure some would remember the Audi 100, 200 and 5000) to where it is now, even surpassing BMW for the Yippy factor.

The ISOFIX black hole.

Saying that the Malaysian automotive public lacks a notion of safety is a gross understatement.

The Wife and I sent out for a preliminary round of MPV shopping and we looked at several MPV's in the market

The Budget offerings,
Proton Exora
Nissan Grand Livina
Naza Rondo


The "like to have but probably too expensive" category
Toyota Wish
Honda Stream
Mitsubishi Grandis


To the typical banter between the salesperson and I.

Me : Does this car have ISOFIX or LATCH attachements?

SP : What is ISOFIX?

Me : Er, an attachment for child seats? You have not heard about ISOFIX?

SP : This car doesn't have it.

Me : (pointing at the LATCH), ah yeah, there it is. The car has LATCH. (To Salesperson) This is what LATCH is.



Wow, not a single ONE of the salesperson knew what ISOFIX/LATCH is. It might be forgivable for Proton et. al. sales people not to know when the cars do not have them (hence not being trained) but for Toyota, Honda, and Mitsu, all with CBU units being already factory equipped, I just don't have words for them.



So what is ISOFIX?

"ISOFIX (International Standards Organisation FIX) is a new standard for car seat installation that's being adopted by car seat and vehicle manufacturers worldwide. The system operates through ISOFIX points on the back of the child car seat that plug into ISOFIX fittings in the car, creating a solid link between your child's car seat and your car."

This is what a proper ISOFIX attachment is, in this case a Golf.

And what is LATCH?

LATCH stands for "Lower Anchors and Tethers for Children" and eliminates the need to use seat belts to secure the child car seat to the vehicle. However, your vehicle must be fitted with the anchor system. Starting in the year 2002, most new vehicles began to be manufactured with the LATCH system installed.




Now, that said, why don't Proton, Naza and Nissan have ISOFIX for thier suposely "targeted at Family(ies)" MPVs? Your guess is as good as mine, but these attachments don't cost more than a few bucks, so leaving them out is unforgivable, considering ISOFIX is/has been standard mandated by almost all countries as standard safety item.

On top of that, our prime candidate, the Naza Rondo, somehow managed to get an idiot of a designer to cut cost, re-designing the 2nd row bench seat in such a way that makes the 3rd row completely unusable (ie. not being able to get to it) after you fit a rear facing child seat in the 2nd row. Wow, nice job alienating your market demographic. 7 seat MPV, with 2 useless seats....which leads me to this old adage. "Don't fix what ain't broke"

A Frustrating day no less, but then again, we have time on our hands to wait for the right MPV to come about.

Next round, Peugeot 307 SW, Mazda 5, and the new Perodua MPV codenamed D46T (aka Toyota Sette)

Satria Neo S2000

On a brighter note....






Ironically, the saving grace is the fact, that the Neo S2000 is actually powered by a 280hp 2.0L Renault race engine.......

New Satria Neo CPS

125 PS at 6,500rpm and 150Nm of torque at 4,500rpm

Proton Satria Neo CPS M/T (white) - RM 57,313.00
Proton Satria Neo CPS M/T (black) - RM 57,763.00
Proton Satria Neo CPS A/T (white) - RM 60,313.00
Proton Satria Neo CPS A/T (black) - RM 60,763.00

I'm not very convinced. Especially for the price they are asking for.

Initial indications show that the performance is somewhat luckluster. 0-100 times have been reported to be about 10.5 seconds for the 5 speed. As comparison, my Satria makes 115hp and 158Nm of torque (much less now I suppose) and I do the century run in 8.9 secs in full weight. A bit dissapointing it has nothign to back up its boy racer looks.

Can't really escape the fact that the Neo CPS is a heavy car (1.2tonnes) in need of a higher powered engine.

On top of this, apparently Proton has narrowed the front track to reduce the tendency of oversteer. Now, if this was a regular sedan, I could understand the logic, but for a "hot"(...more like lukewarm) hatch, being slightly loose on the rear during lift off and braking is in character for such a car and it makes it handle so much better.

(for this reason, my Satria has its front track widened to help it turn...by sliding the rear)

I think the next Neo GTI with a possible rumoured Campro CPS Turbo might be a more convincing show. It doens;t have to be stupid powerful but an additional 30hp and 40NM of torque can't hurt.


Pictures from Paultan.org

First Rule of car buying

1) Reliability
2) Performance
3) Cheap

Pick 2.