The coolest thing about owning a Honda sports car is that it’s a Honda. So it’s relatively cheap to maintain compared to, say, a Porsche Boxster or a BMW Z4, aside from being more reliable. We just took our S2000 in for its first service at the dealer.
Apparently, if you keep asking Land Rover’s PR agency politely for the past eight years why you weren’t invited to any of their major press events, they keep saying they have no space. Then when you publicise that they aren’t inviting you to events, instead of making amends, they simply bury their heads in the sand and ban you. So we won’t be able to bring you any review of the Explorer-esque new Range Rover, but we can certainly keep bringing you updates on our very own Range Rover. It’s been four months since we picked it up, and we’ve finally taken it in for an issue that’s been bugging us since we bought it.
Our previous-generation 2009 Renault Safrane V6 has been a reliable-enough car, but certain interior parts had prematurely worn out in just 2 years — a sign of cost-cutting if there ever was one. So we asked for those parts to be replaced under warranty.
Our long-term Mitsubishi Galant continues to run strongly without any hiccups, despite raking up over 40,000 km in less than a year due to regular Dubai-Abu Dhabi runs. Besides the minor A/C fix few months ago, there really has been no costs involved besides our self-imposed 10,000 km interval services with the major one done recently at 80,000 km on the clock. However, as mentioned in our last report we faced a minor issue and that is the battery finally crapped out. Mind you, the battery was not changed since we bought it back in June 2011, so we guess its death was pretty much near.
Our Renault Safrane continues to chug along without issues since the last service. It’s been several months now since we asked for some prematurely-worn interior panels to be changed under warranty, but it finally looks like it will get done this week as the parts have arrived from Mars. Anyway, last month we gave the car in for an exterior detailing at Farba Guard.
Our Range Rover has been busy for the past month, getting back into top shape. A trip to the dealer was in order, especially since the 100,000 km service was due as soon as we bought the car. That in itself made for a good story.
We still remember the time when we used to service our cars at ghetto garages and petrol stations, because we were not financially well-endowed back then. That was fine, considering we didn’t even own a car newer than 10 years at that time. Things change of course, and now we own four cars, all relatively newer, so we get almost all of them maintained at their respective dealerships. All except one — our 2008 Mitsubishi Galant GTS.
So it is time for another update on our Mitsubishi Pajero. Having covered over 15,000 kms since the last post, and over 37,000 km since buying it almost a year ago, we still do not have anything negative to write about it. Besides some off-road-abuse-inflicted damages, the Pajero runs absolutely fine.
We’ve made it a point to upgrade our self-owned fleet with iconic cars, ditching anonymous cars like the Peugeot 307 and the Mitsubishi Galant and replacing them with stuff like the Honda S2000 and the Range Rover Vogue. But then why are we keeping the lowly Korean-built 2009 Renault Safrane around? Well, it just became the most iconic car in our fleet, having appeared in the hottest music video of this decade and the next.
“Wait, what? You bought a Range Rover?” Yes, we bought a Range Rover. “Really? A Range Rover?” Yes, a Range Rover. The big one. It’s grey or green depending on what time of day you look at it. And it’s fun saying that we own a Range Rover.
