Car appreciation... the aesthetics, the engineering, etc

Anyone need a very cheap Honda frv, it's just not being used so needs getting rid of. Not a car to set pulses racing in any way but it's a 09 Honda 2.0 petrol with relatively low mileage (88k irc) a newish clutch and exhaust so as reliable transport it's good. Wbac offered just over £1k.

Messaged you

Slightly off topic but why would anyone want to live in Singapore? There must be some positives ?

I’m learning to sail on a friends boat at the moment and the water is 28 degrees when you fall in. Once I know what I’m doing we can sail to Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia- if we get overtaken with ambition, Australia.

It’s pretty boring here- but, that’s actually a very privileged thing to say is a negative. Try being a woman from an ethnic minority in Malaysia- being able to simple go about your life in Singapore without the risks of being back home is life changing.

Japan and Korea are 6 hours away, Australia is between 4 and 7.

It’s not somewhere that I think I’m going to be for the rest of my life, but for now it’s quite interesting.

There are no car related positives, sorry to tell this thread.

Road cycling over on the Riau Islands is meant to be good, they have some bike parks there too (45 minute ferry ride), Thailand has some good enduro trails around Chiang Mai, but it’s either on fire or monsoon for large chunks of the year.

Japan has lift served bike parks on ski slopes as do Korea, and New Zealand’s world class DH tracks are 14 or so hours away. TBH given the length of the flight (time of year dependant) I’d rather go to the Alps but NZ was quite fun.

My uncle, auntie and 3 cousins live there. The mum and dad moved there from Malaysia when young for better prospects for jobs.

Low crime.
Great food.

It's a funny one on the food front - a lot of people really rave about it, but my question is where are they eating? I agree on the low crime.

W124 E500 spotted in the hotel car park this morning in Luxembourg

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Anecdotally I've been hearing from friends in HK that loads of people had moved to SG in response to the Mainland government becoming ever more overbearing in HK in recent years and that a large portion of them have since returned to HK because of the sheer boredom of SG.

You could do worse than a visit to HK also, there's been a fair chunk of investment in trailbuilding in the last decade and there's some FB groups that regularly ride more natural trails also who I'm sure you could get in touch with for a tag along. Geographically it's got to be better riding than SG.

Food is also great, loads of fun stuff to do and c.4hr flight time.

Hawker centres? I've been to a few that were great.

spotted this evo 9 wagon the other day.
i'd love one of these.
maybe i should have popped a note on the windscreen...

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That's mega, this is still my favourite that i'm trying to steal a few cue's from.

Those are my favourite places to eat whenever I'm in Asia, the best.

Everyone seems desperate to avoid saying the obvious ones; tax and domestic staff.

where are they eating?

All.the.hawkers.
All the permutations of Chicken Rice.

I just back to Sydney from Singapore... I can safely say Changi is so much better as an airport than Sydney. The queues, the chaos and the traffic driving home. Blurgh.

I didn't love the food over there, there's a lot of fusion confusion and I wasn't wowed by the hawker stuff. Weirdly did get a great Phó from a Viet cafe.

The kids just loved the fact that you can step into any body of water and as dammit said, it's 28°c.

The domestic helper/maid is a big thing for families and single mothers/elderly people. Childless couples and single people it’s not relevant.

Tax is low- but everything else is very expensive, the government has externalised the costs of things like education. If you had two kids then you have the advantage of the helper at ~$20,000 per year, but balance that with $100,000 on school fees, then $90,000 on housing, $40,000- $60,000 on leasing fees per car, food that is three times as expensive as the UK and so on.

On the positive side a friend of a friend has asked if I want to borrow his i550.

This. I had the pleasure of working in the kitchen with Hawker Chan (the formerly Michelin starred chicken rice guy) for an event years ago. Nice chap. Great chicken.

I guess tastes vary, I find chicken rice to be the blander than porridge.

Do you even chilli bro?

Just saw this parked outside the local supermarket . I don't think I've ever seen one before in the wild - great colour (presumably not original) and pristine condition

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Looks stunning in gold

Did an oil change on my bmw (523i n52b engine) and the sump plug took a while to unthread. When I tried to tighten up it just spins when it gets tight.

I don’t fancy replacing the sump. Are the helicoil kits easy to fit?

Or retap next size up m13 x 1.5 and larger bolt? Aluminium sump

I had this problem with a Citroen and my ghetto fix was plumbers tape on the threads. Lasted for another 3 years then i sold it.