.A while ago Lawrences bought a car. It died. Apparently it overheated massively and died. The warning lights did not work, the water levels were fine, but it still died. We had bought it for RM12000 and the repair bill was RM15000. We accepted RM1800 scrap value and learned that, just like in the terrible "Cars 3," cars can die.
The opportunity then came up to buy a replacement car and so we took it. The car was duly inspected by our trusted mechanic, given the ok, a price agreed, and that was the easy part done.
Nearly two weeks on we have not taken delivery of the car yet, thanks largely to all sorts of well-intentioned, but hassling protocol. This is what has happened so far:
I asked at "The World's Local Bank," where Lexi and I have a joint account, for a car loan. It turns out that this fine institution don't have a Government licence to offer car loans. Car loan loan licence? Bizarre. So Lexi went to the nearby branch of the bank that her salary goes into and asked for a car loan. Yes they do car loans, but not at that branch. She was invited to travel over to the other side of the city, Ampang for those with The Knowledge, to meet the bloke who does car loans. Lexi made arrangements to go to meet the great man, only to discover that he had decided to take the day off.
The next day Lexi, with Rupert in tow, managed to meet Mr Car-Loans and who gave her all the necessary information. Thanks to Lexi's exhaustive research she made sure that when she met Mr C-L she had a copy of her contract from school, her passport, a photo of the car reg document, her last three payslips and print outs of her bank statements. Mr C-L agreed to consider Lexi's request and promised to send her a whatsapp message when he had finished his deliberations.
Several days went by. No news from Mr C-L. Was he taking another few days off? Were there top level board meetings taking place to examine the evidence? Were character witnesses being sought? Lexi had also been asked to provide details of a referee who could vouch for her good character.
Eventually Mr C-L sent Lexi a message to announce that 70% of the car loan had been approved as policy dictated that the buyer had to provide 30% of the purchase price themselves. "Policy." That great gift from the gods that is blessed upon humans from on high. Only the mightiest can make policy and mere humans are not enlightened enough to even be allowed to question it. We could manage to get the 30% together.
Fine let's get on with it, we agreed.
But if only things were that simple. Car loan agreed the next stage of bureaucracy kicked in. Transfer of ownership. This first requires the buyer to get the car inspected by the authorities. It is a little unclear exactly what the inspection entails. It might be to do with road-worthiness, but then a colleague of mine managed to get her aged charabanc passed with flying colours so it may only be a cursory process. There is of course a sticking point: window tinting. Malaysia is a hot tropical country where cars, people and life gets hot and bothered easily. A sensible level of car window tinting can help reduce the passenger sections of cars overheating. However some delightful motorists have taken this to an extreme and have installed presidential-approved tinting that would meet the approval of the top level of mafia bosses and drug dealers. Consequently a rule forbidding tinting on cars that are undergoing a change of ownership has been brought in. Most rules are ignored in some way or other in Malaysia and often the ignoring process can be, er, speeded up, er, with the application of money. Consequently when the agreed car went for its required inspection the subtle window tinting, professionally applied, duly failed, and a price of RM800 was asked for in order for the inspector to turn a heavily tinted eye away from the car and notice nothing.
Readers, I have my morals. I have negotiated a traffic fine with a policeman who pulled me over for marginally breaking the carefully unsigned speed limit. His answer of "up to you" when I asked him what the fine was if I paid it on the spot made me chuckle. He seemed happy to accept my statement "I only have RM50 on me" as fact and only got flustered when I waved the RM50 note in the air. Apparently the way to pass a negotiated fine is to allow the officer to lean on the driver's door and reach in with a well practised casualness to deftly remove the note with remaining unseen by all the other police officers who are busily leaning against other stopped cars.
But RM800 to not see some tinting? Come on. Refusing to oil those wheels of industry meant a further delay in taking full ownership of said vehicle. Our trusted mechanic had to take the car back to the garage remove the tinting (RM100) and then return later for the car to be inspected and passed, sans tinting. Naturally the first job we will need to do on the car will be retinting the windows, at a much lower cost than the requested bung. Oh what fun there is to be had at the interface between policy and corruption.
With loan approved, car de-tinted and deposit ready all appears good. The only snag is we have now hit a four day holiday, appropriately Malaysia Day. The car will eventually become ours and the sellers will eventually get their well-deserved cash but this is not a process to be rushed and should only be taken on by the stoic or idiots who manage to buy cars that die.