Yokohama A Drive, size 195/60/15

Let’s get one thing straight; I do not work for Yokohama, I do not own a tyre shop, and I gain no prizes for writing this recommendation for this tyre. I believe in this tyre because I have used it in my wife’s Wira before. Check this out, the two cars wearing the same shoes:

Yokos on two cars, all 8 tyres of them!

That’s how convinced I am! When I changed the Yokos on the Wira, my wife’s first impression to me was “This tyre is so much quieter!” Some would argue that all new tyres are quiet. However the Wira has done almost 15,000 km now, over a duration of 18 months. And now the noise is still very much acceptable! Also, I have compared it to similarly spec-ed Michelin and Bridgestone, both brands are priced at a much higher premium, way beyond reach for a poor bloke like me.

Deep grooves for water channeling

The cornering ability on both wet and dry is above average. I still managed to skid the Wira on a very challenging corner, but it took a lot of effort to do it. I doubt one can really make the tyre lose contact with the ground under normal circumstances. Even in rainy conditions, the tyre runs firmly on the ground and over puddles! Can’t say the same for the old Goodyear tyres!

Not all are good about this tyre. Being such a soft tyre, it loses it’s rubber to wear and tear very easily. The Yokos on the Wira has now developed small cracks and immature wear. But probably that is due to heavy usage of the car. No biggie, it’s almost time to change it anyway. Also the quietness is not very apparent when I changed it on the Altis, probably because the noise insulation on the Altis is so much better than the Wira, so I did not really feel any difference.

One minor quirk I noticed that the A-Drive gives the Altis a totally different handling. It now handles sharp corners much better, lesser body roll due to much stiffer side walls. And dare I say too, the rolling resistance is slightly better compared to the NCT5. Previously I clocked only up to a maximum of 470 km on a tankful, but yesterday I managed 509.4 km before the low-fuel gauge lit up. That’s about 14 cents per km vs 13 cents per km. Not a huge difference, but noticeable in the long run.

So will I use it again in the future? If there are no other better alternatives in the same price bracket, this Yokohama will stay on as the perfect tyre for me.

Point in case :

1. This morning I start to weave in and out of traffic while driving to work. You know lar, the road to Cyberjaya so wide, little traffic, but the cars damn slow. Situation made worse when I hear Flo Rider’s “Low” on the radio. YOWSERS!!

2. I got sore thumbs due to pressing the keyboard too hard!

3. Bad affect on your health. One day I was so immersed in the game, as soon as I finished the lap, my hand shivers, I was having cold sweat and I was panting like I just ran a marathon. And my wife happened to see me that moment, commented that I just had a heart attack!

Anyway, on to more games tonight! Maggie Q is just so hawt!

Why am I being so choosy? Simply because just putting pipe water inside your radiator will just not be enough. There are also additives that you need to add, not just to make your engine run cooler, but also to protect the innards from rusts and other metal particles.

I am going to document down the process that I took to change the coolant. Please remember that not all cars are as easy to DIY as the Wira. And even among Wiras there are a few models, so not all models are built the same. So when you really want to take the plunge, please practise common sense. I shall not be held responsible for any blunder or bodily injury that you sustain trying this out.

My Wira is the 4G15 engine, manufacturing year is 1998. The radiator is actually made up of two fans spread over one huge radiator block. The two red squares below marks the rough location of the two fans.

The red boxes are the rough locations of the two fans. The arrow marks the location of the plug underneath the radiator.

You will need to prepare the materials for your project. The rough volume of the coolant is 4 litres. I bought original Toyota coolant from Toyota Service Centre in Balakong. The Toyota coolant recommends the ratio of 50/50 of coolant and water, so for this project you will need 2 bottles of coolant and 2 bottles of battery water.

Two litres of Toyota Long Life Coolant and two litres of battery water

Why battery water? As I said, I want to be in control of what goes into the radiator. Normal pipe water contains a lot of dissolved minerals, and if mixed inside the radiator might induce the formation of rust or other salt which may clog up the radiator.

Size 12 mm screw and wrench

You’re gonna need these wrench set too to dismantle the various screws. And also before you start, I let the car cool itself overnight. Easier to work with coolant that is err ….. cool.

Now comes the toughest part; jacking up the car! I don’t need to show you how it’s done, but just jack it high enough to enable easier access to the radiator plug.

Once you crawl under the car (did I tell you that you WILL get yourself dirty trying this?) locate the plug. It should be just a plastic plug that you can loosen. The plug does not bear any load, so it should loosen pretty easily with just your hand.

Note the plug. Upon loosening the coolant will drip through another vertical hole, just like a pipette that you used to play in your chemistry class

Open the radiator cap above to assist in the the draining of the coolant. You may want to measure the amount of fluid coming out. This will give you a rough idea of how much coolant that you need to fill back later. But I have done this exercise twice to be certain that the 4G15′s radiator coolant volume is 4 litres.

You can’t have a clean coolant without cleaning the reservoir as well. Cleaning it is easy, just dismantle the reservoir and clean the internals with soap and brush. You’ll be surprised at how much oxidized iron gets build up here.

Remove the screws here to get to the reservoir

After your have thoroughly cleaned the radiator, it’s time to put the pieces back. Tighten back the plug. Pour one bottle of Toyota LLC and one bottle of battery water first through the main radiator cap. Careful, you may spill the mixture out if you pour them too fast. There is a lot of air bubbles still trapped inside there.

Go ahead, start the car! * GULP * yes, despite popular belief, it’s actually okay to start the car with the radiator cap still unlatched, PROVIDED the car is still cold. You will immediately see air bubbles appearing. Go ahead, now you can pour the rest of the mixture in.

Optional : You might want to mix the final 1 litre of battery water and 1 litre of coolant together in a separate container before you pour the rest of them in. This is to guarantee a proper coolant : water ratio. But me being myself, I just simply pour by feel. Too lazy to measure.

You may not be able to finish the entire mixture, but that’s perfectly okay. No need to waste the mixture, you still need to top up the reservoir remember? Just pour the remaining mixture into the reservoir.

There you are done! To make sure everything is running smoothly, take the car for a spin. If you do not notice any more leaks, then congratulations, you have successfully changed the coolant yourself!

Then there is the condition of the wet market in the centre of town. It’s been there since the town was established and frankly it has way expired! MPSJ promised to move the fucking market elsewhere. That was even before I moved to stay in Seri Kembangan. Nothing much changed since.

The booming city where I stay isn’t helping the situation. Apart from Jusco, there is now a coming Giant and an entertainment hub at The Atmosphere. It’s right next to a tolled LDP, so people who wants to go to KL without paying the exorbitantly priced highway toll have no choice but to go through Serdang town. Even if they want to pay toll, the exchange going to LDP / Cyberjaya in front of The Atmosphere gets jammed up every morning and evening. A big turn off!

So the people staying here cannot do nothing but just endure this, day in and day out.  X-(

2. Why do we use the highways? What is the basic thing that you expect in return of paying a hefty sum at the bloodsucking toll booths? The convenience, the time you save, the assurance that you will arrive IN TIME for that 8 am meeting in JB. What if you cannot get that? What if you are stuck in a stupid jam from KL to Ipoh for 5 hours? Who will pay for the lost of time and opportunity? PLUS should give us a rebate for every hour that we are delayed in our journey!

3. I agree with those who drives in the emergency lanes. “If I do not drive in those lanes, somebody else would anyway. It might as well be me.”

4. Speed limits are only beneficial to the police who radar-scans us.

5. Elsewhere in the world highways are used to divert traffic from a heavily congested area and maybe make a little profit, just enough for general maintenance of the highway. Malaysian highways are designed from a profitability point of view.

That said, safety on the road is still necessary. Make sure you are in physical fit condition before you undertake that 300 km exodus back to your hometown. Have a safe trip everyone and SELAMAT HARI RAYA!

I can only afford an uncontrollable insane laugh! Come on Malaysia! Not another one of your tasteless jokes! Can this be one of your publicity stunt again? I mean, seriously, what do you expect to put in your machine? A 1.6 litre turbo CAMPRO engine? Well, here’s news for you! CAMPRO engines are lousy, inefficient and unsafe! Just the other day, a poor young mother burnt to her death when her Gen-2 fitted with the CAMPRO got hit on the engine compartment and caught fire! And this is not the first time I heard of such news. And don’t get me started on the potential driver. The son of a big-shot. Ring a bell? The last Malaysia F1 joker driver was also a son of someone influential who pushed him into the game, and look at the mess he has made for Malaysia!

For you who bought Proton cars (my poor self included), it’s time you stop supporting Proton and start buying from a REAL car company.

Allow me to explain. A car is designed to assist human in getting from point A to point B. Most of the time, point A to point B does not lie in a straight line. One turns the steering wheels to steer the car wherever one intend the car to go. According to Newton’s First Law, a body in motion tends to stay in motion IN A STRAIGHT LINE. To make a body (in this case, the car) turn, an external force is applied to it. The act of turning a car involves force exerting on the car.

So how does this drifting come into picture? Well, believe it or not, drifting actually consumes the least amount of energy in proportion to the speed attained. When a car moves so fast, it is mechanically inefficient to turn the vehicle the way a pedestrian turns his vehicle, i.e., slow down the vehicle, disengage the clutch (for a manual car), wait for the car to roll out of the bend, and then reengage a lower gear ratio. Way too much energy is wasted to slow down the vehicle and to gather momentum again.

The proper and efficient way to turn is to keep the engine’s rpm as constant as possible (possibly in the power band), while keeping the car focused on the apex of the turn, thus minimizing body roll, and enabling higher speed. Easier said than done. In a manual car, it involves a lot of feet movement juggling the clutch, brake and accelerator at the same time!

You may think of it as steering your front wheels in the opposite direction of the turn. Sounds counter-intuitive at first, but if you have watched the Disney cartoon Cars, you’ll know what I mean. But then again, the car must lost contact with the ground (and drifting) for this to be possible.

I have personally experienced drifting before. No, not your average “approach-the-bend-at-80-kph-and-hold-on-tight” kind of thing. I was in a souped-up Nissan March turbo doing the bends with all the tyre squeals, the insurmountable G-force and the mind-boggling lateral movement! An old car-crazy friend of mine was driving it at that time. He even did a reverse flip; reverse the car at full speed, then quick hand brake action, and his car was driving in the right direction. And at that time, we were pursued by the cops! No kidding!

I learnt a lot about cars from him. He was the one who said “you must be one with the car, feel the car, then you will be able to master the car” when I first got my car. He was the reason why my first car suffered so much under my hands! Hehehehe

Anyway, back to drifting. I have always preferred to go sideways rather than to go fast. Take for example car simulation video games. I have always liked Sega Rally Championship and Colin McRae Rally over the silly American muscle-car type of Need For Speed. Except for NFS Underground, in which I dig the drifting championship very very much! Also, the japanese seems to love drifting all that much compared to the western people. You can see it in the car magazines of Japan. The crazy wheel camber tells a lot!

That said, not all American and European cars are incapable of going sideways. The Porsche has got one of the highest G-Force tolerant car shells around. Enough said, I just wanna show you some of my favourite drift videos on Youtube:

The music of Coldplay – Clocks seems so appropriate in this video clip. Watch out too for the drifting exotics, like a Lexus, BMW, Mercedes, and Lambor.

The ultimate rally machine, the Subaru WRX. Makes me think of Dennis the Menace. He goes jumping into his neighbour’s house and starts to terrorize everything, and then jumps back out again as quickly as he appeared. Nice one!

Do tell me if you have anymore incredible drifting movies that you like.

Before I go on, allow me to give a comment to all of you Malaysian drivers out there, the proper way to overtake a slower vehicle in front of you. There are a few unwritten rules that, if broken, is considered a blatant violation of your personal rights as a road-tax paying road user in Malaysia.

RULE NUMBER ONE!!

Don’t lar fucking use highbeam on other drivers! The highbeam is designed for one reason; to highlight the road in front of you in very dark environments. Only on very few occasions when a high beam is acceptable, e.g. to warn other motorists of a road-block or speed-trap ahead. Even that is a totally different signal altogether (the signal should be turned on and off in a fast staccato manner), and must be done at a reasonable distance from the car in front of you.

RULE NUMBER TWO

Stop tail-gating me lar, you moron! If you want me to give way to you, this is the very last thing you should do. There are a lot of other ways to make people give way, but tail-gating is by far the most rude-est of them all, except for using highbeam of course (see Rule Number 1). You can argue that you want to make use of the slipstream generated from my wake, but what slipstream can you make at 110 km/h? How do you judge if the car in front of you is too near to you? Well think of it this way. If the car in front of you suddenly comes to a full stop (perhaps a pile-up, not impossible really) you only have seconds before you hit it. That ‘seconds’ is how far away you should be separated. I give myself at least 3 seconds.

And so armed with these two rules, let me explain to you what happened to me. I was on the PLUS highway, driving my wife-then-girlfriend’s Kembara from Melaka back to KL. At that time the highway was still having dual-lanes, i.e. two to and two fro. I was overtaking another slower vehicle, therefore I was on the fast lane. If you know a Kembara, you’d know how long it takes to get to higher speeds. Suddenly out of nowhere, one stupid Wira came charging at me at a high speed from behind, winking his highbeam at me. Excuse me, I am overtaking a vehicle here, how can I possible give way?! As I was about to finish my overtaking routine, the fucker zoomed pass me on the left lane and positioned himself in front of me. Then he did the most unbelievable thing; he stepped on the brake as if to make an emergency stop, and then quickly picked up speed again! I was so surprised by his move, I had to make an emergency stop as well, and the Kembara skidded like nobody’s business! That fucker was gone in an instance. I have had more encounters with other road bullies but this is by far the worse I have ever seen!

I have promised you a story where I was the bully. It happened very recently, as recent as February this year! I have just changed a new set of tyres on my Wira, two pairs of Yokohama A-Drive. They are a really good set of tyres, with incredible grip on both wet and dry roads. With the quietness to boot too!

Anyway I was driving with my wife back to our home from the Mines using the Besraya Highway. It was raining very heavily, and there was a lot of slow moving vehicles around. Myself, having the new set of tyres, and my own experience driving in the rain, drove relatively quickly. After the UPM exit, towards UNITEN the highway is only a dual-lane, and I was overtaking a row of slower vehicles. Suddenly a huge 4WD vehicle came rapidly from the rear, again with the impolite flashing. The vehicle was so close to me, threathening to ram me. Okay dude, you’ve ask for it. I tapped quickly and lightly on the brake, and I glanced at the rear view mirror, just in case the fucker can’t stop in time. I almost laughed in glee as I saw his headlights swayed a little! And I swore I heard his tyres squealed in protest amidst the pouring rain outside! Ahhhh, nothing sounds sweeter than the screeching sound of revenge!

Being the considerate driver that I am, (ahem) I completed my overtaking manoeuvre (within the speed limit, i.e. s…l…o…w…l…y) and let that fucker pass me. As he sped ahead, I managed to give him the international sign language of vulgarity through my window without even glancing at him. DAMN, it feels so good to be so evil sometimes!

So what story do you have about our beloved Malaysian drivers attitude?

Yes, that also means that I want to upgrade my camera. I have not got my hands on any cameras yet, but the 40D looks very possible. Again, nothing is solid yet. I am just throwing news out, just to test the water. Anyway here is what the spec of my camera looks like:

Canon 350D with EF-S 18-55 kit lens with box, charger, original softwares, cables, manual, neck-strip, 2 original NB-2LH batteries and original Canon battery grip BG-E3. Perfect working condition 8/10. No more warranty. Would like to sell it as a set for RM1350. Free camera bag, 8 GB card and UV filter for kitlens. Price is negotiable. COD in Seri Kembangan.

I attach in here a very rough picture of the camera, for lack of a proper camera to take its own picture:

My old camera

Selling off with the grip

It's in perfect working condition

Please excuse the lousy photos. It was taken with my camera phone.

*Sigh …* what to do? Need the money for my kid’s milk powder and diapers….

Update: The camera has been sold barely 24 hours after I have posted it online.

But Proton, being a Proton that we all know, has never really “grown up”. I liken this to a baby, suckling from his mother from birth, right up till he has come of age, when he can do things on his own and earn a living independently from his mother. Imagine, a 20-year-old baby still suckling from his mother?! His younger brother Perodua has already matured by leaps and bounds and has recently overtaken Proton to become to number 1 car maker since the year 2006!

Is that standard accessory with the Proton?

The very existence of this Proton raised serious doubts, especially seeing that 2 decades on, the very purpose of the national car project got seriously derailed. If I know my history well enough, the reason Dr M created the project was to enrich the lives of the rakyat, to raise the living standard of the rural kampungs, and to spur Malaysia’s economy into the 21st century. It succeed, in the first decade or so. It went on to capture a hefty 73% of the passenger car market in 1988! But in retrospect, Proton existed nowadays to benefit the select few who are holding top position in the Malaysian government. The higher taxes imposed on foreign cars (up to 150% in taxes!) and the AP system meant that a few people at the top are getting fatter by the minute! The government is also not making good on their promise to abolish the AP by December 2010. WTF??!!!

As recent as last month, I’ve heard news that the government is sponsoring RM5000 for those who wishes to scrap their old (more than 10 years) cars, …… to buy another Proton! What a rip off! They are just forcing us to repeat the cycle again!

Well, not all are bad. Sometimes driving a Proton is good because:

1. You just don’t need to care about how you drive your car. It’s already in such a lousy condition, nothing else can make it worse! Wait, is that a pothole on the ground? Let’s drive over it!
2. You drive a Proton, so you can appreciate a good car when you drive one. You have power window in your Toyota? You are so blessed!
3. It’s dirt cheap to maintain ……. with all the Taiwan imitation spare parts around. Ah Beng exhaust pipe anyone?

Oh wait, they are all bad points, aren’t they? My bad!

I read with amusement one particular forumer who had this to say:

I owned proton for the earlier half of my life, from the 87s saga, knight aeroback, wira, waja and perdana.
I admit I am patriotic or simply plain stupid then and spent decades in repaying loan.
None of the rides makes me proud.

I would not want to touch a proton again even if they come out with proton 911 based on porsche at 50K!!

From my years of experience, people buy proton only because they have no choice.

Yes, proton might have improve but I am not getting younger.
If one is lucky, he might have a chance to own 10 cars in his lifetime (5years loan X 10 cars = 50years)
Enough is enough.

A lifetime of proton is pathetic and I will die a miserable man with regrets.

I’d rather buy a honda city/toyota vios and die a happy man.

(original post here)

That guy has pretty much summed it all up for me. Let’s cheer it for Proton!

Hey, these guys has come up with an MPV! Let’s see what they can do with them.