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HauptmannUK

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Everything posted by HauptmannUK

  1. Suzie Wong was played by Nancy Kwan - she was Eurasian (Chinese/British) hardly a Wan Chai girl. She was actually educated at Kingsmoor School in Glossop, England, very close to where I was born and brought up.
  2. 1. The link you provide relates to provision of SERVICE parts by ACDelco. Obtaining service parts will not be a problem. The issue will be obtaining slow-moving non-service parts because there is almost no profit in them so no incentive to hold stock. This can be a challenge for vehicles that have an active dealer network, let alone one without any dealers.... 2. The OP is specifically asking about the Captiva. This is a GM-Korea product and completely unrelated to the Trailblazer, Colorado, which are GM-USA originated, part of a joint venture with Isuzu, and a different prospect altogether.
  3. I am not angry at Chris. Obviously very old wall advertising was done in a different era when there were fewer regulations and some of it is actually now protected by heritage legislation (it can't be overpainted). Modern wall advertising and OOH signage is covered by planning regulations, as I stated above. Not really surprising or difficult to understand, is it? I know a bit about the subject since I've had to apply to a local council to install and change signage.
  4. Its nothing to do with the union jack. The regulations around what is called 'Out of House Advertising' (OOH) - which includes most external signage - have always been pretty strict. For most councils for anything bigger than 0.3 sq. m. (which is actually quite small) you need planning permission. If councils let this sort of thing slide then half the walls in the town would have stuff painted on or stuck on. The chip shop owner is milking it for all its worth for the free publicity.
  5. 1. Up to 90 days in Thailand you can use home country license+IDP. You should get a Thai license after 90 days. 2. For car insurance there are many brokers. Roojai is a popular online broker (Thai + English website). Class 1 is the most comprehensive level of cover. Try to choose a policy with the highest level of third party cover (probably ฿5M). Thai insurance is often a bit lacking on coverage. Ask for the basic compulsory insurance to be included as well. 3. Yearly road tax needs to be purchased - cost depends on the specification of the car. I usually buy at a vehicle testing station (they are all over the place - have a gear-wheel sign outside) or you can buy at DLT office or some post offices, shopping malls etc. They need to see valid insurance and your vehicle registration book. They will give you a square tax sticker for the windscreen. 4. Vehicles over seven years old need an annual basic roadworthiness check at a testing station. 5. Up to expiration of car warranty (typically 3 years) its best to have services done at a franchised dealer for your brand of car. 6. Consumer protection is rather poor in Thailand so dodgy dealers abound. Some brands have 'Approved Used' schemes (e.g. Toyota's ToyotaSure), but prices can be high. Last year I helped a friend buy a car from an outfit called Cars24 (www.cars24.co.th) at Lat Krabang. Not the cheapest place but they had a good selection of cars and those that I inspected were straight. 7. For cheap commuting in Bangkok get yourself a 'Bobby Basic' Jap car - European cars are trouble in Thailand. Avoid anything with a turbo'd three-cylinder engine (that's basically Ford Ecoboost and Nissan 1.0T and Honda 1.0T).
  6. The first series Captiva was a product of GM Korea (formed after GM bought Daewoo following bankruptcy in IIRC 2002). GM Korea had assistance from GM Europe (Opel) and came up with the 'Theta' platform which underpins the Captiva and the Opel/Vauxhall Antara. You don't say what engine the Captiva has - but probably a GM 'Family Z' Diesel. Another GM Korea/Europe co-production. These cars were generally quite cheaply made - not bad cars but not particularly good either. From a UK motor dealer's perspective we were never a great fan of selling use GM-Korea 'Chevrolets' because the quality was never that good and you could guarantee the customer would be back in a month or two with a fault. Although to be fair they were not really any worse than a Renault or Fiat, but suffer very heavy depreciation. The exception was the little Matiz/Spark which was based on Suzuki-designed mechanicals and pretty hardy. After the GM bankruptcy in 2009 the Chinese (SAIC) 'rescued' the company and GM small car design in Asia shifted from GM Korea to SAIC. SAIC own the brands MG, Roewe, Baojun, Maxus etc. These SAIC brand vehicles are largely based on legacy GM-Europe products. The MG ZS (Roewe RX3) is actually based on GM's D2-PATAC-K platform (a low-cost derivative of the D2 platform developed by Opel for the Insignia) - the engines and most of the running gear are also old Opel designs. The latest Captiva (MG Hector) is also based on the same platform (as is MGES, MG5 etc). The problem with SAIC products is very average quality and poor parts availability and repairability (at least in the UK). Corrosion is a problem in the UK - probably not in Thailand. In your particular case I would not be paying ฿250k for a 13 year old Captiva. It would need to be really cheap - half that. You can pretty much guarantee it will require some repairs and will not be a particularly easy car to sell in a year or two's time. Mechanical service parts should be easy to source but you may encounter problems with trim parts and more obscure clips and fittings, should you need them. That may sound like a minor inconvenience but if a little plastic clip on the gear shifter breaks half way up a mountain in Chiang Rai and the only replacement is 3 days delivery away in Bangkok then it can be a major inconvenience. Remember the cost of a car is the difference between purchase price and disposal price. I'd be inclined to pay more and buy a Toyota/Honda/Isuzu which will hold its value better and ultimately cost less. If you just want a reliable small car to get about on a tight budget then take a look at the Suzuki Ciaz. Cheap as chips. The Suzuki K-series engine is one of the most reliable pieces of machinery on the planet and although the trim feels a bit flimsy it seems to last the distance. They are also reasonably roomy in the back. A bit sluggish but quiet and comfortable enough once you get up to speed. ฿250k should get you a two year old example.
  7. HauptmannUK

    Tattoos

    I agree that tattoos on women are a big turn off. Seeing older women with blurred tattoos on saggy skin is gross. Tattoos on men are a useful indicator that the guy is a mutton-head and to be avoided. Guys with good jobs don't plaster themselves with tattoos.
  8. Strange story. Its not like there is any shortage of Russian speakers she could communicate with....
  9. Saying 'hello' in Thai (สวัสดีครับ - sawat di krap) hardly qualifies as 'speaking Thai' since even foreign tourists straight off the plane can often manage that. If you said you'd engaged her in a political discussion in Thai then I might believe you. I speak reasonable Thai for over 30 years and whilst its true that some locals can be a bit wary ('you know too much') I don't ever recall an unwillingness to take my money.
  10. Bizarre when a 30 day entry is free. Can't see it being a popular option......What has NZ done to upset Thailand?
  11. Single entry Non-O is NZ$800 ! Very harsh on Kiwis wanting to visit a Thai wife or child. Surely will be preferable to enter on 30 day waivers and take two return trips to neighbouring countries?
  12. A Camry or Accord will run fine on LPG. You need a tank, vaporiser/regulator, gas injectors installed in the inlet manifold plus a filling port and the controller and flow solenoids fitting. The system, with a tank of LPG, will probably add 100kg+ to the weight of your vehicle and you will lose some luggage space. The systems are generally reliable and you can switch over to petrol in the event of an LPG fault. Normally the car will start on petrol and then automatically switch to gas. This keeps the petrol injection system lubricated. LPG has lower specific energy than petrol so you will get somewhat lower mpg (10-15%) and the engine will develop slightly less power. LPG burns hotter than petrol but any vehicle manufactured in the last 15 years or so will have hardened valve seats so there should be no problem with valve seat recession. Much depends on your annual mileage. If you cover a lot of miles, say 15k+ km then you can make substantial fuel cost savings. At lower annual mileages it becomes hard to justify the installation costs and extra inspection and service costs.
  13. BMW manufacture their engines in a variety of states of tune depending on the sales area, particular model variant and date of manufacture - hence you need to check in the supplied handbook and/or fuel flap sticker, as others have said. However all BMWs produced in the last 5 years or so will run perfectly well on 91RON. The engines are fitted with knock sensors which detect detonation and back off the ignition advance if its detected. Some models are fitted with wideband 02 sensors and Flex sensors and they would run a bit better on 95 under high load conditions.
  14. No. 'Detonation' by definition means an explosive combustion ('knock') rather than a smoothly propagating flame front. So there is no such thing as 'slow detonation'. Lower octane fuels are more prone to detonation. Higher octane fuels have the unstable HC compounds refined out. Adding ethanol (E10/E20) increases the octane so Thai gasohol fuels actually have a real-world octane rating somewhat above their quoted RON.
  15. Not all codes cause the MIL to illuminate. There are literally hundreds of possible faults - not all of them are costly to fix. This Honda (K series engine) is quite prone to faults due to split/perished vacuum pipes.
  16. In reply to the OP.... Those screen captures you have posted are command codes from the ELM interface. In other words you are interrogating the firmware of the interface and NOT the vehicle's ECU. My guess is that you are using the wrong software with your ELM interface. That output looks like its from 'ELM Identifier' (software to identify whi่ch type/version of ELM chip that you have). To get codes and live data from the car I suggest using 'Torque Pro'.
  17. Plenty of sprinkler systems around the world, often with recessed heads. My wife's condo in Pattaya has sprinklers.
  18. Mat Armstrong - repairs cars. Known his dad Tony for about 30 years. Tony worked as a mechanic at our garage 20-some years ago and my son is a couple of years older than Mat and always kept in touch with him. Mat's YouTube channel is very popular.
  19. Its reckoned around 67 million defective Takata airbags were made. Its actually the Takata PSAN inflator unit that's the problem. The chemicals inside (ammonium nitrate) degrade and the inflator can detonate abruptly rather than combust and inflate smoothly. This can throw parts of the inflator and shroud into the face of the occupant. The degradation is worse in hot climates. I part-own a sales/service car dealership in the UK and we always ensure recalls are done on used cars we offer for sale. We have to take cars to the franchise dealer - very inconvenient because there have been long delays on supply of some of these airbag units and we are reluctant to sell a car with an outstanding airbag recall. Honda, Mazda, Ford are worst affected but pretty much all manufacturers seem to have installed them at some time or other.
  20. Not sure why its not believable. Over the years a lot of things have happened to me in Thailand that you just couldn't make up.... Many in connection with my wife and her 'interesting' friends and family and various 'business dealings'. We are back in the UK for a couple of months and last week she was on the phone to a cop she knows in Udon negotiating the price to arrest a guy who'd shot out the windows of a house she owns. 7k was agreed on and she transferred the money to his account. The guy is now locked up apparently (I'm told he didn't go quietly and they had to taser him).
  21. When my wife was setting up a restaurant about seven or so years ago I remember us both flying to UK on Emirates BC with Skywards Gold and we had the best part of 100kg checked luggage most of which was Thai foodstuffs of every type you can imagine. Probably illegal but my wife is not one to pay heed to the law. We struggled to move it. Many times travelled with combined 70kg. Was only ever stopped once - I was alone and had few kilogram dried fish and was waved through.
  22. That Aussie is of Indonesian ethnicity. 'Australian' seems to cover a multitude of sins these days....
  23. I used to travel a great deal and after several years of using 'mid range' luggage brands I decided to buy myself a nice quality Samsonite wheeled suitcase. On the VERY FIRST TRIP it arrived in Dubai with a couple of wheels smashed off and the handle damaged. Basically it was unusable. Bad luck probably... Anyway, Emirates wouldn't compensate me (wheels not covered apparently). I took lots of photos of the damage and got a copy of the damage report from Emirates but Samsonite knocked it back - 'not covered by guarantee'. I was bitterly disappointed and out of pocket. I bought a cheap replacement ('Tripp' - a UK brand I think) still using it today although its very knocked about and on its last legs.
  24. 20-30 years ago it was rare to find a chubby Thai woman of any age. Now they are everywhere. Its the abundant availability of sugary and ultra-processed foods. My wife doesn't like anything sugary and eats a very healthy traditional diet with lots of green leafy salad and vegetables. Her 14 year old niece eats masses of snack foods from 7-11, likes KFC and pizza - she is very slim at the moment, but that won't last.
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