Crosswind

Car sellers and car owners will tell you all kind of stories but here are some truths. 1.any car in Sri Lanka does about 9-10km/litre. Whether it's Axio, Allion, Wagon R, Alto, Bulto whatnot. Hybrids will give around 12-13kmpl. That's all. If you hear premios doing 13, 14 or 15, that's a lie! 2.ALL cars depreciate from unreg to the next 3 to 4 years. That includes axios, premios and wagon r's. All of them. Thereafter, there might be a slow depreciation or appreciation depending on government's tax policy changes. Some cars that were bought for 1 - 1.2 million in 2005 can now be sold for 2 million BUT that doesn't take currency depreciation in to account. Unless you understand these two truths, you will always be disappointed.

This sounds like a B/N import 1.5 automatic, which has a conventional auto gearbox. But are you sure its 1.5? I thought Ford imported 1 litre Ecosports during this time due to low taxes. I also recall Ecosport coming with 5-year warranty those days. Ask the agent whether warranty is transferable. Also ask them whether you can pay and extend the warranty to 5 years (if it only came with a 3-year warranty). You might spend around 100k out of pocket but it might be worth it. Ecosport is just an average car (or a jip, if you like to call it that). No major known issues from what I know. Not like the 2012-2014 Focus.

Alternatively, you also have the option of approaching padi baage jayas**dara with a bunch of other docs/similar people and asking him to issue an import license for the parts that are needed for your mahindra or micro.

Yup.. Your turn

My (sort of) new ride... @The Don is forbidden from answering this one..

90s Fiat Bravo. Only one in SL. There are 2 Bravas (the sedan version) afaik. Somebody pls take my turn.

Get some advice from @Sylvi. He's probably the most experienced windscreen specialist in the country. He might know how to repair it without replacing the whole thing (although U should be a bit careful about his costs... just sayin'?)

Am I the only one who sees the whole heap of cataloy on the scooby?

The answer is simple. Don't put your money in the share market, even when the share prices are attractive (now, for example). That place is infested by manipulators and its a good time for them to play their game with stocks that had a good reputation in the past (like large banks). Invest in a land instead.

If I recall properly, this was a problem specific to 2012 - 2014 models. Later models of Ford Focus comes with a standard auto gearbox (again its 6 speed I think). Manufacturers world over, have given up on DCT now. If you get a 2011 model Focus it shouldn't be a problem. I've owned one for 9 years now. It's a somewhat boring but reliable car. Not as boring as a premio or Allion of course. @Devinda_Z didn't your Fiesta come with the same NON-DCT box?

Let me build an analogy to this argument. 150 years ago, horse and bullock carts were mainstream. I'm sure someone would have said, why don't we simply fix engines to the horse carts instead of buying those expensive new things called cars. And this would have been the result: Retrofitting electrics to ICE cars sounds very tempting and there are plenty of step by step guides on the internet. Some are over 10 years old. To do this commercially, it needs to be safe and cost-effective. Which is extremely difficult to achieve. More R&D means more cost (and building a so-called supercar doesn't help the costs either). This cost eventually needs to be passed on to the customer. And finally it becomes much cheaper for a customer to buy a brand new EV than convert a 20-year old car to an EV, despite Sri Lanka's prohibitive tax structure. The journey to EV is not going to be rapid. For a very long time, EV and ICE vehicles will coexist, the same way horse carts and cars coexisted. You just don't need to worry about running out of parts for your Corolla anytime in the next 20 or 30 years.

There is a business case for EV conversions in Sri Lanka, although I simply don't understand why a supercar was needed to get there. If they want to get from Borella to Bambalapitiya via Rajagiriya, Nawala, Nugegoda and Dehiwela, let them knock themselves out. This time around the problem is technical. ICE cars are simply not designed to be converted to EVs. Hell, you can't even do a petrol-diesel conversion without messing up most of the time. I'm not even talking about the Mini but for even a standard car like a Corolla. Placing the battery bank, appropriately distributing the weight and ensuring safety, is not straightforward without some butchery and damaging the integrity of a car.

The Vega's story is very simple. That car is a prototype. That's it. Whether it's a fully functional prototype or not... I've no idea. I've completely ignored its marketing material but has anyone seen it reaching its supposedly top speed of 240km/h? I've seen one blurry video taken in the night, with no lighting at all, from one camera with the claim that the car reached 100km/h in 3 seconds or something and another video of a guy taking a joyride around tripoli yard. Niche car manufacturers usually present their prototypes in motor shows around the world with the hope of getting some orders or to test the market. Whether its Koenigsegg or Lotus, they bank a lot on their reputation. Put yourself on a buyer's shoes. Would you pay a deposit on a $250,000 car made in Tanzania, of which only one has been built and has never been crash tested, from a company that has never built cars previously, and from a country that has never manufactured a motorbike, let alone a car. Now replace 'Tanzania' with "Sri Lanka" and you understand the problem. Of course people in the motor show will go "wow", "nice", "I didn't know Sri Lanka could do this" and so on. Some guy may do a test drive and says its spectacular. But will anyone pull out their wallets? Again, this comes to the question of business case. The time and cost expended to build that reputation is simply prohibitive. And just one prototype is not very helpful for it either. Again, if these guys have developed a new way of creating a component, equipment or software, that's what they can sell. And if you read Rohan Pallewatta's story about his first seat belt sensor. You would know how difficult it is to convince a buyer to buy even a small component.

Yes the brand name is called "Chanda" and the first model to be launched is called "gundu" And the factory will be built slightly past Kuliyapitiya this time. On a serious note, there's no business case for this country to create an automotive industry. Our domestic market is too small. Our labour is expensive and lazy. Electricity is prohibitively pricey, There's nothing we can source locally for making cars. Everything needs to be imported. And penetrating the international market is impossible without a multi-billion dollar marketing budget, which no one can afford. There was no business case during Upali Wijewardene's time and there's no business case now. We can blame politicians and people, but the real reason for the automotive industry not taking off, is the lack of business justification. We need to specialize in a few industries that we are good at. For a small country like Sri Lanka, that's more than enough. We are not India or China. Only Premadasa understood that and built a garment manufacturing specialism in this country. Sri Lankan clothing industry professionals are highly sought after, all over the world, even today. We can certainly build components to vehicles like what Rohan Pallewatta is doing. But that's it. End of rant!

Dude... seriously... what's with you these days? This is not your usual behaviour... In that post, Sylvi says 90% of dealers alter the odometer. This is a well known fact. The percentage may not be correct but most dealers do that. Remember its dealers and not general public. Stop getting your knickers on a twist and move on.

Very valid point.

Not everything you see in Wikipedia is correct. The diesel YARIS (not Vitz) is offered in Europe. Technically its the same car, but as far as the Sri Lankan market is concerned. Its two different cars.

Diesel Vitz? In which planet?

All you need to do is verify from the RMV that the duplicate CR has been legally obtained. If there's another vehicle with the original CR, they will be in trouble, not you. No one can be 100% certain that there won't be another vehicle with the origin CR. At the same time, if you buy a vehicle with an original CR, no one can be 100% certain that there won't be another vehicle with a duplicate version of the same CR. Get the documents checked. That's the only way.

Am I the only one whos thinking of abducting you?

Unfortunately OBD-II is not a single standard. Each manufacturer has their own version of OBD-II which might not be compatible with other versions. These are known as signalling protocols. Some scanners support more than one signalling protocol. Some scanners don't. You need to find out the signalling protocol of your car and check if your scanner has the option of choosing that particular signalling protocol. The complexity of this problem doesn't stop there. If your TIIDA is made for the Japanese domestic market, it wont come with OBD-II at all. It might be JOBD which is not compatible with most low end scanners. If its a TIIDA made for the European market, it might be running EOBD. If its made for the Asian (including Australian) markets, it should be running OBD-II. You also mentioned about a Falcon. I assume you are in Australia. Australia has a seperate set of regulations (including OBD standards) under Australian Design Rules. If both cars are made for the Australian market, then I would expect them to follow the same OBD signalling protocol. But things might have been different in 2006. What you can do is: Do some googling to find out the OBD version and the signalling protocol of your car. You need to specify the market as well not just the model (Nissan Tiida Asia, Nissan Tiida JDM etc.). If you can't do this you can also go to the next step and try some trial and error to see if it works See if you can configure your ODB gadget to read the signals of that specific protocol On the other hand, if your car is an direct import from Japan, it won't work. Period.

And BTW there's a neatly converted Integra by a forum member (who is undercover) up for sale for some time now. If you are interested in something like that.

First of all @Ted, stop misleading the guy. Best to stay quiet if you don't know something. Searching for an oscilloscope and asking the manufacturer for signalling patterns is something you can do at your own leisure. @Asanka Pubudu what you have posted here is a diagnostics procedure for Toyotas made in USA or made for the US market. Japanese domestic market cars (most cars in Sri Lanka), use JOBD (which is a version of OBD-II with a different signalling protocol). What is the tool you are using for diagnostics? If you are using one of those eBay-bought scanners, then it doesn't work for most JDM cars (excluding Mazdas). Also what is your car? We'll be in a better position to help if you tell us some more info. This is an old discussion on the same topic. The pics are missing, but you can extract some info out of it: http://autolanka.com/forums/topic/14674-diy-scan-your-own-car/

The purpose of carnet is for people to travel by road to countries which don't have a relaxed travel policy between them. For example, someone from Europe to travel to India. It's like a tourist visa for a vehicle. Unfortunately Sri Lankans have abused this system in the recent past. As a result, getting a vehicle in to Sri Lanka through carnet is next to impossible. Besides if you are using carnet to do this, you are abusing the system yourself. There's one perfectly legal but a risky and expensive way to do this. If you are really keen on getting a specific car, ship it to SL anyway. Let the customs impound it and then buy it off the auction. There's nothing illegal about it but you will be competing in an auction with others. Auctions are visited by car baiyas who look for profitability more than anything else. If your car is not a "markat car", they won't be too interested. For example, if it's a Mitsubishi Galant, no car baiya will bother. But if it's a corolla, you got competition. I know people who have done this because they were keen on a specific vehicle.

Here's the data for Europe. Knock yourself out. https://www.acea.be/uploads/publications/ACEA_Report_Vehicles_in_use-Europe_2019.pdf I guess you are one of those guys who just doesn't get it. Good luck with your venture.