Swordie Bloggie

OK, my last posting was like more than two weeks ago… as usual I’m too preoccupied with lots of stuffs… mainly work thingy.

So, my last post seems to be waiting for an answer… well, I called them the next morning, 2nd March, to enquire about my car coz the day before, they told me I have to pay extra somewhere RM800 for some parts which were damage… I was mad when they told me that… coz when I sent my car in the morning, I drive it without any problem… but when I went to pick it in the evening, it was no longer safe to drive… the car was jerking… misfiring… as if one of the spark plug is faulty.

Anyways, when I called them the next morning, the service advisor said he will not say much for now coz his boss is handling my case and they have taken photos of the broken parts and send it to their HQ in Kuala Lumpur for decision or advice… I donno how true was it coz that really makes my case very serious. I said fine, but keep me posted…

About a couple of hours later, the service advisor called me to inform me of a good news… he said, since I’m a MERIT customer… hahaha… meaning a member of their ‘VIP Customers’ club who spend a lot of money servicing at their service center, I don’t have to spend extra for the fixing. Of course I’m not supposed to be billed for something not caused by me… I already spent almost RM900 the day before for the schedule maintenance… 😛 Lucky it was a good ending, else it could have end up in the tribunal court. Anyways, the Toyota MERIT membership is by invitations only… one gets invited after spending certain amount of money for car servicing and other stuffs. I was invited a few years back and the benefits include discount for servicing, priority for next purchase of Toyota cars and a few more.

So it was a blessing in disguise coz without the case, I would not have spend my time to come over to watch the Prius C launching. I went to pick my car around 1.30pm and all are good except they did not wash and polish my car coz not enough time… 😛

In my last posting, I said there is only one Prius C test drive car… but I was wrong, there are actually a few… and they did not only launch the Prius C, but also the New Prius… the ‘upgraded’ original Prius. Taken some photos… but will insert them here later… 😀

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.