Lacessit

Expat Auto in Chiang Mai has a range of secondhand cars, and a good reputation. Run by two Americans. I bought my Vios from a Brit, he had obviously maintained it well. Buying a car from a local I would regard as a lottery. Some maintain their cars, others skimp on it to save money.

Most of the taxis I see are either Toyota Corollas, the larger ones (people movers ) seem to be Toyota vans or SUV's . It makes sense, there can't be too many mechanics in Thailand that are unfamiliar with a Toyota.

Trying to remember the names of 50 people is my vision of Hell. Two or three people in a conversation is more than enough for me.

I am lucky to have a trustworthy mechanic. I also used to work on cars myself, when they were made without so much fruit salad. 7 or 8 years ago, I bought a 2006 Toyota Vios with 83,000 km on the odometer for 230,000 baht. It's now about 185,000 km. I haven't spent much on it apart from good tires and regular maintenance. I would probably get 80,000 baht for it now, so depreciation has cost me about 20k baht/year. It has never missed a beat, and has been all over northern Thailand. It is a whinge of mine that car manufacturers are anti-competition. They try to drive independent mechanics out of business by designing their vehicles to need specialist tools. I can understand people like the cachet of a new car to show off to friends, relatives and neighbors. However, I also understand buying a new car is one of the worst financial decisions one can make, apart from buying shares in tree farms. I guess one way to answer your question is to suggest you educate yourself better than you are already are, about what to look for in a used car.

I would be buying a low mileage secondhand Vios, Mazda 2 or Mitsubishi for 400 - 500K baht, and enjoying the knowledge someone else has had the pleasure of new car depreciation.

The only investment ( if it can even be called that ) I have in the stock market is a rare earth company in Western Australia which will be coming on stream in 2025. It has the world's richest deposit of the rare earths used in making permanent magnets, which have widespread applications. 60% of its projected production has been contracted to Siemens. The rest of my money is in term deposits and peer-to-peer lending. IMO stock markets are overvalued. IIRC Dr. Michael Burry is predicting another financial crisis, his track record is very good. Anyone with an education in thermodynamics knows global warming and climate change are inevitable, it's just a question of how much. Not a good time to be buying shares in insurance companies.

There are also what are called weathering steels for outside applications. They form a patina of stable rust on the steel surface. Not a good look if anyone wants something aesthetically pleasing, though. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weathering_steel

It's a bit difficult to determine whether a snake is venomous or non-venomous at 9 pm. It's not going to hang around until someone on ASEAN identifies it.

I remember people in the front row of any show with Barry Humphries doing Sir Les Patterson having rain coats and umbrellas. Perhaps the OP should do the same, if he is so concerned. It's a highly hypothetical scenario. I would regard it as an assault, especially in these days of HIV. IMO the best course of action would be a complaint to police. Having said that, I would be very tempted to respond with a quick kick in the balls.

I doubt I would have been interested in watching a woman get done by 251 guys, boredom would have set in after the first two or three.

A social security payment is not a pension? She was getting a pension from Canada, and Australia. BTW, there is no mention of your favorite topic in the changes to income support announced to commence from January 1.

The zinc coating thickness of hot dipped coil in a continuous coating line is controlled by high velocity air knives. Hot dipping of individual components is much more costly than forming sections from galvanized coil, the only form of thickness control is gravity. This is not necessarily a bad thing, as the thicker the zinc coating, the better the sacrificial protection is, plus there are no cut edges. Electrolytic zinc coating is used in automotive applications. The coating thickness rarely gets above 30 g/sqm, which is fairly useless if the material is scratched during assembly. Thicker coatings by ED simply take too long to deposit on the substrate steel.

There are opinions, and facts. It's probably better to stick to facts, although that is an opinion too.

Fair enough, not all of us are that lucky or good. IIRC you were in the US military.

Trump is so full of it people are complaining about the smell when it spills. That's not a figure of speech, either.

Ah, but can you do it all night? Or does it take all night to do?

I have got to the age where a good sh!t is much more satisfying.

There must be more behind her situation, Thais are usually brought up to respect their parents and take care of the elderly. I can see it in my GF's family. Elder abuse is increasing in countries such as Australia, hopefully it won't take root here.

I had a full sack in my twenties and thirties, after that it diminished. At my age now, it's damn near empty.

Greedy b@gger, one is enough for me.

I tried the income method for one year. I found it to be such a PITA keeping track of exchange rates, and losing money on transfers, that I went back to the 800K on deposit. The 800K was deposited when the AUD exchange rate was about 29 baht, so it looks like I will always be ahead, even if I don't touch it.

There are about 2.8 million people in Australia receiving the OAP, although some may only be receiving a part pension due to other assets. That is 63% of Australians aged 65 and over, which makes people living solely off superannuation a minority. I am guessing you are not Australian, when you post a comment which is factually wrong.

Negotiate. Point out to him you have lost other potential renters by reserving the condo for him. It's not his fault the visa was denied, that's force majeure. Morally, you should return his deposit. Legally, it's murky.

The real problem is organisations such as Hamas and Hezbollah do not recognize Israel's right to exist, and are sworn to destroy that nation. What does one do when confronted with an attitude like that? It's like trying to persuade a rabid dog to refrain from biting.

In terms of cost from low to high, the order is: Cold-rolled uncoated Galvanised Zinc-aluminium alloy. Pre-painted e.g. Colorbond. Galvanised is a bit tricky cost-wise, as the price depends on the coating thickness as well as the steel thickness. The thicker the zinc coating, the longer the sacrificial protection will last. Coating thickness can vary from 50 g/sqm to 400 g/sqm. Galvanised gives better cut edge protection than zinc/aluminium alloy. Zinc/aluminium is mainly used in roofing applications, with 0.35 mm being a fairly standard thickness. Post-painting is usually unnecessary unless the environment is quite humid, or welding operations are involved. In dry environments, galvanised will last for over 100 years. If painting over galvanised, an etch primer should be applied first. These have phosphoric acid and/or zinc phosphate as passivating compounds. Painting would be recommended for a marine environment. One poster here suggested muriatic acid ( i.e. hydrochloric acid ). That creates a corrosion cell unless completely removed, and is bad news for any crevices.