Sifaan

Is it possible to have 0 excess in an insurance policy? My insurance is with j********i and only 50% of airbag costs are included. Full cover is available for extra But recently there was an Aviva dude who came to the office to try and sell a policy and it seems they have 100% on airbags (but of course their policy cost more) isn't this always the case? except perhaps for parts that you don't put used stuff (brake pads, discs, etc.) I thought it was standard that they will pay sea-freight costs (which are normally part of the cost of buying spares in the open, legal, market anyway) but not for air-freight?

automotive LPG should be more expensive than domestic gas... hot air balloon pilot I know normally fills with industrial cylinders, where they let gravity fill the onboard tanks - which is labourious and time consuming. If they have access to a gas shed, it's a much faster process - but he said it did cost a bit more, but that the fuel from the shed burned better.

interesting, so how to get the money out of the Malaysian account? Is there someway to transfer that money to a Sri Lankan credit card? (and how do you go about verifying an account there without a Malaysian issued credit card?)

I buy stuff often on ebay, no such fees for me. But if you are in Australia, you will pay it - it's by Australian banks, not by Paypal

hmm... the blog post with the 110 km/h test drive turns up again...

doubt if the donor battery is really the issue, as the alternator on that car is (or should be) running - ideally the donor car's engine should be at a fast idle. however there are power restrictions on jumper cables - what's sufficient for a car might not be good enough for a SUV etc. (at least, when my friend when to buy one, he was told that the particular cable was only suitable for cars)

yes, but that doesn't mean it will be a "better" computer. For many years I couldn't understand people buying Macs, because spec-for-spec, there were way more expensive than Windows based computers (assembled or branded) - but my next will be a Mac... (it's not a direct analogy, but my point is that speed, or tech specs, are not the only criteria for selecting a computer)

1. Use the report button (so Peri can take action). 2. Maybe Peri could be more aggressive in locking some threads

I don't think any insurance company pays 100% there's something called a deductible (a few thousand rupees) - basically if any single incident costs less than the deductible to repair, they will not pay at all (i.e. no payment for trivial repairs) If the cost is more than that, then they will pay at most "100%" less the deductible for fire - it depends on the cause of the fire; if there is some external fire that also burns the car it is one thing, if someone sets fire to the car it's another, and a manufacturer defect is totally another matter!

some people choose to wear seatbelts even if they are not forced to do so by law

my bad, apparently official support starts with Lion, although there probably will still be some rendering issues unless you install additional software. installing a sinhala unicode font should display at least unicode sites, but still with rendering issues. BTW rendering/typing issues arise because of 1. "shorthand notations" like rakaransaya, repaya, yansaya which are encoded in the long form (e.g. halkireema + rayanna for rakaransaya) and need a smart renderer to work properly (even with Windows, doesn't work properly with apps like photoshop) 2. unicode convention to store all modifiers after the character vs. our typing convention of typing kombuwa before the character and possibly other reasons!

mac should render unicode (unless you are running some really really old version) just like newer versions of Windows (I think since Vista) The software at ICTA is needed only for typing in Sinhala, and while that doesn't have mac support there are some other people who do have a product (but not free) however, the problem with lankaenews is that they are not using unicode at all; so installing some sinhala true type fonts should do the trick for you (also there is a nice online conversion tool at UCSC website that can convert legacy encodings to unicode...)

small update on insurance prices; when I bought the insurance from j********i last year september, for 2.0m cover, the premium was 40,450 and total was 47,282 (this was after 25% NCB and 10% additional discount) when I got the renewal letter last month, they were quoting renewal premium of 48,643 and total was 56,197 (it says "NO CLAIM BONUS ALLOWED" but not clear if there is one, and how much). When I called the guy who sold me the policy, he was able to get the quotation revised, and now the total I have to pay is a tad over 48k (i.e. more or less the same as before). This time the NCB was shown. Anyway, if you're premium has increased, then it's certainly worth to talk to them before forking out the money!

Added to that (unless 3M has 2 distinct injector cleaning products) the 3M product is not meant to be added to the tank (unlike the Wurth product, which is) - it's fed in someplace via some machinery - when I called 3M about buying a can they told me I won't be able to use it myself unless I had the machine.

this description used to confuse me when we had the march (well, it still confuses me, but now it's only academic as we sold the car!) if OD "acts like a 4th gear" then it should not have an impact on other gears? So it wouldn't make a difference to have it on or off in traffic? I think (but not sure) that a better description is that it modifies gear ratios to give more speed/less torque - great for easy driving but not so great if you want more "pickup"? as for when to use it, in the march it helped to have it off when going uphill and overtaking (even in city speeds) rather than "standing" on the accelerator; but that car had a bad power-weight ratio so that maybe does not apply to the familia. btw the convention on the indicator - the manufacturer generally expects it to be kept ON except when you turn it off for a specific reason, and the indicator comes on to remind you that you have it ON.

At the Italian car show couple of months back there was this guy who had an old Fiat (don't know the model, but it had an X series registration) which is used regularly for wedding hires

At the Italian car show couple of months back there was this guy who had an old Fiat (don't know the model, but it had an X series registration) which is used regularly for wedding hires

it's more to do with the weight of the car; but heavier cars tend to have bigger tyres I'm not sure how to calculate the ideal pressure if you change the tyre size though (On a SUV car that came with different rim size options there were different pressure figures listed for 16", 17", 18" and 19" rims; can't remember if they increased or decreased with rim size) if manufacturers can recommend different oil viscosities for different climates, fit the car with different radio frequency ranges for different spectrums, would it be hard for them to give different recommendations based on road conditions? the fact that they don't do it implies that the road condition doesn't matter for the ideal recommendation (and other countries have crap roads too). they do (at least on some cars) recommend different pressures based on the car load, so it means they expect you to pump more if you will carry a heavy load... they could as well suggest a lower pressure when driving on shitty roads, but they don't! of course it will be uncomfortable with potholes and speedbumps, but you could try slowing down rather than under-inflating tyres... your choice manufacturers have to consider many factors when recommending optimum pressure, not just comfort: tyre wear, fuel economy, cornering & braking response, and last but not least, the chance of a blowout due to overheating. that risk is compounded by the fact that most people are not aware of speed ratings on tyres. many people do underinflate tyres, either knowingly (like you), or unknowingly (because tyre kade man recommends it and they think that's the ideal pressure); but that doesn't mean it's a good idea.

dunno about all that, but the manual for my car (which has an tiptronic system, but it's basically an autobox with a manual override on the gear change logic) very specifically says not to shift the car into N while it is moving, and if by accident it is shifted to N, to never ever shift back to D until the car is at a standstill as transmission damage might occur. I'm not sure what kind of damage, or how, but I would rather not muck up my tranny for whatever speculative incremental fuel economy benefits of shifting to N while the car is moving. on the earlier car (March K11) I did notice that the car vibrated much less at standstill (e.g. lights) if the gear was in N rather than D, but whether that was how it should be, or a fault in that particular car, I don't know. It was more comfortable to keep the car in N, but I don't know if it had any particular impact on fuel economy one way or another.

Recently came across a podcast which is a research on whether the Prius sells better because it looks so different to Toyota's regular cars. bottom line is that, because it does look so different (whereas other hybrids look like the conventional version except for the badge) some people are more inclined to buy it (to make it really obvious to others that they are driving a green (at least green-looking*) car) than other comparable hybrids... * of course, being green and looking green are not necessarily the same thing (there's some crazy examples of solar panels and windmills in the podcast)

maybe we'll have "monara's ahead" roadsigns like the kangaroo sings in aussie?

when i was looking through catalogs / databases for citroen parts, there were some (can't recall which) that also had an equivalent part number on renault OP - you will probably find it easier to find parts if you can figure out the part numbers; there are a few shops in panchi that will bring down stuff from Singapore and it's so much easier to work with them when you can give the part numbers (can even call, give the numbers, and they get back to you with the prices; no need to remove the part and walk the streets) you might try this. or maybe renault has a free website that you can use (like Pug / citroen does) which is going to be easier than downloading multiple DVDs and bypassing protection etc. for the air filter try purflux online catalog; you may find that your filter is used on another (more common locally) car... ok it's not "genuine" renault but companies like valeo, purflux are a different proposition to knock offs from taiwan (and sometimes the "genuine" part is made by those companies in the first place) and for things like changing air filters and washer pumps, get yourself a haynes manual from ebay or someplace even if you still take it to a mechanic, at least you will have an idea of what is involved in the job

actually can get rid of left hand as well; since the car should be stationery to shift between P/R/N/D that can be done with the right hand... it's not as if you might need to change radio channels (removed together with speakers to save weight) or adjust AC (turned off to save fuel) (actually saw a taxi driver with a deformity in his left hand do exactly that; except the car still had radio/AC)