I like to think that Lexi and I can be decisive, but yesterday afternoon that decisiveness was put to the test in the car sales areas of Kuala Lumpur. Up until August this year Lexi had had a hire car for her school, a five year old Proton Saga. Valued at around RM20000 ish our 1000 Ringgit per month hire cost, over two years was, not the greatest of deals to have. Fortunately Lexi was allowed to break her contract this summer and so back went the vehicle. Yesterday was therefore car buying day.
I had done a bit of the ground work when we came back from our holiday, pricing up a few possibilities while Rupert and Trixie gave opinions about colours. Too much choice always causes confusion and so we tried our best to keep focused solely on Hyundai cars, ideally a small hatchback and the on the road price had to be under RM 20000. All good and decisive. Wonderful.
But there were so many cars. Ok lots of them were ruled out because they were way over budget. It is worth a word or two about car prices here in Malaysia at this point. New car prices are comparable with the UK. However used cars depreciate really slowly. Consequently it is common to see 10 year old cars in excess of £5000. (In theory it would be possible to import an aged UK car but there would then be big taxes to pay, plus severe restrictions on when and how such a car could be sold on.)
So there we were with loads of cars and loads of grinning car sellers. Why are car sellers so delighted to see us, the naive foreigner asks? The hardened realist knows that we are simply units of commission on legs. Two hours into our search we had narrowed the selection down to three possibilities, all which, conveniently after haggling had the price of RM20000. I had done the man thing of looking under the bonnet and not having clue about what I was looking for while taking in sharp intakes of breath. Lengthy pauses had been allowed between utterances from the sellers and us potential buyers. Children had fiddled with the stuff that the sellers had lying around on their desks. But we couldn't decide whether to by the Hyundai Matrix or Getz. Both had advantages and disadvantages. After gnashing of teeth, earnest rubbing of foreheads and pacing up and down we finally made a decision. Run away! Home sounded far more exciting. So we left.
On the way back we bought petrol and next to the petrol station was yet another car sales place. We had one quick look, threw reason and logic out of the window and bought a car that Lexi described as "looking nice." It had all the necessary things: wheels, roof, seats, engine etc and a massive boot and had a ticket price of RM16500. After a drive, more looking under the bonnet for no reason whatsoever, and cheery grins and beams from the avuncular sales bloke I offered RM14000 on the road. Mr Grins, Andy to his mates, said he would have to ask the boss first: a process which involved him looking at another bloke, slightly less cheery than himself who then nodded and the deal was done. It will be delivered on Monday or Tuesday.
PS. We managed all this with thumping heads all thanks to a really good fun staff social on the Friday night. The beer and wine flowed, as did the banter and silliness. Marvellous.
PPS. Lexi mainly chose the car because it was gold coloured.