DavisH

It will certainly feel higher when driving buy you certainly get used to it. I find in the crv I have a good view of whats going on around me, and no fear when driving though floods (carefully, of course). Call the local honda dealer and ask them when/if the wrv is available for a test drive. onl in very heavy floods would you need somethign like a ford everest or fortuner. But at those depths I'd probably turn arnoud!

Im sure netizens are up in arms over such a result. But having said that, kids from mixed families may vary in their English ability. I know a number of my mixed students have parents that only speak Thai with them. For my son we started out with me only speaking english to him and my wife speaking Thai. But now we both speak english to him, so he is comfortable speaking english to toehr Thais, which he needs to do in his current university course.

Ok, if you are Issan, consider the wr-v. I just read the ground clearance is 220mm. My crv is 208mm, so that's pretty impressive. This will cope better with bad roads I think. Top spec has a pretty comprehensive safety package. If I was looking for a car right now this would be high on my list. I live in an area that floods in the wet season, which is one of the reasons I got the crv. Last October I saw dozens of flood damaged cars along the roadside in MuangThongThani. In one area, even the pickup trucks were u-turning to avoid deep water.

I liked the civic hatchback (over the old civic sedan). Unfortunately, that harchback didnt get the updated motor of the new civic sedan. I owned a 2.0 civic from 2004 to 2019. It was a pretty good car but thirsty. Sold that for the crv diesel. The city is pretty comfortable on most roads except badly potholed roads. Another negative is a lack of soem safety equipment compared to the ativ. Personally I dont care to much for such items, but needed full airbags. I really like the lanewatch in the crv, but you need to get the city ehev to get that - that car is also a good choice, but comes in at like 840K or so. Also try the wr-v. It has a higher driving position that some may like (my wife doesn't). No idea of fuel consumption for it. One test showed a 0-100km/k of 11 seconds, so not too bad. Its basically a honda jazz engine that have been shown to be very reliable. For honda, you may need to make a booking in advance for a test drive, as not all dealers have all the test drive models available. You may alo get better deals in BKK than in a smaller town. One of my wife's friends is a dealer in Ratchaburi, and they gave a worse deal on our crv compared to a Nonthaburi dealer. Whatever car you get, I recommend 1) ceramic coat (our dealer also has this service) 2) underbody coating 3) for the city - complete sound insulation(or turn up the stereo 55), you can also get paint protection film for the front part of the car to protect against stone chips. Our crv has had ceramic coat for 4 years and there is not a scratch on it (just a couple of unavoidable dings).

Also, if you are in a hurry for a car, consider the delivery times. Demand for the ativ is very high. The dealer can tell you how long it may take for delivery. For our city, it took 10 days form the test drive to delivery. There was a supply of them. Other hondas were taking much longer to deliver. I think there is still a chip shortage for soem models also. But I think you should test drive them - swift, city, ativ, and whatever else thanks your interest. I think you will know which one you like most from that. If I was my wife I would have gotten the civic ehev, but its her money and she didn't want to spend that much on transport. I should have added the city is much more comfortable to drive that the swift. It has a better suspension. I can't talk about the ativ as i didn't drive that.

Some dealers also offer the swift sport bodykit which is much nicer as the parts are not "stuck on". Its a full front and rear replacment bumper.

Our swift went that way somewhat. I think its related the hardening of rubber components - control arms, bushes, stabilizer links etc. If they are replaced it would help a lot.

The swift is quite cheap. We considered replacing the old swify with a new one, and they were going to knock of 40K off the sticker price which is 637K for the glx). It's a light and small car so its great around town. The wife averaged 18.2 km/l in her swift over the last several thousand km she drove it. I think the new swift may be a touch better. The main annoyance is if you accelerate hard is the elastic band effect in the cvt. It's not a fast car, but a little quicker than the new toyota ativ. So if you don't care too much about outright performance and like "value for money", it may also be worth looking at the ativ. If you want to travel comfortably in the back, don't get the swift, as there is not a lot of space. For the city, it seems to get around the same mileage as our swift did, but think the highway mileage is better in the city than the swift. I'v only done one longish distance run and got about 23km/l. I've read of other users can getting close to 30km/l. But get on teh boost and ofcourse that mileage will suffer. The main difference is that the city is much larger in size (we have the hatchback) and its quite a bit faster that the swift. It doesn not take much effort to get it moving along. My wife like it for that reason. Fast enough to keep you ou of trouble but not so fast you would get into trouble:) 0-100 is about 10 sec (old swift was over 14); top speed over 200km/l and I don't ever plan to go that fast. There are some videos about this on youtube. There is a hum from the 3 cyl engine but it's not too bothersome. The cvt is not noisy either - it has some kind of fake shifts to make is seem more like a standard auto. I like the paddle shifters too. Probably my main complain would be the sound insulation isn't great (we put in full car mats that has helped a bit. The next step may be to do full sound insulation at an audio shop. Having said that, my wife does not compain of the noise (prob cos I'm used to my crv that is very quiet in comparison). The paint is a little thin too, so it can chip easily (I got one chip and managed to repair it somewhat with touchup). The service costs will be higher of the city, but not hugely so. And definitely keep up with the service schedule for a turbo car, especially fluid changes. The city is popular with the boy racers as they can modify it for a lot fo power, but the really shortens the engine life for this car.) It's best to drive a few cars and see what you like most.

Theres no probem with modern well maintained jatcos. Some suzuki swifts have run on them easily over 300k kms (according to an independent swift mechanic I now).

The wife had an auto swift for nearly 10 years. Dirt cheap to run. I think the most expensive thing replaced was the air cond evaporator (5K) and shock aborbers. That had abour 114k kms on it. If you live up country, the manual version would be fine. But if you live in a big city, think again. We sold ours for about 280K, which was 50% of the original value at the time. The later model swift is generally better overall than the previous version, though there is no manual. There should be a new sift out this year, possibly in hybrid form. If you really want a manual, look for a late model honda jazz that has not been trashed. The fetch a lot of money second hand. 555K was the new price. The wife got a city turbo to replace it. Its quite different from the swift for sure.

There are plenty of garages who can easily work on a toyota pickup. They drag race them here, so its easy to find garages to work on them. I don't know even if toyota would want to , or could, source and insall a new engine. The price could well make it exhorbitant. as others sai, 152K is nothing on a well maintained pickup. It could well go 400-500K before it needed any major work.

The wrv may be work a look - cheaper than the brv, but it seems to have similar mechanicals. You should be able to see it at dealers now or soon. It should be able to be seen at the motorshow.

There are a number of international programs and universities here. My son attends mahidol university international college. He has some foreign professors as well as thai. I've no idea what their salaries are like though. Assumption university springs to mind. Chula and thammasart also have international programs. Just look at their webpages for vacancies

Well you defeated yourself on this one. The city turbo is 1.0 for a start. No reports of oil dilution with this motor. Likewise the 1.5 turbo has none of the oil dilution problems reported overseas.

Top international schools are out of the question without teaching qualifications and international teaching experience. The op should look to universities for employment, though the salaries can vary considerably. In this case the op should preferably have a publication record.

They usually get in when you get into or out of the car (usually around dawn/dusk). I get that a lot. So I just try to be quick getting in or out of the car.

Do you do 15 k kms a year as well as the op? The savings are a lot less over an ecocar that gets 18-20 km/l or a hybrid.

Most of the Thai teachers in my school teach either art, PE, Thai language or social. No, they don't work harder than the foreign teachers in terms of teaching and lesson preparation. To make up for that they end up having to do plenty of bs jobs like lunch duty or some other paperwork or endless meetings. This is a private school btw. Without the foreign teachers, there would be no school.

Below 10 isn't possible....if you want to bash Thais, be realistic.

if you are spending 700-800K, see if toyotasure have a chr hybrid. If your kids are small its big enough for 4.

Well I haven't worn a mask for months, and I'm far from an "anti-masker". I wore it when it was deemed necessary. I deem it not necessary now - just look a the official covid numbers. I would wager more are dying from pneumonia in hospitals or the flu.

I've never driven any of those. However, you may also want to consider the suzuki ertiga hybrid. My wife owned a suzuki swift until recently and it was dirt cheap and reliable to run (much cheaper than the hondas we now own, in terms of sevice costs). https://www.suzuki.co.th/model/ertiga The only way to really know what you like to to test drive all of them.

Given th low number of cases in Thailand at the moment, I don't see a case for marge scale mask wearing. Ok, for those immuno-compromised or the elderly. But for most people, no. Mask wearing rates haven't change a lot, and cases continue to decrease. We went though large waves with mask wearing rates the same. Waves will come and go regardless of future waves. Omicron is at communicable as measles. No regular mask will be significantly effective in reducing its spread. I've not worn a mask outside / in shops for a couple of months - people go maskless in packed restaurants, night clubs are full....yet covid rates are low. But the psychological damage caused by government's responses to the pandemic linger.

lol..closer to 1% I suspect...3-4K "estimated" cases a day is almost nothing and I bet the regular flu has more cases.

Mask wearing is far more prevalent then pre-covid. I suspect that mask wearing will decrease gradually (very slowly), unless the government officially announce that masked are no longer required. I don't see that happening anytime soon.