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Got money but no manners. Or basic human decency. Watch the video to see why. What happened? On 10 June, last Saturday at the Johor-Singapore Causeway, a Malaysian Toyota Alphard decided that it would be better to risk going to jail and injuring a traffic marshal instead of facing the consequences. The Toyota was seen driving on the bus-lorry lane. This is seen as soon after it passes by the camcar on screen, a bus appears behind the Alphard. This did not go unnoticed by traffic marshals either, who were shown telling the Toyota to turn around and go to the start of the queue. Making a move to go to the right, the Toyota made a feint as if to comply before righting itself and going full speed ahead, before the officers could do something. If the officers made a move to block the Alphard from continuing straight, it is likely injuries would have occurred. Online chatter Many are angry that the Toyota driver can behave in such a manner, and call for punishments such as jail or being banned from entering Singapore again. Others are resigned, saying that the driver can simply come back to Singapore with new plates and get away scot-free. Punishment? The comments about swapping plates intrigued me. So I did some research about what measures are there to find this person again. If you don’t know, when travelling by car on the Causeway you need a Vehicle Entry Permit (VEP)/ Autopass card. This card would require your registration with your passport or identification card. So in theory, even if the driver comes back with a different number plate, the authorities can still catch them by looking at the current name attached to the current number plate and blacklist it! This way, the driver will be caught on their next attempt to come to Singapore. Here’s to hoping the law prevails. ========= Be the first to get the latest road/ COE news and get first dibs on exclusive promos and giveaways in our Telegram SGCM Community. Join us today!

TL;DR – A Toyota Vellfire taxi driver slaps and flings a lady onto the ground for kicking his car and breaking his side mirror. It’s been a while since we’ve had video footage of some serious road drama. Today’s incident definitely takes the cake. Watch the minute-long viral video here: What happened prior to the video? It is unclear from the caption as to what occurred before the video was recorded. But there must have been an inciting incident for this to take place. The lady can be seen ‘flipping the bird’ or ‘pointing the middle finger’ at the taxi driver at the start of the video. The taxi driver keeps his cool and starts driving off. The lady, however, decides to take a cheap shot at the Vellfire and gives it a kick. Unable to control his temper any further, the taxi driver comes out of the car and proceeds to give her one tight slap. Fight! Fight! Fight! Well, if you can call that a fight. It seems pretty one sided If you ask me. Eh! That’s not cool lady! The fight is with the taxi driver. Why did the woman have to go and destroy the Vellfire’s side mirror? What did the Vellfire do to you ah? Shit ton of online chatter This incident is exploding all over social media. The amount of comments to choose from to feature is insane. Even an animal would attack the taxi driver and not the Vellfire. Agreed. Yes. I was brought up to always respect a woman and never hit a woman. But I think that there should be a rule that “women should not kick a man’s car” as well. I would donate too. But I can only afford a $5 donation. Seems to me like a majority of the comments are very ‘pro taxi driver’. ========= Be the first to get the latest road/ COE news, and get first dibs on exclusive promos and giveaways in our Telegram SGCM Community. Join us today!

Just to have an idea who drive this wonderful MPV.. And we can organise meet-ups and all.. and also.. there is a dedicated forum : www.alphardasiaclub.com Let me get the ball rolling... 1) VellfireS / Toyota Vellfire 3.5Z-G S-Edition (Richburg Motors)

Beauty or Weird looking ?

Ok now that the process has completed, I would like to share about my latest motoring experience. I have owned a 2015 Vellfire for a year, and due to many reasons I shared previously, decided to change it to 2 small rides. As I did not want to pump in much cash, I could only look at rides of upto $80k each. Good thing the Vellfire was offloaded at very good price, I eventually only need to pump in another $10k. Now what can you get for less than $80k? One thing I was not keen to go PI route again unless bopian. So the typically options if getting new rides are small japanese rides like Jazz or Note, or Korean cars like basic Elantra and K3. Then I also looked at used cars which I have never done before to see if any cars worth it. Eventually I fixed my eyes on 2013 B200 which would cost about $65k which are latest model but pre-facelift. My confidence grew after I visited a few used car dealers as the condition of the cars were really good for any 5 year old cars. The leather are basically still wrinkle free and all the internal panels and buttons are still in very good condition, unlike the jap rides I have had which look old after just 2 to 3 years. Eventually I settled on 2015 B180 which is essentially the latest facelifted model. As the 2 rides are for my wife and myself, my wife wanted to get a Jazz initially but she was put off by the Jan/2019 delivery timeline. She was not keen on Elantra/K3 after seeing them in flesh. After awhile, my enthusiasm on B180/B200 rub off on her and she decided to get a B180 as well. Now I will share why I think B180/B200 is a viable alternative compare to typical jap/Korean fares. For about the same cash outlay, it is 7 years of former vs 10 years of later. I am willing to forsake the 3 years to have better motoring experience. It is a Mercedes after all, though a lesser one so to speak. After doing test drive of Jazz/Note and seeing K3/Elantra in flesh, I am ok to give up 3 years of ownership for the B-class ride. I love the B-class ride as it is almost perfect for what I want in a small car - compact on the outside, spacious in the inside, and full of all the hi-tech features in a very safe and powerful package. Imagine century sprint of 9.1sec, assist parking, integrated TPMS, latest safety features, etc ,etc.. And best of all, it is still the latest facelifted model. And I also did abit of research on ownership cost. I used to think servicing and parts for Mercedes is going to cost much more, but reality is not really that bad. For servicing, C&C offers servicing packages of 3 and 5 servicing. For B-class, it cost about $810 for 3 servicing, and $1400 for 5 servicing. If you factor in servicing interval of 15,000km for Mercedes, 3 servicing would be more than enough to cover 2 years of servicing. This means before any replacement parts, servicing cost for my case would come to $810, which is actually lower than what I was charged for my previous jap rides over the 2 year period with 4 servicing. No doubt I have to cater more for replacement parts which is going to cost more now. And the road tax I have to pay for my B180s also cost lesser than the Vellfire, $740 + $740 vs $1800. But I have to pay more for insurance. Even for petrol also I have to pay more but not much more as the FC for Vellfire is about 7.5km/L whereas B-class should get about 12km/L sasily, so not much difference. And then I have to navigate the used car dealers to get the used B180. This part is the most tricky and dreaded as have read many horror stories. Eventually I would say I am just lucky as both cars were transferred within a week of taking over the rides after finalizing the finance part. I know I should have done more by checking service records at C&C before confirming the deal but I chose to belief the STA reports and test drives and everything look and feel normal. And after owning both rides for a week and 3 weeks respectively, I have been happy with them so far. I would not be willing to shell out the money for them brand new, but pleased tat able to get them now at about 50% off their past purchase prices. I would think they are good deals for 3 year old cars. The motivation has been to try something new as not getting young anymore. And if it does not pan out well, can just sell them away and get something else that is safer. Whichever way I see there is no harm in beating this path. And right now both my wife and myself are enjoying the rides very much as it really offer much more than the typical jap/Korean fares. And if both rides are still in good shapes 7 years from now, just need to renew the COE for another 5 years. Hope this will inspire more to do the same. My apologies for the long story, as impossible to do it in 1 or 2 paragraphs. Hope you enjoy this sharing. Cheers.

Hi Bros! Just checking if anyone here is driving an Alphard/Vellfire? Was wondering if anyone knows of any forums for the above? Thanks!