StevieAus

2 hours ago, Schuimpge said:

I'm looking around a bit for tyres, though not necessary yet. Ford Everest 3.2L Titanium+. Bought 2 weeks ago and had new tyres fitted by the shop I got it.

But reading this thread, I'm surprised I see no mention of BF Goodrich?

Their A/T tyres get very high review scores.. Anybody any experience with them?

I started this thread as I have the same vehicle it is about 3 years old and came fitted with Goodyear from new

I have replaced with Dunlop a few weeks ago 

There were no problems with the Goodyear and so far the same with the Dunlop

On 11/23/2019 at 8:23 AM, JAS21 said:

Well what tires did you end up with Steve? Don’t keep us all in suspense!

If it’s me your asking the question of and I know the post I started is quite old the answer is Dunlop and so far very satisfied 

Will wait forThe wet season  and see what happens 

11 hours ago, Max69xl said:

Who needs overpriced crappy wine? 

If you are buying overpriced crappy wine you are obviously buying from the wrong places

There is reasonable priced good wine particularly reds if you look around

10 hours ago, kellio said:

It's becoming more and more obvious everyday from an expat living in Pattaya on and off for almost 20 years, that the current governing Thailand regime is making it more and more difficult for foreigners (Who I'll refer to as farangs) to stay here for extended periods or to retire here.
New laws are being introduced constantly or are put forward almost daily and all appear to targeted the white skinned while other laws are being introduced just as quickly to make it easier for other Asians such as the Chinese and Indians to come and stay here.

I don't and have never had a racial bone in my body but the reasoning behind all this is unfathomable in that the Chinese for example, spend all their money on package deals before they leave China so upon their arrival in Thailand, travel around in Chinese owned tourist buses and stay in Chinese owned hotels and eat in Chinese owned restaurants.
They rarely spend any money here at all except maybe to buy a souvenir or 2 from Chinese owned stalls or souvenir shops.and never venture out unless in groups organized by the same Chinese owned travel agencies.
They wander around following the guy with the little flag on a stick with necks on swivels and never break that line regardless of traffic or red light traffic signals.
As a result, they are constantly causing traffic jams and holding up the life supporting vehicle traffic delivering food and other essentials to the rest of the populace.
I've actually seen them step in front of emergency vehicles like ambulances with red and blue light flashing and sirens on full volume accompanied by other such vehicles like fire brigades and police just in case they break the line.
On the other hand, they are now allowing Indians to come here with little or no security checks and there's now talk of them allowing and introducing laws that don't require the Indians to even have passports and are subsiding air fares so they can travel here return for as little as US$100.
I was told a few weeks ago that that the government is going to increase the allowable number of Indians permitted to 10 times the current number.
The Indians are as bad if not worse than the Chinese as they completely ignore local culture and laws. 
They will loiter about or wander around in groups of no less than 4 and more often 10 or 12 and are usually all males with rare exception. 
They hang around street corners or on footpaths blocking all other pedestrian traffic and will not move to let others pass regardless of how politely they are asked. 
If you're in a lift and wanting to get out while there are Indians wanting to get in, brace yourself for a tussle because they will not let you get out before they charge in.
They will also walk down busy streets and sois abreast of each other, sometimes 6 at a time regardless of traffic and the constant abuse from drivers who are obviously and mostly Thais going about their everyday business or jobs, so once again disrupting and annoying everyone who comes here except themselves.
They will also walk across busy streets "duck fashion" one behind the other also adding to the congestion.
They to have little money and it's not uncommon to see 6 or 8 of them sitting on bar stools with a single bottle of water or beverage between them and 6 straws.
This is annoying bar owners so much because farangs who do have the money are not going into these bars because all the seats are taken and many bar owners are now banning them from bars altogether.
The number of new Indian restaurants being opened in Pattaya is staggering buy many are not selling food.A friend recently shared his experience in visiting 4 Indian restaurants in close proximity to each other before they found one that actually sold food.
The staff in the others made lame excuses like "Sorry Sir. The chef has failed to arrive today" or, Sorry sir but we are writing a new menu and it's not completed yet"

So, now they are going to the beaches and taking all the free seats there while ogling the Thai girls and farang alike who are also getting really annoyed.
I'm not suggesting for one moment that all Indians who visit Pattaya will act in the above manner and nor am I suggesting that all Chinese will either but the vast majority who visit for a short stay, do as any expat living here will testify..  
Why on earth the government is condoning all this I have no idea and but all the above combined with the new restrictions being introduced and the strength of the Thai baht play a major role in why expats are leaving Pattaya and others are not taking their place and I'm sure the same applies elsewhere.
PS. To any moderator considering this to be a bit too racial, it is not written as such but is simply the truth and should be allowed so others can comment and add their opinions.
 

What new laws are being introduced constantly to make it harder for “Farang” to retire here.

The only change I have experienced in the past nine years is that I now obtain my income letter from the Bank rather than the Australian Consulate, it is cheaper and saves me a five hour round trip to Chiang Mai and an overnight stay.

My expat friends who have either Retirement Extensions or Marriage Visas don't seem to have experienced problems either.

12 hours ago, Ron jeremy said:

Better value in Vietnam, tourists are voting with their feet, the greedy Thais made their own bed. They thought it would never end!????????????????????

Two weeks ago we took a couple of friends visiting from overseas to Da Nang in Vietnam

The hotel where we stayed was almost full of Koreans I asked about five couples had they visited Thailand

There responses were all to the effect of Thailand is a nice place but too expensive, Vietnam is better value

26 minutes ago, amykat said:

Because either you are suffering from that, or you are naive/have your head in the sand, or just live a life where you don’t experience much in certain areas, or you are too new ...who knows, or you suffer from a belief that you must remain and believe in positivity at all costs???  Or you work for the government propaganda system ....or you troll to cause more posters to have an interesting debate??  
 

Some of you with this strange belief system sure can throw your fellow expats under the bus and shred them to pieces with little to no information and certainly with no empathy working in that analysis.  No positive thinking on that side.

Or alternatively you can accept the situation as it is and despite all the bleating and complaining you will not change the situation 

Also if it is so oppressive why are you you living here

I had a good lifestyle in Australia but prefer to live here despite the so called oppressive, racist etc etc conditions complained about by posters on this site.

If it is so bad return to your previous Utopia,

Somehow I don’t expect a mass exodus,

5 hours ago, Scouse123 said:

Well first of all it smacks of trying to sell a story to the media with the obligatory ' hard done by face ' in the photograph.

 

Next, Sending a Moneygram to Thailand with funds and it " goes missing " without further comment from him, suggests to me, (and I might be wrong), he told his ' girlfriend ' the code probably because he trusted her,and then waltzed off and withdrew the cash and disappeared. He has remained tight lipped on where this alleged cash went if it ever existed.

 

Next, why would you get a one way ticket to Thailand in any event? A return is usually a cheaper option. Sounds very odd.

 

Going to court and getting the fine and a short spell in Nong Palai is standard and not worthy of mention, Also, losing your possessions whilst incarcerated. By the sounds of this story and state of his funds, he had very little worthy of stealing.

 

Neither would the Embassy state that you would only be held for around ' two weeks ' as they know full well that you are held until you can raise the funds for your flight home from friends and relatives.

 

Only in extreme cases, such as severe hospitalization or terminal illness would they step in on humanitarian grounds if the FCO agreed.

 

Nong Palai is a low category prison and a remand prison for those on short sentences. I find it hard to believe he was locked up with 150 Thai gangsters and murderers! Most of the Thais iN there are kids on drug sentences for buying, selling and using drugs, petty theft,robbery etc

 

You do get criminals on serious charges sent there for remand purposes for the convenience of them attending court.After sentencing,  they are dispersed to various prisons around the country such as Rayong, Klong Prem, and on occasions Bang Kwang, depending on their sentence.

 

These prisons are higher category prisons with higher security classifications.

 

No comment on the US citizen passing away, that is a sad situation and RIP to the poor gentleman.

 

I do agree with posters here that the brutal way the Thais treat over stayers in IDC and on remand in local prisons is a disgrace by international standards for what is, a civil offense. I am sure if the flip flop was on the other foot, they would be screaming to high heaven about human rights.

 

However, their country, their rules.

 

 

Your last sentence sums it up completely also in relation to many issues I realized years ago it is pointless trying to compare what happens here with your own country

Either accept the situation or don’t live here

21 hours ago, BTB1977 said:

Another way to teach the Thais to love the farang.  Kind of like an open hunting season on farang.  Put a target on our backs and see if a Thai can bag one. 

Do you think other countries don’t encourage their citizens to report people breaching Immigration rules?

Australian certainly does there is a website dedicated to the issue you can even make reports online anonymously.

It seems to me people like yourself and others want the law to suit  themselves.

No sympathy from me I comply so should others.

1 hour ago, BritManToo said:

Been here ten years, never found a government hospital that let me in without my passport (or a large cash deposit up front). My Thai family always had to produce their ID before any treatment.

That’s been my experience with our local hospital in the North although they accept my pink ID card.

To be fair the cost of treatment which has only been outpatient and minimal  has never been raised before treatment.

At the end they tell you to go to another area to pay.

On 11/2/2019 at 5:22 PM, ukrules said:

I'm referring mostly to short term visitors.

 

Get run over by a car while on holiday in England and need a few days in the ICU and a couple of operations, no problem, it's free of charge.

 

In Thailand that's millions of Baht. That's why I spend thousands of pounds every year on top notch insurance.

 

It's also much more expensive for the basic insurance option here in Thailand than the paltry 400 pounds per year (15,600 Baht) they charge in the UK on a long term visa.

As I understand it there is no free treatment for Thais or any other visitor according to what I have read on the NHS website, they will not refuse to treat you but expect you to pay whether they get the money is another story,

I have a friend in the UK who works for a large hospital in a London who told me it’s a big problem regarding non payment and have someone whose job entails seeking to recover the cost of treatment unsuccessfully in most cases.

To confirm the above on a trip to the UK a couple of years ago my Thai wife took ill and visited a hospital in Manchester they said she would be expected to pay for the treated.

When she produced her Aus passport she was told that under a reciprocal agreement with Australia she could have “emergency” treatment for free.

It was rather academic as we have worldwide medical insurance.

On 10/29/2019 at 7:16 PM, OZinPattaya said:

I don't think they like western retirees either, especially early-retirees. If you look younger than an octogenarian, and are foolish enough to disclose retirement as your justification for opening a Thai bank account, they think you must be up to no good. My advice, tell the banker that you need to open a bank account to pay for a condo, or some such.

 

Certainly not my experience with the Bangkok Bank when I retired here well before the “normal” retirement age I was far from being an octogenarian and still am.

I found the bank more than helpful and still are when providing letters for such things as the retirement extension.

Perhaps here in the North there are fewer people up to “no good” than in Pattaya

18 hours ago, Thian said:

Last week i bought 4 fanblades from lazada, paid cod unfortunately...the advertised as being from hatari but they were chinese knockoffs, the fans now shake enormous and sound like a chopper...so i dumped them today.

 

I wish i had paid them by paypal cause then i could report these scammers. But that's why you can't pay many shops by paypal.

You shouldn’t have any problem returning them and getting a refund

I returned something recently no questions asked, its all done on line and they paid the postage

4 minutes ago, Mason45 said:

Where do I stand, I own 3 properties all in different provinces. I'm on a retirement visa do I have to submit a TM30 every time I go for a short holiday. I've lived in Thailand for the past 20 years, married to my Thai wife for 16 years. I've never seen so much confusion, for tourists it's fairly simple.

The short answer I would suggest is to ask your local Immigration Office, as the requirement seems to vary between Provinces,

Where I live you are only required to lodge one after returning from leaving the country.

Last week we went across into Burma for the day and my wife lodged one the following day it was a fairly simple process but then we have a local Immigration Office.

On 9/2/2019 at 10:48 AM, CHiangMaiMuu said:

I served in the war in Vietnam, in 1969-1970, and I lived there for about 4 months altogether this year.

And I have to say YOU ARE A GODDAMN LIAR.

First place, people in Vietnam never did believe that trash that the communists said about the Americans in Vietnam; the common people had to go through the years of hell when the Viet Cong came in the night to their villages and took their rice and raped their daughters and took their sons to train to be savage killers. In some parts of the country, in Quang Nam province, many of the local people were refugees from North Vietnam who had left their homes to get away from the communists. They looked to "us" - Marines in the C.U.P.P.  units along side the South Vietnamese Regional Forces - to protect them from the guerillas. I used to go through the village with the Navy Corpsman (like a nurse) to translate for him, since I had gone to the 3-month Vietnamese language course in the States. The Corpsman treated the villagers illnesses as best he could. The Vietcong raped them and beat their children.

 

Second place,  even if you don't believe that, you are 100% wrong in what you say about the Vietnamese people's attitude to farangs. The people that I asked in the spring of this year in Vietnam said that the communists lied about the Americans. My young Vietnamese friend in Quy Nhon, whom I hired as a language teacher and guide, told me her mother told her the Americans were good to her. She worked on an Army base back then and, even after the brain-washing they did on her she still says - quietly - that the communists lied. My friend's older brother down in Saigon also said the same thing about the Viet Cong. He is making it as businessman, in spite of the oppression by the communists some people are making it because they are naturally entrepreneurs, resourceful and courageous. And they have to remain quiet or they die. And they want American advisors and tourists and investor.

 

People like you - you remind of the American Air Force veteran - who sat out the war in England and also thinks the Americans "lost" in Vietnam - you think that by not being there and by listening to propaganda 

put out by cowards who sent young people out to murder other people you are experts on the issue. Even the facts that they took out 60,000 of our boys and we killed over a million of them does not impinge on your mind.

 

The people in South Vietnam do not hate us. The people who work for the government is Vietnam have a more positive attitude to us that the Thai government. Clearly that is shown by the fact that the government makes it easier for farangs to move to Vietnam and move around in Vietnam without nonsensical restrictions. 

 

And they are able to write the English language better than you.

Only one comment, what are the nonsensical restrictions on traveling around Thailand?

I have ever found or experienced any and we have and continue to travel around Thailand by road an air.

12 hours ago, Sticky Wicket said:

A tourist is simply a person who is traveling or visiting a place for pleasure. 

 

There is no time restriction based on the definition.

 

Why can't somebody be a tourist for 1, 2, 10 years? 

 

It's dinosaur thinking from a dinosaur run country

Well the UK must fit your definition because over the years I have visited many times and my Australian passport is stamped a max of six months.

Not that I would want to stay longer by the way.

5 hours ago, transam said:

If a tyre has the encircled "E" on the sidewall, it has passed European safety standards, regardless of price...

Thanks for that something I have learned today will check the existing and proposed new ones

5 hours ago, DavisH said:

How do you find the noise level with those? A friend of a family member got a new crv 2.5 with the goodyear efficiency grip (I believe the same as yours). The complained about the road noise with them. How were yours?

There's always a tradeoff between sportiness and comfort. Thre michelin ps4 scores highly across all categories, but I find them a little noisier then the original bridgesones (mind you, the suzuki is not well insulated from noise, unlike an everest. 

Don’t seem to have been a problem I get more noise from the roof rack

13 hours ago, Xaos said:

Someone point me to actuall law about ganja being in ur system. All I can find is in regards to smuggling selling or production.

https://www.siam-legal.com/litigation/criminal-defence-drug-offences-in-thailand.php



Wysłane z mojego SM-G975F przy użyciu Tapatalka
 

I don’t take drugs and never have apart from alcohol but as a matter of interest googled  how long it stays in your system if that is your question?

According to tests conducted by the Mayo Clinic 

3 times weekly - 3 days

4 times weekly 5-7 days

Daily- 10-15 days

Multiple times daily- more than 30 days

Cannot imagine that if you are tested by the Thai Police that they will be interested where it was taken

I cannot comment on the original question but would certainly support the views on obtaining a British passport.

My Thai wife lived in Australia for a number of years and has Australian citizenship and passport our daughter has Thai, Australian and British citizenship and passports.

We live in a Thailand and travel overseas regularly in most cases not needing visas.

You can never predict the future and what your son may wish to do, obtaining the passport is a good investment.

19 minutes ago, Lacessit said:

I don't have an Everest. I swear by Michelins as a really good tire, very stable in wet conditions. I got 70,000 km out of them, and only turned them in because my mechanic told me I had tread cracking after 4 years, which is to be expected in this climate. They still were not down to the tread wear indicators.

Thanks for your response actually the car is fitted with Goodyear, have been looking at too many tyres

Re original post apologies but the car is actually fitted with Goodyear have been looking at too many tyres

23 minutes ago, DavisH said:

I don;t have an everest, but have had more luck with Michelin compared to Dunlop. You cna get Michelin pilot sport 4 in your size. I use this tire on my swift - they have excellent wet and dry grip. I currently use Michelin primacy st3 on my crv - very quiet. There are a number of brands in your size - you can check them out at www.tivanon.com

I'm not proboting their size, but they give an idea what is available. 

Thanks for your response the car is actually fitted with Goodyear

Hi I have a Ford Everest Titanium 3.2 liter which is fitted with Dunlop 265 x50R20 tyres we use it regularly for a 300 + kms round trip and a couple of times a year longer trips but never go off road.

I am looking to replace the tyres and the options seem to be either Dunlop or Michelin.

Has anyone with the same model had any other experiences or suggestions.

Thanks