Swordie Bloggie

What is wrong with Toyota?… re-call after re-call… it’s like endless… are they being sabotage??? There is something really wrong… Toyota supposed to be having one of the highest safety standard in their vehicles.

Just few months ago, Toyota US paid a huge amount… in billions of dollars… to the US Government as penalty after recalling millions of their Toyota and Lexus vehicles. Even their best hybrid car, the Prius, did not escape from the safety issues fiasco… it even went to live national TV shows when one of the Prius encounters brake failure… probably all the Los Angeles auto repair shops ceased their work to watch the incident on that day.

I feel pity and sad with Toyota… coz Toyota cars are my favorite although I did own a Honda Civic EG8 before… well that was during The Fast And The Furious season 😛 And I was really saddened when they pull out from the Formula 1 this year… someone even made a joke… “If Toyota were in F1 this season, they surely gonna win… they are unstoppable!”… coz they don’t have brakes 😛

And today’s news, 22 October 2010, reported Toyota Singapore will recall 1.53 million vehicles globally to fix a brake-related problem that may cause fluid leaks… AGAIN?… The models affected by the recalls are the Lexus GS300, Lexus RX300 and the Toyota Crown. But the actual number affected in Singapore is not known yet… and hopefully the problem will not go further than brake fluid leakage… if Toyota start recalling for engine problem like faulty head gasket, I think people will stop buying Toyota or Lexus soon… I just hope Toyota can fix all these problem.

Last month, I renewed my car road tax and insurance. My car insurance and car road tax are handled by UMW Toyota… so all I have to do is go to UMW office and pay the due amount. If I do that in the morning, I can get my new road tax disc by evening…

Anyways, that is not what I want to talked about today… I want to talk about the Malaysia Budget 2011… particularly the full exemption on import and excise duty for hybrid cars until 31st December 2011 😀

Currently there are two types of hybrid cars available in Malaysia… the Toyota 1.8 liter Prius Hybrid and the Honda 1.4 liter Civic Hybrid… and right now the price for 1.4-litre Civic Hybrid is RM129,980 from Honda Malaysia  and the 1.8-litre Prius at RM175,000 from UMW Toyota Motor. Once the exemption are imposed, the price will get lower… how much lower? We have to wait… but although the price will go down, usually the car insurance premium will goes up… that how the government get back their money… lower at one end, increase at one end… end up, we are back to square one 😛 But I’m still hoping that the price will go really low and hopefully there are cheap car insurance at the same time. The government has taken the right step by exempting the excise and import duty for hybrid cars coz it will reduce the CO2 emission in the long run.