HauptmannUK

One of many Spen King designs. I remember them well - worked on more than a few. The V8 used the GM BOP 215 cu.in. engines. GM gave up on it because it was too expensive to produce and passed it over to Rover. The aitomatics were a GM 180 'box. Very very reliable drivetrain, but thirsty.

My family have been in the motor trade for 101 years. For about the last 30 years we've operated as an independent BMW/MB specialist but also doing general all-brand repairs, MoTs and retailing used cars from a 40 car pitch. I was only peripherally involved in the business because I went off to university and became a professional engineer. I was, however, a qualified MoT tester until 2018, when I early retired and spent most of my time in Thailand. Went back to UK during Covid to help at the garage. Couple of points... 1. Your daughter went to a VW dealer - she will be paying the highest parts and labour prices and they will mercilessly look for work. 2. Manufacturers' genuine parts, in my experience, are similar throughout the world. A genuine VW dealer-supplied part in Thailand will be a similar price to UK (with modest variations due to taxes etc). Similarly, aftermarket parts are not priced radically differently. The difference in the price of a job is mostly down to vastly differing labour rates between the two countries. However, servicing a German car at a franchised dealer in Thailand is not particularly cheap either! To give you an idea of realistic costs we would charge about £100 for brake pads and discs (Mintex brand) plus about £60 to fit. £160 total. Brake fluid service (bleed all brakes) £39 if done at same time as other work. Pollen filter about £12 plus a few pounds for fitting. Battery (Yuasa YX5000 - 5 year warranty) about £85. Replace cambelt, tensioner, idler and waterpump about £350. A/C vac and regas about £50 (R134a) or £100 (R1234yf). My advice is find a good indepndent repairer and MoT testing station (definitely NOT Kwik-Fit!!).

Prince Philip first met Princess (later Queen) Elizabeth when she was 13 years old. Its said he "never thought about any other girl" after that.....

When I got married the plan was early retirement and a permanent relocation to Thailand. However my new wife wanted a holiday in England.... She came for six months and really liked the village where I have a house. Loved fish and chips, Sunday roasts, vivid green countryside and 'stone villages' (Cotswolds etc). Also found Thai food ingredients ('big city' about 25 miles away) and very quickly found some Thai friends. She then wanted to spend a longer period in the UK and got a spouse visa. I went along with it and we compromised by splitting our time between UK and Thailand. She then got friendly with an English businesswoman and moved a chunk of money from Thailand to jointly invest in a small hotel. I thought it was a terrible idea and expected her to lose everything. Well, against all expectations, and despite Covid, she's done really well and overall returns herself several times the average UK salary. When we're in the UK she works in the hotel managing the staff and dealing with guests. Its an amazing achievement given her spoken English is still quite poor, poor written English and very limited IT skills. She's extremely good at dealing with people though. She now has a British passport and we have agreed to split our time 50/50 between UK and Thailand. Not entirely what I had planned but I do appreciate the financial situation and the fact she has something to focus her mind on.

It seems that Wise do become 'suspicious' if you regularly transfer relatively large amounts of money. My wife has a business in the UK and transfers around £50k a year to Thailand in £10k amounts. Several times over the last three years they have paused the transfers. Couple of times they asked for a scan of her passport (despite having it already). She just sits tight and eventually the money turns up. It did cause problems in March when she was buying a new car - had to borrow from me until her money arrived.

Flight confirmation is all you will have until check-in. Either go to the airline's website and do online check in (they will likely email a boarding pass) or go to airport check in counter and you will get it there.

I had two tricky wisdom teeth extracted in a UK hospital. I was given antibiotics to take away and informed that wisdom tooth extraction is 'high risk' for infections...

Not sure if you read Thai but reading that receipt it seems you had new brakes, wheel cylinders and brake fluid. So 5k is actually not too bad..

I think you might struggle to find these. Mostly they are not really 'deflectors' - they are simply stickers that block the portion of light that is directed to the left by the headlight optics. Make your own by pointing your car at a white wall one evening. Switch on the lights and observe the light pattern. You'll see a portion that kicks up to the left side. Experiment by sticking masking tape or duct tape on the lens to block off this portion of the dipped beam pattern.

Reading through that quotation it looks like they propose replacing almost the entire suspension. It is not really possible to tell the condition of shock absorbers from a photo (unless they have a major leak or are rusted out). Its quite possible the rears are shot out at 150k km. Replacing them would probably improve the ride and handling quite significantly. The front shocks look like aftermarket KYB Exel-G's. If so then with only 20k km on them they should have plenty of life left. Other bushes and balljoints should be inspected and replaced on merit. ฿5000 is pricey for back shoes. The axle set of shoes likely cost in the region 1000-1800 - the rest would be labour.

Denso CR injectors are aerospace-quality parts and not cheap. In the UK the price is in the region £250-350 each (฿10k - 14k) and I would expect to pay something similar in Thailand. Note that there are multiple variations/supersessions on these injectors so you MUST obtain the correct part number. Cleaning/reconditioning will be less than half the price. Depends how many more miles you plan to run the truck. Cleaned injectors will start to play up much sooner. Secondhand is obviously a bit of a gamble.

They are called a 'cable cover' (ฝาครอบสายไฟ - paak-rop-sai-fai) or 'cable block' (บล็อคสายไฟ - block-sai-fai).

I suffered with prostatitis and balanitis a couple of years ago. Probably acquired in the same way. Took about three months to shift with ciprofloxacin (has associated risks) and an antifungal/antibacterial cream for the balanitis. It was quite a 'long haul' but did eventually get rid of it.... Here is UK NHS treatment advice.... https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/ng110/chapter/summary-of-the-evidence

The diagnostic features would be the same as the vehicle was fitted with at the time of manufacture. If the car is very old and has no OBD capability at all then there is a variety of test equipment that can be hooked up to the car ('engine analyser' and exhaust gas analyser etc).

You can apply for an upgrade from Easy Pass to Easy Pass Plus - this essentially allows you to use M-Flow because they port your registration information across to M-Flow and tolls are deducted from your Easy Pass account. You can also use M-Flow without registering by logging into the M-Flow website and paying your toll (allow an hour or so after passing through the toll gate for your car to show up on the M-Flow database) .... https://mflowthai.com/mflow/unuserpayment

Most probably a gummed-up EGR valve. The valve has a lift sensor and if EG flow rate is insufficient for the reported lift then a fault code is set. Replacement with an OE part is the long term fix. If a customer is on a very tight budget then we clean with Mr Muscle oven cleaner. ฿6k sounds very reasonable if its a genuine Isuzu part. I would go with that.

Some rather frightening lack of understanding of basic electrical theory on display in this thread! Some people confusing power dissipation in the load with dissipation in the cable. Assuming adequate insulation then voltage is not really relevant. Power dissipation in the cable is IxIxR (I = current, R = cable resistance) which can be rearranged to give VxV/R. Where V is voltage drop in the cable. Power dissipation in the cable leads to heating of the cable. So then we are down to how much above ambient temp are you willing to accept? 10 deg or 30 deg. ? The OP says that he's using #16AWG. That has resistance of about 13 milliohm/metre. If you want to keep voltage drop to 100mV/metre then maximum current is about 7.6A and you would be dissipating about 0.75W/m or about 1/4W per foot. Which would give only a tiny temp rise. Doubling current to 15A would increase dissipation to about 3W/m, about 1W per foot. Very mild heating.

Done this in January and also last month. Must upload travel history (scan of stamps in passport). Bank statements. Proof of residency (council tax bill). Wife's ID. Invitation letter from wife. Photo with applicant holding passport open on biometrics page. Got eVisa around 2-3 days later.

IIRC your model has a concentric slave cylinder mounted inside the bellhousing. Quite a bit of work to replace it. I would try replacing just the M/C first (note that the M/C is mounted at a slight angle on this model and it can be difficult to bleed all the air out). What usually happens is that when the M/C seals become worn, air is drawn in as the pedal is released. You can buy seal kits but my recommendation would be a brand new complete M/C from Ford.

If you are looking for good handling then a Fortuner is not for you. The current model is based on the HiLux. High centre of gravity, high roll centre and relatively crude suspension. An all-new Fortuner is about to launch on a completely different platform and promises to be a far better proposition.

Yes, I'm aware of other options. The rationale for getting a non-O retirement is that it would free us from any immigration hassle for a year. We tend to travel around a lot (both within Thailand and to neighbouring countries) so a retirement visa plus re-entry permit should set us up for the year at less cost than 2x 90-day visas or using visa extensions, and with just one visit to immigration office.

My (Thai) wife and I alternate between UK and Thailand, staying in approx three-month blocks in each country (not more than 90 days in TH). I used to get 1-year Multi-O based on marriage from London. These were stopped a few years back so I have been using single entry 90 day visas - a bit of pain to apply each time but I'm not keen to keep my money in a Thai bank. Previous advice from this forum was to go to Savannaket for 1-year Multi-O however wife thinks that is a waste of time and money. She's transferred ฿900k of her money into my Thai bank account and wants me to get a non-O retirement visa. So, I will enter in September on 90-day non-O and stay about 80 days. What will the procedure be to get non-O retirement at Jomtien office? Apply within last 30 days of visa? Letter from bank and bank book? TM30 will show my address? My wife owns a condo in Jomtien where we are normally based but her home address (as on ID card) is at the house in Udon. How do I verify my address (live with wife so obviously no rental contract etc).

I used to regularly stay in a 1980-built condo of this type of red brick construction. It was a little shabby (broken tiles and cracks in rendering) but the structure itself seemed very solid and little sound transmission between units. IMO it was much better built than most of the newly-built condos that I've stayed in.

I've looked and not found anything other than Shopee, Lazada and Amazon.

A weak shock absorber will allow the wheel to 'hop' over small bumps and rock/pitch excessively over large undulations. Normally weak shock absorbers don't make a noise. Knocks from the suspension are generally down to play in drop links or wear in the strut top bearing. Sometimes bottom ball joint or bushes. Knocking through the steering is usually play in the inner or outer TRE, sometimes a worn rack. In my experience a weak shock absorber is generally also leaking, but not always. You can check the shocks by pressing down hard on each corner of the car - when you let go it should rebound once and then settle. More than one bounce means a weak shock. Shocks are not expensive and labour to swap is not expensive in Thailand so IMHO if you are doubtful then just change all four.