In Words..

I went to a nearby warung yesterday to get some Nescafe to survive the evening in the office and came across The Sun newspaper, and the big headline just caught my attention.

How many of us Malaysian are aware how crazily expensive cars are over here?? I don’t travel that much and i don’t read that much either… but i bet there are not many countries in the world that takes u 5-7 years to pay for an average car (some car loan stretch to 12 years now) !!

Let’s take Perodua MyVi as an example. Cost around RM40k here. Bare in mind, that this is one of our ‘National’ car.. which logically, should be fairly affordable to Malaysian rite?? I’m not sure whether this car is targeted for our low or medium income grp but let’s say it’s for medium income grp (executives). Now let’s say that u are in the ‘medium’ income grp earning average salary say around RM3k (more than a fair figure i think). Are u aware that the car that is targeted for your grp is priced at around 13-14 months of your full salary?? Meaning, if u live on food stamps, enjoy free electricity, free water, free petrol, free house and what not.. u have to work for 14 months and used ALL your income to pay for an ‘affordable’ car.

Now, MyVi is priced around £8k in the UK. The avg monthly salary cross-sector for an executive in UK for 2008 is around £3300 but let’s take it at £3k. That means, if they are to buy a MyVi, that’s only around 2 and a half month of salary!!! U know what car can they buy in order for them to spend 13-14 months equivalent of their salary?? A BMW 5 SERIES!!! U think this income grp in the UK will spend that much portion of their income on a BMW?? No way!! cause it makes no sense to them!!! Yet us Malaysian are gladly paying that much portion of our monthly income for a MyVi!!!

Here’s a quote from TopGear about Proton, “We don’t know what Malaysian motorists did to upset the gods, but it must have been something pretty serious, judging by the punishment they seem to be getting. Still, at least the domestic audience thinks this stuff is the norm – what on earth do they think they’re doing bringing it to the UK? Walk away.”

Bare in mind that the executives in the UK and Malaysia have almost the same job description and education background. I might be wrong here.. or i might be crazy.. but the way i see this.. we are fucked up beyond recovery…

I don’t know about you ppl, but i really don’t want to live my whole life paying for a average quality car… so… NO THANK YOU TO NEW CAR!!! yyyyiissshhhhh…… (at least all this typing works better than coffee)