n8sail

Hopefully OP will do well with this car.  Some friends have this car and have been waiting 6 months already for a controller that died. Car sitting in driveway.  I do agree that someone here will eventually figure out repairs.

For anyone else following, if considering a 2nd hand EV, definitely check out MG EP.  I just traded mine after 4 years 107k km.  Flawless vehicle.  Serviced once for 6400 baht at 100k (changed reduction gearbox oil, bled brakes, etc etc.)   Traded at MG dealer for 255,000 baht, can find them around 300-350k baht on One2Car.  Battery literally same as brand new.  Mostly kept it between 40-80%, fast charged maybe 20 times total.

I'd have sold to a friend/co-worker in a 2nd for trade-in price, but no one wanted/could afford it.  Ah well, some tent dealer is gonna make easily 80k baht off the deal.

SAIC (MG) is the largest and oldest state-owned vehicle manufacturer in China.  Spare parts won't be an issue.

Just got a weird email from Krungsri saying someone attempted to open a Krungsri Biz Online account in my name in February of 2020.  I have had and actively used a personal account with them since ~2013, and only use web browser on PC.  (No, I'm not that old or tech unsavy (I run Linux only), I am security conscious and use another bank for my 'risky' phone app banking, with little money in the account, use Krungsri with no app for everything else)   Anyways, emailed back, then got a text message only in Thai with a temp password.  Wasn't sure what it was.

20 mins later Krungsri called, very nice, well-spoken English and explained the situation, all personal accounts moved to Biz Online, supposedly no monthly charges.

Just logged in, changed password as prompted, and everything is there.  Favorite transfers and all.

The kind girl informed me this MUST be done in the next 7 days or you will lose all access and only be able to use mobile app.

So us security conscious/elderly/stuck-in-the-muds can rejoice and keep banking through the web with Krungsri.  :)

13 minutes ago, Ralf001 said:

 

Still a huge stretch.

blowing over the limit roadside has you taken to produce a formal sample, that can be roadside tent or at the police station.

If you still feel you are being stooged insist on a blood sample test.

If it does make it to court and the judge orders your vehicle to be seized... that policeman has paid off a lot of people to buy your car at auction.

 

Of course a stretch, but not impossible.

Police officers getting cars through seizure and auctioning:  See Joe Ferrari.

Inspection and report falsification?  See SAO building collapse.  They'd have made off with hundreds of millions of baht between them if the quake didn't happen.

1 minute ago, Ralf001 said:

 

Be interesting to see how a falsified breath reading stands up in court.

 

BTW it wont be the policeman taking the vehicle, it will be the courts.

For sure, and likely auctioned as they do with vehicles confiscated for other crimes.  But one could imagine it would be very easy for someone to follow the car through the system and make sure it goes for the 'right price' when the time comes.

Breathalyzer readings in the other direction make it through courts all the time, at least in the USA.  Usually for poor calibration certification or some such detail that a well-paid lawyer can sniff out.  I imagine a breathalyzer calibration technician making 500 baht a day would happily make the machine look to show more than it should for a 1000 baht note.  Crazier things have certainly happened for inspection/calibration of equipment in this country  :)

For westerners or 'unconnected' Thais with nice vehicles, this would be really scary.  Crooked cop at a checkpoint likes your car.  Makes paperwork that says you were drunk, takes your car.

What are you going to do about it?  Get a lawyer?  Better have a lot of time and deep pockets.

3 minutes ago, brewsterbudgen said:

Interesting.  No new TM30 was required by Rayong when my wife returned from abroad last year.  I've just got back from the UK, so will be interested to see what happens when I go in to do my 90-day report in July.  My landlord does my TM30 for me and she "confirmed" that no new TM30 was required by Rayong when returning to the same address from abroad.  I wonder if she'll pay the fine if she's wrong?!

She may be correct about coming abroad, as my trip was inside Thailand.  I've since been to Japan and Sri Lanka, and did a TM30 on return from both.  Both trips reset my 90-day report timeline, so I won't find out until end of June if that was really necessary.

My TM30 is done online and had no problems submitting both times.

I've lived in Rayong for nearly 12 years.  Before late last year I only knew what a TM30 was because of reading about it on AN.  Never once was asked for it.  I had to do a 90-day report last year in-person and the IO asked if I had traveled in Thailand recently and where was my TM30 for my return to my Rayong address.  I had been to Phuket and the hotel had apparently done a TM30 for me there.  Of course I didn't have an updated TM30 for Rayong.  Very luckily he let me go, but said next time MUST have TM30.  He actually made a note on the 90 report receipt so that the next report the IO would see that I had been warned.

I've also gotten many Certificates of Residency for cars, condo, licenses boats etc. at Rayong over the years, same thing, never asked for TM30 until last year.

So something changed higher up at Rayong last year and they've gotten more strict about this.

14 minutes ago, Guderian said:

Hmm, it doesn't look like 'Serene Phla Resport' will be very serene if this expansion goes ahead, lol.

Indeed.  Kind of a weird resort, very large and open, concrete modern architecture buildings.  Too big to feel cozy.   Went to a wedding there several years ago, was a pretty good venue for that.

They already expanded U-Tapao just before COVID.  Every time I fly from there, It is a ghost town.  Extremely convenient IF you can find a flight that goes where you want to go.  Very limited schedule these days.

The logistics of using this airport, even with the larger terminal, are the stuff of dreams.  Never seen more than 2 flights boarding at a time.

This Eastern Aviation Hub project is well underway already.  Someone's family member got a fat contract to build a parking lot and a huge solar array out in the middle of nowhere 55555.    Corruption at its best.

https://maps.app.goo.gl/9AqjxUrVLaJaGMMu5

In Japan quite common apparently to have insects as pets.

Didn't know this until listening to a Radiolab podcast yesterday.  Apparently someone in Japan once paid equivalent of USD$90,000 for a beetle there!

https://radiolab.org/podcast/signal-hill-caterpillar-roadshow

(No affiliation with Radiolab, just love the show)

Don't knock it until you've tried it....?  (I still hate cockroaches!)

I go 1-3 times per year for work, usually Shenzhen/Donguang and also Shanghai.  Have also been to Qingdao and Qingyuan, a place where I literally didn't see another westerner the whole 3 days I spent there.  That was about 5 years ago, though.

Recently, I have had trouble making purchases and getting cash with my USA credit card despite warning my bank and them swearing it will work.  I have also many times not been able to use cash, so that IS in fact a thing, especially in the last 1 year.  Maybe in big, touristy areas it's fine, but I go for work and only briefly visit these  types of places.  My SCB debit card worked no problem at the checkouts I tried, just make sure to enable 'international transactions' in the SCB app before you go.  It does annoy people behind you in lines as scanning with wechat is FAR faster than credit/debit cards.  Getting wechat scanning working for foreigners is basically impossible, co-worker has tried for years.

My recommendation for internet is use an overseas roaming package.  I use AIS, it works just fine.  Co-worker from USA uses Verizon, also works.   All our normal apps/webpages seem to work through overseas 4/5G connections.  Use a VPN for sure if on any wifi connection.

Co-worker has wirelessly had credit cards and data/accounts stolen from phone multiple times in past few years.  He now uses a 'faraday bag' to store his wallet and phone to prevent hacking when in large public places such as train stations etc.  Since starting that he has not been hacked.  Can probably find on lazada.  I thought it was BS...  but apparently they actually work.

3 hours ago, RichardColeman said:

Any news on EV chargers in the flood risk areas ? 

 
Evolt Official Line group sent a message out saying some their chargers will be preemptively shut off, and listed provinces where this might happen, and apologized for inconvenience.

That is the only one of the 8 (yes EIGHT!) different apps/companies I have on my phone that are available in Thailand that said anything at all to its users, at least that I saw.  Luckily I almost never use public chargers.

1 hour ago, Korat Kiwi said:

Nissan Fairlady either 350Z or 370Z, not that expensive. 

 

From about NZ$14,000 (286k baht) to NZ$20,000 (400k baht). 

Quite a lot more money here than in NZ, USA, Canada, UK etc.

https://www.one2car.com/en/cars-for-sale/nissan/370z

Still nowhere near a "Supercar"  or "Luxury".   Ricemobile is what they call them where I come from.

A Thai friend of ours has one.  Was around 1.5 million baht.   It is slammed, with ridiculous camber settings, like 30 degrees or so.   I don't know how he drives it around on these roads.

On 9/22/2024 at 6:54 PM, Wongkitlo said:

Do you have any updates? Is the ship still there or has been reflected?

Just asked her, she hasn't heard anything else.  Like most news stories in Thai news media, this will likely be a 'one-and-done' story, unless one goes to see for themselves.

Hopefully others can chime in with any Social Media Farang-oriented off-road groups, but I can give you my experience in off-roading here.

In 2016 I also got a Ranger 4x4 and have explored around Rayong area some and also other places in Thailand.  Tried multiple routes to get over Khao Nang Yong hills just north of Map Ta Phut area, never successfully.  The trouble here is trails get washed out VERY quickly in wet season and go from 'beginner' to 'need A+ level expert driving and equipment' in less than a season.  Also, vegetation quickly overgrows if no one is trimming back or driving a trail constantly.

For a real "Beginner" trail that is well-travelled, I can recommend driving up to Phenoen Thung viewpoint in Kaeng Krachan NP.    https://maps.app.goo.gl/Edif9NRGDM14a1Yy6

You can camp up there as well.  Most vehicles are tours, but private vehicles can also drive.  A 4x2 could make it, but you're gonna torture the transmission on the way up and toast your brakes on the way down.  There was a new, red-plate Benz 'SUV' that had done it the day we did.  Badly damaged the rims of his 22" wheels.  "Talay Mog" (Sea of Fog) often seen from the top if you get there early enough in the morning.

Girlfriend bought a car at the show last spring in BKK.  I think she got a better financing deal.  If I recall MG would have brought it to our local dealership for free, however she picked it up in-person.  For me, the best part about it was being able to see every single manufacturer all in a couple hours time.  For someone like the OP who knows exactly what they want already, I'd probably just buy locally as I don't think she really saved that much money in the end.  Red plate swap etc was all done at local dealership.

The sales guy was indeed pushy, but was very polite.  All in all, not a bad experience.  I bought my car at the local dealership and it was pretty much the same but I didn't have to drive all the way to BKK.

Currently running in a lubuntu usb disk boot with clean Chrome install, just to get ALL the potential windows problems out of the way. Well aware of how the caching works and indeed restarting incognito was the very first thing I did after CTRL+F5.

The "lesson22" page from your link above does indeed load correctly for me on this OS and browser and shows 1.3.0, and the "Read" buttons open a new tab and work correctly.  However, the page I was referring to above does not, though it does display v 1.3.0 on loading.   The page not working for me is accessed by clicking "Reading Course", "1.Consonants ร, น, ก, ง. Long Vowels า, อ", and then "Play" in the "Notes" section of that page.  The game that loads in the new tab is what is not working, it is just blank between each text area, the buttons on top and bottom of the page are not responsive, and the Console is showing the error I pasted the screen shot of above.

So it looks like the main "1.Consonants ร, น, ก, ง. Long Vowels า, อ" page of the Reading course (and indeed some random others I tried) are not passing data to the relevant "Play" page as well?

This is happening in lubuntu as well.

Anyways, no big issue.  I can use other sections of the site no problem.  Just trying to help troubleshoot where I can, not trying to be annoying krub.  🙂

2 hours ago, ThaiNotes said:

Not work in progress.  They've been around for a few years.

 

What I've done (and I should have done yesterday) is update the version number.  When the page loads it's displayed briefly in the bottom left of the screen.  (It's also written to the console log.) If this is displaying as 1.3.0, then I think everything should be working OK.  (At least it works OK for me on the four browsers I've tested.)  If it's less than this, then there's a problem with your browser cache.  (Cloudflare is caching the correct version.  I've checked.)

 

As for "thanks to you and the others that have made this possible", the entire site (with the exception of the FSI language course) is all my own work.

In that case, a massive thanks to you!  Cheers mate.

It appears an error is being thrown in the console.  I doubt it's cache-related as I only browse the web in Incognito mode.  Closed and reloaded that, still no go.  Tried in normal mode as well just in case Incognito caused the problems, and that threw the exact same error.  My setup is pretty standard.  I'll try and boot into Linux next and see what happens there.

@ThaiNotes Are the "Reading / Play" pages still a work in progress?  I've tried Chrome and Edge, Ctrl+F5 many times, no luck, the words to click on don't load.  The HTML text is loading, spaced out what looks to be correctly, but what I assume are Javascript portions are not loading.  Latest stable Chrome version on fully updated Win11.

Technical problems aside, this is going to be an amazing resource, many thanks to you and the others that have made this possible.

10 year Chinese visa cannot be transferred.  I have same 10 year visa in old passport, Thai visa in new one, I have to carry both passports when I go to China.