JoeW

there is competition in Bangkok, but most tend to agree with each other to set similar prices.

Only a few players in Bangkok are truly charging a fair price other one's are charging a bit too much.

Service free battery are no good in Thailand as temps are too high and water will evaporate from the cells and there is no way to replace the water. Buy a maintenance battery and check the cells once a month. Also diesel engines take more cranking power because of the high compression so a heavy duty cranking amp battery in needed. Hope this helps.

Not necessarily though. Certain battery makers (Hitachi in particular) really designed their batteries properly for hot climates.

They are so sure of themselves that they warranty an SMF battery for 2 years. That's better than anyone else on the Thai market.

From personal experience, I have driven 100,000 km in 3 years with an SMF battery and never had an issue.

Today we cleaned an extremely dirty Kia Carnival (2006, never interior cleaned) for 1,500 baht.

- Vacuum

- Leather and Interior Clean

- Leather Conditioning

- Ozone

One more happy customer

Also flushed his A/C for 500 baht extra. Car smells like new. Or I guess it smelled like that

Can you inform what battery they put in your car? 8,000 seems to be a bit steep.

Some might think it's expensive, but seeing that we are booked full for the next 2 months, Thai people seem to find it not so expensive.

Rentals in Beijing, Guangzhou Shanghai is more expensive than Bangkok, and even more expensive than in other cities of Thailand.

pay workers more or the same amount

Price its even some place triple cheap than in Thailand..

HK rent MUCH more expensive than in Banbgkok.

Labor cost much more expensive..

YES i THINK it F... Expensive in Thailand!!!!

but not only

Car cleaning

Many thinks its f... expensive in Thailand!!!

so you are saying that my price is expensive for a full interior detail?

There are many companies in Bangkok charging the same amount as I am, but there are many companies who are seriously overcharging.

However, it's not really demand & supply anymore. They charge as much as the customer is willing to pay.

If someone wants to pay 50,000 baht for a ceramic coating job then go ahead they say.

Other companies (including mine) do it for 10,000 baht.

3300 - full paint protection, polish / rub. Full engine detailing and leather detailing.. Should be spotless from ALL angles

got any place you can recommend around bangkok / preferably suvkhumivt area?

I recommend 4DWash and G2C (ekkamai)

G2C looks good, perhaps I'll drop by sometime and have a look. Any idea why seat cleaning and carpet cleaning run in couple thousand for each service? Not that I would use the cart cleaning service, but for the price they are asking you can buy a new set! But I do need the seat cleaning and its quite expensive too, wondering if I should do it myself or does the pro job makes a difference in how much cleaner and protection they offer?

It all depends if you have the proper chemicals to do the job or not.

You can buy decent leather cleaning chemicals at specialized shops. Those chemicals clean the leather without actually damaging the material.

Same goes for carwash soap. You can buy cheap soap at big c, but that kind of soap doesn't have a neutral PH7 value. So it basically will damage your paint.

I operate my own car detailing business now up North and our prices are as follows.

- Leather clean: 1,200 baht (7 seats 1,600 baht)

- Carpet clean: 800 baht (7 seats 1,000 baht)

Reason for that price as below:

- Total working hours are around 3 to 4 hours depending on the size of the car

- Chemical cost

- Cost of machine to steam the seats and carpets

and finally profit to stay in business.

After the cleaning of the seats the customer can chose to coat their leather seats which should prevent dirt from sticking to the leather.

That service costs an additional 2,000 baht (pure chemical cost). Warranty of 1 year.

Some might think it's expensive, but seeing that we are booked full for the next 2 months, Thai people seem to find it not so expensive.

3300 - full paint protection, polish / rub. Full engine detailing and leather detailing.. Should be spotless from ALL angles

got any place you can recommend around bangkok / preferably suvkhumivt area?

I recommend 4DWash and G2C (ekkamai)

It's illegal to modify your car and motorcycle in Thailand.

For cars it's rarely enforced though, except for exhausts. If it doesn't look OEM they will give you a fine.

The shop I operate in Kalasin has stopped selling exhausts because of this.

For motorcycles they check exhausts and other parts.

No idea where you live in Thailand, but I'll try to help.

For leather seats:

http://www.kinsauto.com/KINSTEST_EN.html

For alloys: anywhere in Thailand they sell alloys and wheels. Drive around the neighborhood and you'll find a shop.

One thing about economics: a company will charge as much as the consumer wants to pay.

Ceramic coating at 49,000 baht -> people lining up for months to get it.

Actual cost of chemical product: less than 1,000 baht.

Brands in Thailand increase the price of a car -> doesn't matter people still buy it.

Mitsu is same as any other car. Buy your filter at a local shop (+- 250 baht, that's how much they are at my shop anyways) and change it yourself.

Done in 2 minutes or less.

Most people in the world have jobs. Jobs generally don't pay well. In a country of 60 million people - how many business owners do you think there are? How many are making say US$50k a month or more? That's not a big business, in fact, it's quite small.

There is a guy selling noodles in Sukhumvit Soi 65 who, by the looks of how busy he is each day is easily making around 300K Baht per month.

You make my day !!...

selling noodles in Thailand makes you earn 300.000 thb per month.. DELETED. you are a really funny guy !

and incomes that reach 2M per month is RARE.... you have to give me statistics instead of talking about "plenty".

The President of France is earning : 14 910,31 € bruts per month.. (that means you have to take out 25% out to know what is left after tax)

that is around : 602 293 thb per month.. before tax.. and He's the PRESIDENT ^^

So yes.. many people earns 1M per month.. it's well known..

Take a walk up Sukhumvit 65. 150 meters up go sit at the noodle stall on the left if you can find a seat. You will see a constant flow of people coming to buy the noodles for take out. There are 2 people serving and doing nothing but packing the noodles and you can sometimes wait 15 minutes for them as the queue is so long.

Now - to think that the guy averages 10k Baht a day there isn't really a stretch of the imagination. 100 people at 100 Baht a pop. And yes - noodles don't cost 100 Baht but many people come there to take out for the family. Simple math.

As for 'rare' - people that run businesses are not rare at all. They run businesses because being an employee rarely makes you wealthy.

I presume you are an employee yourself. Nothing wrong with it. The president of France is an employee too. It is not a highly paid job. My last day job here paid $180k a year - and I know execs in bigger firms that earn a lot more.

I think you don't really understand what senior managers make in this country, both Thai and Expat. I think also you underestimate the massive difference in earnings between an employee and a business owner.

There's plenty of people earning the money to buy 8,000 BMWs a year.

You are simply not exposed to them.

I've been to army weddings here where there's more gold on display that fort Knox, not to mention a healthy dose of Benzes, Beemers, Porsches and Ferraris.... Plenty of wealth from corruption here too

Correct. Being an employee doesn't make you rich at all.

I was working in Bangkok for 3 years making 65,000 baht per month.

Now we operate a motorbike shop, car repair shop, car care shop here up North.

I am doing the same amount of hours per day (13 hours or so).

Motorbike shop brings in around 25,000 / day

Car repair shop anywhere between 100,000 to 200,000 / day

car care around 10,000 / day

Over here there are dozens of shops making the same amount of cash per day.

A coffee shop in central bangna (my old workplace) sells 300 cups of iced coffee per day at 50 baht a cup.

15,000 baht / day x 30 = 450,000 baht gross profit.

I can imagine that a noodle shop makes the same amount.

I understand your feeling. We cater to foreigners in Kalasin with our car service center and car wash.

We get good reviews from the foreigners who visit us.

However, maybe for Makro, etc it's not worth the investment to hire someone with English qualifications.

They need to get paid at least the amount of what they would earn in Bangkok so it's not worth it for them.

They might have people speaking Lao at Makro Mukdahan though. Seeing that many people from Laos are visiting that Makro.

traumatized ? you exaggerate quite a lot. don't worry they will face a lot worst situations in their lives !!!

and anyway nobody is innocent in anything that happens to him, sorry but I am sure that there would have a way to avoid this accident.

why he didn't say sorry ? for what ? be happy already that he has an insurance...

Not really sure how I could avoid it as I was stuck in traffic unable to move for a few minutes when he drove up a side street and into the side of my car(twice).......I suppose I could never leave the house and could have avoided it that way.

The reason I would have expected him(or anyone) to say sorry for causing 2 accidents(afterall, he reversed and did it a second time) would be because any decent human apologises for their mistakes. If i bump into someone in the street I will apologise, if I drop a glass I will apologise and if i hit a stationary car twice I would apologise.

Apologizing happens not so often though as to my experience. Got hit twice already and both times they didn't apologize for their mistake. It's just how it is.

Even if the insurance covers all, it's still annoying to not have a car for a couple of days / weeks.

That's because they prepared all the necessary documents, etc on time. For people who own a car of the masses, it tends to take a bit longer

Seeing that there are quite a lot of holidays, etc and that Songkran is now on the way 1 month seems reasonable. I got mine from Thanachart after 3 weeks.

yup use cruise control all the time.

Alphards and Vellfires are really nice cars. In Japan, The vellfire is marketed as a family-car (usually no leather seats, etc) while the Alphard is a bit more luxurious (leather seats).

Overall it's the same car. They are really comfortable though as my previous company's car was an Alphard. We had the 2.4 model (not hybrid). A bit sluggish, but decent enough for family trips.

There is 3.5Q model which has a decent engine and some extra bells and whistles.

If you can find one for 1,4 mil, then you are doing a good deal. You won't need to refresh things though...maybe a new set of shocks to keep the ride smooth, but that's it.

Last generation Forest i was CKD and XT was CBU. Not sure they changed that.

I guess specs are near this information:

http://subaru-cyprus.com/2014forester_spec01.html

I'm living in Kalasin (30 years old) and interested to play tennis ) PM me for details.

I haven't played for 3 years now due to injuries, but played from when I was 6 until 27.

Probably an RS package, just as Nissan has a Nismo package with no performance upgrade's what so ever.

I come from a suburban town in Belgium and was always fascinated with the city life. Did 4 years in Japan (Nagoya and Fukuoka), and 4 years in Bangkok.

Grew bored of the city life. Spending 2 to 3 hours in traffic every day. So decided to move to Kalasin (since August last year). Couldn't be happier.

FYI, I'm 30 years old.