just ignore him..come from nowhere

My SA told me car is ready for collection.. she has informed bank to settle the document with JPJ den will reg. with JPJ. She said JPJ might open on Saturday ... so hopefully can get car by tomorrow.. or sat...

huh half-day? "they" work half-day for fark meh? kanneh not chinese also want to work half-day? they want rush back hometown celebrate chinese new year is it? walau =.='' crap excuse they have there.

Yup currently only 1.6 OTR ... no confirmed news for 2.0 just yet.

As for resale value, i wouldnt say that its low or high cos none in the 2nd hand or trade in market yet. if NAZA were to bring up the price slightly and gradually, then i dont think the resale value will be that bad ... Spectra has a very bad resale value cos of the bad FC, now Forte FC is a lot better than Spectra and not to mention all the features and good look ... if the demand for Forte is there, the resale value will not be low. I really hope that NAZA will throw in the 5 yrs warranty with a slight increase in price, that will boost the sale, change people's mentality (poor quality and expensive spare parts) and also increase the resale value, which will further conbribute to the sale.

As for other flaws, none so far after driving for almost 2 months but slightly less than 3K km only

you wanna bet?.............

natural history of naza.........

naza has always discounted their old stocks when sales drop after a couple of years......that's their business model......in the days when cars are launched as kia, and gets nazarised later, that discount is HUGE........

with the possible exception of suria/picanto........even then, before the facelift, it is easy to get a few k off too, but it is a low cost car, so the discounts cannot be much.........

in 2 years, when sales drop, expect significant discounts.........which will automatically devalue you old cars by a similar margin.........

it is best that all buying forte now have the full expectation that the car WILL get 'nazarised' a few years later.......keep the car at least 8-10 years and you will be okay.........

that has nothing to do with how naza is as a 'screwdriver' (quote rafidah aziz) car company.........but the ability to get enough ap's and rebadge the cars as 'local'.............

btw, in case you don't know, what you pay naza is still significantly HIGHER than the REAL value of the cars......case in point, the forte/cerato 2.0 sells for aud25k in oz, or rm75k.......... 

and you believe the sa.........

so what happened when naza officially dropped the price of the nazarised-at-launch sportage 15k late last year to clear stocks..........?

the 2nd generation sportage was introduced in 2004, but launched in msia in mid 2007...........and discounted in 2nd half 2009..........

so i wouldn't call it 'ancient'.........

the fact remains, when forte gets 'ancient', guess what naza will do........and what will happen to your 2nd hand value...........

of course you can always believe it's a 'new' nazakia nowadays, and they will not nazarise forte.......if it makes people feel better.......

me, i face the facts........

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Added on February 17, 2010, 11:46 pm

nazakia does 2 things to prices of cars........

one is, they rebadge kia cars as 'local' naza brand with a significant drop in import duty, and a dramatic drop in the price of cars new, dragging existing owners down with it.......

the other is, they do heavy discounts once the car is a bit old, stocks build up, and demand drops........again heavily impacting on the 2nd hand price of existing owners.......

both has the effect of depressing 2nd hand prices of their cars.........

that's what i mean by nazarise..............you WILL suffer greater drop in 2nd hand value over natural depreciation because people can buy NEW ones at a cheaper price than what you paid for.........

generally, other manufacturers do not do this, well not this much anyway, which is why toyotas (caveat:maybe not anymore  ) and hondas keep their value well..........you cannot buy NEW vios at heavily discounted prices......even when they are introducing new models, the discount for the old generation is minimal.........

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Added on February 18, 2010, 12:01 ami will give you my personal example........

bought a 1st gen sportage in 2000 at 90+k.........

sold it in 2005.........they stop selling new sportage in 2002, and sold off old stock at 70+K........by natural depreciation (even for koreans), i should be able to get 40+k at least........

but all i could get from the private sale was 33k...........dealers want below 30k.........because they calculate based on 70+k new............

oops, i have not try the shiftronic.. so far.. after 4 days of driving.. will try it later today...

Forever? Nah, not so bad lah although the torque dip from 2nd to 3rd gear is very annoying esp when you need a little bit more push when ascending slopes.

I noticed that in shift-tronic mode, there are ocassions where there is a huge jerk when upshifting from 2nd to 3rd gear as the tacho hits 2.5 to 2.6K. Shift at 2-2.1K is OK as that's the normal rpm the auto mode would shift anyway, whereas shifting beyond 2.6K would be fairly OK although the car will now be accelerating pretty fast from there onwards.

I find that for smooth driving the best rpm to upshift would be 2.3-2.4K. If you're pushing it hard, 2.8-3K would be good enough... Shifting at 4K is really making the engine roar and you'll feel the pinch very soon in your wallet the next time you fill up.

It's interesting to note that the speedometer has red markings for 30 and 50kmh, which is the indicated speed for the autobox to upshift from 2nd to 3rd and 3rd to 4th. I personally think that for a smooth and calm drive and yet maintain reasonable torque, it's best to shift at 35-40kmh and 50-55 kmh respectively.

Anyway, I rarely use auto mode nowadays to prevent the torque dip and the tendency of the box to upshift to 4th gear for fuel economy. What I do is try to use 3rd gear as much as possible, and once I reach a suitable speed for cruising, I'll switch to 4th to keep the rpm down. For slopes, 3rd gear will be good enough; rarely do you need to go down to 2nd.

My FC is not as low as expected... 8L/100km on RON91 mainly highway.
I don't feel the need to push the car hard as it sips a lot of fuel, makes a lot of noise, and kills the brakes quicker whenever you need to slow down at traffic lights. On the highways it's easy to be agitated whenever those buggers tailgate you when you're driving within the limits; more often than not it's those 4L V8 Falcons/Commodores. Cannot cabar them otherwise sure kena smoke. Keep cool and save your $$... not worth racing on the streets.

Are there that many stretches of roads that allow you to shift above 3K rpm? I don't even feel the need to rush so fast... urban streets over here are usually narrow and jampacked.

and naza instead of kia on the steering wheel. hehe

not SA, he don't know it. is the service guy in rawang and also service guy in setapak told me that.
he said many don't know about it, if keep charge there not even need to change battery..... they say la... how many % accurate i don't know.
I also realise user manual did not said it is for charging also.