aussiebebe

Is it a 1.8 or 2.0? Note the 2.0 will use more fuel (around 1-2 km/l difference). And do you know the history of the car. Any accidents or flood damage? Second hand prices are always high, maybe you can bargain a bit. If you are still keen but don't know the cars real history, maybe pay the Test Car company to get a full check.

You should look at the Nissan Almeira..........or is it too big for your needs

elliss, on 2012-05-24 17:57:41, said:

Might as well post whilst we still can.......


A few years ago an acquaintance in the UK asked "How much did your Thai bird cost?"


It was quite easy to answer - "An awful lot less than your two English wives cost you".

TravelTeach, on 2012-05-24 18:16:24, said:

You haven't been divorced yet, have you?

HardenedSoul, on 2012-05-24 18:25:11, said:

Not the sort of money we have to play with.

I don't think I know many foreigners who couldn't lay their hands on 5 million baht cash, or more, if they really wanted to.

just remove the OEM alarm system and install an all new car alarm system. im pretty sure there are alarm systems that are activated by cell fones for less than the 20k remote key..

trainman34014, on 2012-05-18 11:18:07, said:

There is plenty of supply.  The chief factor is unregulated speculative trading... when will you guys wake up?

trainman34014, on 2012-05-21 08:29:50, said:

That's the best post this week

The Government today announced that it is changing its symbol for Parliament to a Condom because it more accurately reflects the Governments political stance.

A Condom allows for inflation, halts production, destroys the next generation, protects a bunch of Dicks, and gives you the feeling of protection while you're actually being screwed.

dam_n; it just doesn't get more accurate than that !

There is an Aussie government site that outlines exactly what you need and can or can't do - from memory I'd say that most of the advice offered so far is wildly inaccurate.

Your vehicle will have to be Aussie COMPLIANT if you want to import it. If you want to visit, that is a different matter.....but then you have to sort out getting it back to Thailand. This is best prepared BEFORE arrival....depending on how much time you have.

As for being cheap - you had better check the duty payable.

On top of any duty on a recent car there will be GST too.

Furthermore you might want to compare the specification of the Thai vehicle against the Aussie equivalent.  The Thai vehicles are often quite rudimentary in comparison to their Aussie counterparts - tey are cheaper for a reason!

For instance does it have a heater???? - that'll set you back a bit.

The wheels, running gear and suspension can be quite different too.

Then if it's 4WD check the system on the Thai model against the Aussie one - the Thai pickups often have a much more rudimentary one fitted.
I presume you are comparing like with like when it comes to the engine - some Aussie models hae much larger engine options.

Thailand and Oz have a free trade agreement that is meant to be introduced in stages over a fifteen year period that started some time ago. THis should eventually include motor vehicles - new ones at least. Many of the pickups you buy in Oz are made in Thailand - to different specs of course - so you might find prices coming down a bit.

Australia like Thailand has second -hand cars that are extremely high in price. I won't go into the reasons for this - there are too many, but this could change very quickly with the implementation of free trade agreements and higher earnings in Thailand.

Err, the copper is giving a fine.

If it was corruption, then he wouldn't be writing up a ticket. A hundred baht and she'd be off.

I also notice that it wasn't strapped on, so she may as well not have even been wearing it.

The copper should be congratulated for doing his job.

This is clearly not corruption...This guy should be applauded for doing his job....as another poster said corruption wouldbe him taking a bribe to get out of the ticket.....title of this article is misleading...

If I hear the phrase, 'my friend says she gets 20000 Baht.' again, I think I will go crazy.

Only this afternoon a woman I lived with before was on the phone to me wanting to move back in with me. She was expecting me to pay 10000 Baht a month and after two months giver her 20000 Baht for two weeks she would be away tending her farm. Said that she would need that much for expenses and to pay staff and other items.
She was not a happy bunny when I told her I could get a woman 15 years younger for 10K a month (an offer that was made to me last week by a 22 year old).

I told her she had no chance and then I heard that phrase again. 'My friend says she gets 20K a month off a Farang.'
My reply was to the effect that if her friend had a man stupid enough to give 20K a month, she should go find one herself. I then laughed and hung up the phone.

Seconds later she rang back. '<Snip!> off you Kwai.' she says, before I could hit the off button.

So many of these women who do allegedly get these sums of money off the idiots abroad over the internet do like to brag about it and that can make life difficult for most of us and those who have idiots here who give them inflated sums of money too.

I have my limits and stick to them depending on circumstances. And because i keep hearing that phrase, I'll stick to paying per night when I want it now thanks and still be free to party

Some interesting reading....

The Down-Trodden Rural Poor of Thailand


It's not quite what you think
                                                                                  



Here's what you need to know about the rural have-nots of Thailand. They are the richest poor people in the Third World. And they owe none of their affluence to Thaksin Shinawatra.


Fugitive former Prime Minster Thaksin, a billionaire wanted in connection with corruption and tax-evasion on a staggeringly egregious scale, has done a remarkable job of convincing the world that he is the champion of the rural poor in Thailand, and that such prosperity as the farmer enjoys is in some way due to him. Yet all of "his" programs have been in place for decades. His well-financed public-relations machine merely invented catchy new terms for them.


In Europe and North America, farmers tend to be affluent. A comparison is therefore not at all meaningful. But take a village carpenter in Thailand's northeast and compare him with a wood-worker in a small town in Iowa. To the American, the Thai seems impoverished, his house appalling basic, his expectations in life distressingly limited. But the Thai carpenter probably lives on family land rent-free, pays nothing to moderate the climate, produces his own vegetables, chickens, eggs and pork, and rides his own motor-cycle to his jobs. He's seen the American lifestyle on TV, and it's so far beyond the range of his experience, he doesn't feel deprived or envious.


Every village in Thailand was on the electricity grid long before Thaksin came on the scene, and virtually every village family has a refrigerator, electric rice-cooker, TV, radio and a couple of oscillating fans. Almost all rural households have a motorcycle, though it may be old and battered. In every village several families own pickup trucks. Animals are no longer used for farm work except in extremely remote corners of the kingdom. If farmers don't have a mini-tractor of their own, they rent or borrow one from a neighbor.


The "landless peasant" class exists, but is very small when compared with the Philippines, India and much of South America. The rich absentee farm landlord is almost unknown. Most farming families tend a small plot of land they own outright, mortgage-free (due to unscrupulous practices in the past, an outdated, paternalistic law prevents them putting up land as security with money-lenders, though they may borrow on anticipated harvests.) They sell a small cash crop through a co-operative. Their grown-up or adolescent children supplement the family income from jobs they hold in the cities.


Thailand, like the U.S., has a fallen-through-the-cracks underclass. While statistics*, as everywhere, have to be taken with a large measure of skepticism, officially 10% of the population is below the poverty line (12% in the U.S., 14% in Britain, 36% in Bangladesh). Of course, that means the poverty line for Thailand and no international comparisons are invoked. Poverty doesn't necessarily mean doing without TV or not being able to lean a beat-up old 100 c.c. Honda Dream by the door.


Unemployment in Thailand is 1.4% -- among the lowest in the world. Here it has to be cautioned that employment statistics are notoriously unreliable. Even in advanced countries, economists cannot agree whether to include the under-employed and those not actively seeking work. But unskilled work, if not well-paid, is not hard to find. My Bangkok apartment building has had a "security guard wanted" sign out for weeks.


During the dry season, many farmers supplement their income with construction work in the cities. But some prefer to do without extra luxuries and live the slow-paced, well-fed rural life. Two or three years ago, I found it impossible for several weeks to find a plumber to put in a new bathroom. Many "peasants" have become self-employed entrepreneurs and done well for themselves. Thaksin's policies had no discernible impact on the labor force.


There is no population pressure in Thailand, since each female, on average, gives birth to 1.6 children in her lifetime. That is well below replacement level, so the population will in time shrink unless immigration is vigorously promoted. Reduction in family size was achieved through education and the perceived economic benefits of smaller families, the same way it was reduced in Europe and Japan. This got started in the 1960s.


Wealth distribution in Thailand is no more extreme than in most industrialised countries. The poorest 10% of the people of Thailand own 2.6% of the nation's wealth. The richest 10% own 33.7%. In the U.S., the comparable figures are 2% and 30%, in the U.K. 2.1% and 28.5%. These statistics may not be wholly reliable, but distribution of wealth is unquestionably much more equitable than in China, India, Brazil or South Africa. Even isolated Thai villages, especially in the central plains, would seem very prosperous to rural Pakistanis and positively utopian to most Nigerians. Thaksin's much-vaunted "village revolving development funds" financing local enterprise had their antecedents in the 1970s.  


All main roads in Thailand are paved (close to First-World standards), and most secondary roads are surfaced, as are a good many of the tracks that lead into remote villages, even in the poorer north and northeast parts of the country. It was like this when Thaksin was still a bankrupt ex-cop.


There are slums in Bangkok, but you have to go out of your way to find them. Since almost everyone is employed, squatters on state land in the cities often live there by choice because it is rent-free. You certainly do not have to go out of your way to see red-light districts. Incomes from the sex industry (obviously denied to those lacking looks and personally) exceed factory wages fivefold or more. The blind and maimed can apply for state aid, but street begging is often more lucrative. One sets one's own moral priorities.


There was care at government hospitals and health clinics long before Thaksin came along with his fancy $1 scheme. Treatment is not world-class but it is medical care nonetheless. People in need of operations get them for small fees, and if they have no money the charge is written off. No one is turned away from emergency rooms at government hospitals. Doctors who went through medical school on state scholarships owe as  many years of modestly paid service in rural hospitals as they had in tuition.


Almost no Thais are unable read & write. Girls on average get 14 years of schooling and boys 13 years (note that girls are ahead). About 1.75 million post-secondary students (over 20% of their age group) are enrolled in universities (ranging from world-class to barely respectable), two-year colleges or vocational schools. Bright kids from poor families get government scholarships, so up-by-the-bootstraps success stories are so common as to be unremarkable. This high rate of upward social mobility goes back at least half a century.


Infant deaths per 1,000 live births in Thailand tallies 17, compared with 180 in Angola, 153 in Afghanistan and 6 in the U.S. Life-expectancy at birth is 73.1 years (78.1 in the U.S., 66.1 in Russia). HIV-positive people make up 1.4% of Thailand's population (0.6% in the U.S.)


With a population of 66 million, Thailand has 62 million registered cellphones and 7 million landlines. Service is as reliable as it is in Europe. One-fourth of the people regularly use the Internet. Thaksin's own company, which prospered prodigiously while he was prime minister, had one-third of the nation's mobile-phone customers. He sold the firm to an investment arm of the Singapore government (and paid no income tax).


Thailand routinely exports more than it imports. It is attractive for foreign direct investment. It therefore has enormous foreign reserves, and even though the country has few natural resources to sell abroad, its reserves, at $138 billion, are the 10th highest in the world. (Britain has $56 billion, Australia $45 billion). This means plenty of capital for employment-creating new manufacturing jobs, which entice rural folk seeking work in cities. The Thai currency is so strong that even recent political troubles have not budged it.


Contrary to a widespread perception, the country's main exports are not agricultural products, but cars & trucks, motorcycles & vehicle parts (made by foreign-owned subsidiary companies). Exported pick-up trucks, the biggest single-selling item, contain negligible imported parts. One Japanese manufacturer sources its world-wide production of one-ton pickups, including those sold in Japan, from its Thai factories. Machinery is another big export, as are components for computers and other electronic goods, textiles, garments & footwear, processed food and animal fodder. Way down the list of foreign-currency earners are rice, sugar and tourism.


Over the years the Thai government has routinely produced a trade surplus, a current-account surplus and (though not this year) a budget surplus.


Since 1960 (when Thaksin was 11) no "developing" country has exceeded Thailand in average annual per-capita GDP growth. The farmers are still poor by western standards, but they've had their share of this rising affluence, and they are better off than rural folk in any other nation on earth for which we reserve the term Third World.  ✹


* All statistics quoted in this article were independently cross-referenced from at least three of these sources: UNICEF, UNDP, World Bank, Asian Devt. Bank, IMF, CIA, WHO, Bank of Thailand, Thai National Statistics Office. In no case is a figure quoted from purely Thai sources. In addition, plausibility comparisons were made with the statistics of a number of other countries.

With humans it's possible to use placebo effect, hence homeopathy, but with electricity - no.

In _theory_, what I understood, there is an _possibility_ to 'save in powerbill' with an real device, but not in practical level and likely with the device you were referring.

My suggestion for anyone who is thinking about  to buy these devices: Read this article about power savers and power factor and understand it fully. If after that one wishes to buy one of these devices.. by all means, just do that.

http://sound.westhos...wer-savers.html

The sooner the idiots cannot afford the fuel to drive like "clowns" the better.