jackcorbett

Thanks for the input. As I suspected very much a case of spend more (D-Tracker looks decent), stick with what i've got (CBR), buy a Tiger Boxer or wait to see if anyone (Sachs?) bring anything else onto the market to fill the gap that the CBR will leave. I really feel uncomfortable on scooters, unstable to my mind, the tanked bikes feel a lot more solid on the road, so that is what I would prefer if I can get my hands on one.

Can only be some great Thai business logic that dropped the No ! selling sport bike on the Thai market without a replacement, not even replaced with the CBR125 which is made on the same assembly line and identical except for the 125cc engine and top cowl. Could do a bore up job on that, and have a good bike???

The Honda dealer I go to, had been averaging almost 1 sale per week of the CBR. there are many Thai CBR owners on the road now, not just Farang riders. There simply is no substitute to the CBR150 available in Thailand. It defies all normal logic.

But sure its a small market compared to the scoot market...but you cant compare.......they dont replace the CBR by any stretch of the imagination.

Aye, if you don't have the cojones to ride a big bike best to stick to scooters...

Where do you have a chance to use the modest ~70Hp of the Kawasaki 650?

How about here-

Or here-

Count how many cars you see in the video above and then tell me again how scary and dangerous Thai roads are

"Sorry, but you have posted more media files than you are allowed to" Grrrr... anyway the list is endless

Perhaps if you ventured a bit past walking street you might realize that Thailand is blessed with some of the most fantastic roads anywhere.

Ride On!

Tony

Note that I qualified my post to mean the Pattaya area. What my German friend meant was he had little chance to use the power of his 650 Ern6 because of the idiocy of the drivers here. Since posting my message about the ERn4 and Ern6, I took my gf to class at 9 a.m. from Naklua to just across from the new Central Shopping Center near Soi 9 in Pattaya. Before I got anymore than 400 meters up the street I live on a Thai guy driving in the right lane of the two way two lane suddenly decided he wanted to park his bike over on the left side of the street. So he suddenly swerved over in front of me from the lane just to my right without as much as a glance and drove just twenty feet in front of me. I had to break hard to avoid rear ending him. Then he kept veering to the left before calmly stopping his bike right next to the curb. Less than five kilometers later I turned left from Beach Road just past Mike's shopping mall onto Soi 11. There was a Thai woman ever so slowly crossing the street there while she was talking to some other Thais. She was looking straight at the pavement. Had I been going much faster than I was I could not have helped hitting her.

A very high percentage of the people here are dumber and less observant than rabbits and as we know a lot of rabbits wind up as road kill in short order. So whether to drive a big bike and to drive it fast or not is not a question of balls....it's a question of judgment and those who don't exercise it are going to wind up having an accident in short order. I think I've said quite away back that if i lived outside Pattaya out either in or much closer to the countryside that I might very well choose a different bike than my Nouvo Elegance. But even so, if one continued to drive out in the country side where there aren't very many other vehicles around the way I used to drive bikes in the U.S. I think a serious accident would still be inevitable due to the moronic driving of a very large percentage of drivers here.

Got it and it printed just fine. Interestingly enough although Yamaha recommends a periodic inspection of the V belt, it recommends its replacement only every 25,000 kilometers. Considering i only put on 13,000 kilometers on my first Yamaha Nouvo and it took three years to do that I don't think a belt replacement very 6 years is too bad. And that's just 1000 baht for the replacement which is $30.00 U.S. Oh well, so much for maintenance costs on automatic bikes.

beating, overloading and abusing, no chance you need a new belt in 25k km. 35-50k km is more like it

and its 990 baht

so much for yamaha auto maintance cost.

Honda Click and Airblade is another story

Yamaha is using Nikasil to line the cylinders of its Nouvo Elegance motorbikes. When I looked it up on various web sites, I found that Nikosil acts as a high quality heat dispersant especially for engines with aluminum cylinders and that in itself aluminum has more effective heat dispersion qualities than cast iron. Apparently Nikosil is used in many racing engines for some pretty exotic racing cars. I also read that aluminum and Nikasil allows for higher output engines since the heat dispersion is greater. I'm wondering if Honda used Nikasil on its Airblades or the equivalent. All in all, it seems to me that the Nouvo Elegance is a very high quality little piece of machinery that will last for a very long time with an absolute minimum of problems.

Very valid point about it might not being offered in Thailand at all or if it is much later than now.

Now....I tend to agree with the opinions stated here about the bike being about the same size and weight of the 650 model. Where I disagree is that this is a disadvantage and that one should go straight to the 650, especially if the prices are similar. In fact, I'd be tempted to spring for one myself if it would come in only about 50,000 baht cheaper at 200,000 baht. Here's why.

One of our fellow condo owners here bought the 650 model a couple of months ago and like a true German he is very particular and he went into detail about his likes and dislikes of his 650. His main dislike is the fuel economy which he contends is abysmal. Prior to this he had the Honda Phantom. So even if all Kawasaki did was to put cylinder sleeves in the two cylinders to downsize them and to make the appropriate changes to the carburators or fuel injection system, air intake, exhaust, etc this could still be a big win for Kawasaki. Smaller cylinders equal smaller mouths to feed everything else being equal.

I once had a 350 Honda CB which was a great all around little bike and I wound up trading it off for the 450 Honda 450 CB. Honda 450 CB Note the 450 model's weight at 186 kg. Now take a look at the Kawasaki 650, the ERn6. Kawasaki ERn6 Its weight is 178 kilograms so it tips the scales at just 390 pounds. Now that's pretty light weight. When one compares the Honda CB 350 to the CB 450, the CB 350 is definitely more agile. However at this time Honda was claiming that the 450 was the equal to such British bikes as the Triumph 650. And it was to all practical purposes equal in performance although possibly the 650 bikes would do a quarter mile at a couple miles an hour faster, but that's about it. I found that my Honda 450 had a lot of acceleration compared to the 350 up to 90 miles an hour. I'd say its top speed was around 100 miles an hour (it would do the claimed 110 only in a dream). It had all the power needed, even on super highways where it had all the power needed to pass cars easily that were doing 70 miles per hour. Also the extra weight of the Honda CB 450 gave it greater stability at higher speeds than the Honda CB 350 which would have made it the better tourer. However, I sold the bike before I had a chance to do anything more than about 60 miles at a stretch. Later on I bought a 650 BMW which performed about the same as the 450 Honda and I did 500 miles in one day on it without getting tired at all, but I'm sure the BMW vibrated less.

I'd be tempted to buy this animal at 200,000 baht if it is sold in Thailand but probably won't. The reason is fear of death. I live in Pattaya and the Nouvo Elegance 135 is perfect here. Even on Sukamvit road where I can easily pass cars. I do not intend on venturing very far out from Pattaya so there is no need of a bigger machine. Driving here (in and near Pattaya, not elsewhere in Thailand) is not a nice enjoyable ride in the country side. It's got a lot of truly despicable people out on the road who don't know how to drive and don't care whose lives they are risking including their own. My German friend even said about his 650 Kawasaki..."WHere do I get the chance to use its power?"

Just a thought. And here it is. I just showed pictures of a single red color Yamaha Fino above I had bought an ex girlfriend. And stated that nearly all new Finos have horrible paint schemes due to their being too busy with too many colors. I just returned from Central Department store here in Pattaya and after parking my Yamaha Nouvo Elegance I took in hundreds of motorbikes that were parked in the department store parking lot. Nearly all the motorbikes were butt ugly including my own Nouvo Elegance. Nearly all the motorbikes had multi colored paint schemes making them appear to varying degrees like Indy 500 race cars that have their various sponsors written all over them...eg...Firestone, STP, My Elegance is simply not as ugly as the previous year's model. About the only thing I can come up with is Thais do not have the same tastes as most Americans, Europeans and other westerners. An example of this is when I went out shopping on numerous occasions here in Pattaya for a brass faucet for my bathroom sink. I couldn't find ONE brass faucet at Carre Four's Home Pro and I couldn't even order one through Home Pro. Several trips to Boonthavorn yielded just slightly better results. Boonthavorn is a very large place on Sukamvit Road that specializes in Kitchens and bathrooms. It has a huge selection of hot tubs, jaccuzzis, bath tubs, wash basins, etc and it has a large selection of faucets and other bathroom fixtures but nothing in brass. One can specially order from just one or two selections bathroom faucets in brass at high dollar (around $200) but even at that one must wait about 2 months.

What I come up with is this. Thais on many things have a huge difference in tastes from Westerners. A large percentage of brass fixtures can be purchased in American stores but here in Thailand it's all chrome chrome chrome. Now......just check out Car and Driver's web site My link How many two toned or three toned cars do you see there? Granted, there have been times in the past when two toned paint jobs sold well, and in times past even cars with fins. But today's modern Western buyer much prefers a mono toned car with an absence of writing on it. As for the PCXi compared to most other scooter type bikes it is much more simply colored and therefore much more tastefully done. Another thing is, when you look at much larger bikes that are built or marketed for Westerners for the most part, most of them have much simpler paint schemes. For example, take a look at the Kawasaki 650 now being sold in Thailand. One might not like the green and black colors for example but i just noticed that the one in our parking lot is green with black engine and engine parts. And with no outrageous lettering all across it.

So here's a thought---if one seeks a certain measure of exclusivity that reflects the good taste of its owner in a relatively inexpensive bike that is in tune with the owner's real needs......example...Pattaya City driving......Why not get the Nouvo Elegance (or whatever other bike one prefers) custom painted to cut down on all the distracting, unappealing busy work paint jobs that nearly all small motorbike's come with?

Each to his own so not to take anything away from anyone's freedom of choice and freedom to express his opinion....this is my take. First off, the original beast, the Vespa is way overpriced at being over double the price of the competition. And it's got skimpy little wheels so it's going to be a lot more dangerous to drive than its Japanese (but made in Thailand or wherever competition). And yeah, it might have a steel carriage but that adds weight too. The 150 c.c. model pales in its power to weight ration when you stack it up against a 135 c.c. Yamaha Nouvo Elegance which is both lighter and more powerful. Moving onto the Scoopy to its credit it has a slightly bigger engine than the Yamaha Fino and it's got bigger tires. But it's been whipped up with ugly stick in a big way. Did I say it was ugly? It's uglier than sin. The Fino even outdoes the original for its beautifully sculpted lines. This design is absolutely sinsational. However the new models have horrible paint schemes, even more horrible than the first generation Yamaha Nouvo Elegance has which has been corrected in the Elegance. Yamaha used to have some very nicely single color Finos. For example take a look at this red model I had bought for a previous girlfriend. Now take a look at the three two tone paint bikes that is representative of the current Fino line.

Note in the first two pictures the single color Yamaha Fino's, white and red. Seems they are all multi colored now. So I'd either wait until Yamaha once again gets its color act together or buy one of whatever color, then have it either repainted or purchase replacement panels, fenders etc in an acceptable color. And that brings up a point in the favor of plastic. There's been some criticism of the "cheap plastic" here used in such bikes as the Nouvo Elegance, Fino and even the new Honda PCX. Thing is on a lot of motorbikes one can buy here in Thailand there are metal parts that get pitted or rusty in a hurry. For instance on the Honda Phantom around the instrument panel area. The thing about such bikes as a Yamaha Nouvo Elegance, they don't have all these metal bits that get rusty and subsequently take away from the bike's beauty. Second of all, if you ever have an accident with such bikes and you only damage the fenders, cowling, etc it is pretty inexpensive replacing the plastic parts. Lastly......one does not have a lot of chrome or other metal parts that make you a slave to the bike by having to continuously polish and clean it.

Good points from both of you. I tend to view it like this....1. My friend is not a bank so why should he behave like one? And 2. Good idea. Let the buyer rent the condo with an option to buy. That seems to be the tidiest arrangement. Still wondering how far off base the lawyer i strongly urged my friend to go to was when she told him to insist on right of redemption. I can see your point about the stickiness of real estate transfer fees being paid still one more time. Also.......although it seems many of Thailand's traffic laws are the same as in the U.S. the major difference is that here in Thailand they their enforcement is practically non existent. Example in point....what happens in the U.S. if one runs a red light? if the police see you do it you are going to get a ticket every time. But here in Pattaya the last time anyone got a ticket for running a red light was in 1897 while the last time anyone got a ticket for driving the wrong way down a one way street was 1814. So as a practical matter I'm wondering how difficult it is to get the authorities to actually enforce a right of redemption on a condo sale from one Westerner to another.

The last time I used the lawyer i recommended to my friend was when a female insurance agent sold me a policy on my condo, but failed to deliver the policy to me. Turned out the insurance broker pocketed the money but did not insure me. I had to pay this lawyer 1000 baht. She put the fear of God in the Insurance broker and I had my policy in a matter of days. The insurance broker had been playing a game of standing me up for appointments and on the appointments she kept she's simply not bring me my policy. She stood up my lawyer too who immediately informed the broker that if she did not come up with a policy for me in very short order she's put her in jail. I would absolutely not want to cross this lawyer who has on at least one other occasion than the one I mentioned been rather successful at gaining the instant respect of the opposition.

A friend of mine is in the process of selling his condo. I strongly urged my friend to hire a Thai woman attorney who has done an excellent job for me on two separate occasions at a very reasonable price. He saw the woman, then he wound up seeing two other attorneys after deciding she had made an error in her understanding of the Thai law regarding the right of redemption. I want to ease in my own mind if the lawyer I strongly recommended to him was right or not.

The sales price agreed upon between the buyer and seller is 5 million baht. The buyer claims he doesn't have the money but he will get it down the line. He has just put down 2 million baht on the condominium which is in my friend's own name, not a Thai company. During the next several months he is to come up with another half a million baht. The buyer is to pay the seller 10,000 baht a month which represents the approximate monthly interest on the outstanding balance for three years after which he is to pay the balance owed to the seller. That's at 5 % interest.

I just saw my friend who told me the lawyer he saw first who I urged him to use insisted that he get "right of redemption." I understood this to mean that if for any reason the buyer defaulted on his payments that he could be evicted from the condo, my friend would then gain possession of the condo and the seller would forfeit all monies he had paid the seller.

What happened next is my friend went to a "falang" lawyer who told him the Thai attorney was wrong on the question of "right of redemption" The buyer had hired a legal advisor who I am well familiar with (who does not have a law degree). This advisor wrote the initial sales contract. She agreed with the falang lawyer regarding the "right of redemption so now my friend thinks the lawyer I recommended isn't a good lawyer and that she gave him bad legal advice.

The sale just went through. And I got it from both the seller and buyer that the title will be in both their names. My personal feeling is the lawyer I recommended gave my friend sound legal advice. The legal adviser representing the buyer will naturally serve her client to the best of her ability and this means drawing up a contract that is in the best interests of her client---and not my friend. As to the "falang lawyer"....who knows. He's a Westerner, not Thai and I think not nearly as qualified as the lawyer I urged my friend to hire in the first place.

So after all the above facts are considered, my question is this. Did the lawyer I recommended to my friend give him sound legal advice or not---that is the right of redemption enforceable in Thailand against a buyer of a foreign owner condo who's defaulted in his payments? Secondly, did my friend screw up by making the deal he wound up making?

Mag Wheels on the Nouvo MX are not tubeless, at least the ones on my one (Original) are not.

Easyest way to avoid punctures is having enough Air in the tire. If you check the airpressure often and pump the tyres up you will have much less punctures.

I agree with you there. I try to air up my tires once a week but usually get it done about every two weeks and I've had very little trouble with flats having had just one in over four years. I have a bicycle pump with an integrated air pressure gauge and as far as I know I am one of the very few in this condo with one. In fact, several people including one of our female Thai staff members will borrow my pump occasionally. My theory is if you are consistently running your tires where they should be you have a hard relatively unyielding surface that a lot of flat causing objects will tend to bounce off of but if you have a soft yielding tire due to being low on air pressure you simply don't have the resistance to many flat causing objects.

I don't know about junk but I just came off an American Vespa web site and this is what I came up with. A 150 c.c.. Vespa costs $4500 in the U.S. It has dinky 11 inch tires so I'd think driving it at the upper end of its performance curve would be like driving in a wet sand box. It does only 59 miles an hour, has less than 9 horsepower and is rated at only around 75 miles to the gallon. There is a much smaller 50 c.c. Vespa for around $3300 but it will only do 37 miles an hour. Or one can pay over $5000 and own the road by getting 300 c.c. Vespa. But it actually only has around 270 cc's and Vespa only claims 80 miles an hour for it. In some countries Honda has the 300 Shi i and it will do 85 miles an hour or so according to road tests that I've read. Moreover the Italian offering rides on still dinky 12 inch tires and it's only going to set you back $6000 or so for this. I don't know about the rest of you here, but it looks like when one buys Vespa one buys inferior engineering at much higher Italian labor costs. I suppose one might argue that it's all about style, but if I want that special Italian style I think I'd go with a 40,000 baht Yamaha Fino riding on 14 inch tires.

Alan, the Tiger Gmax is 69000 thb ...price is mentioned here (you need to scroll down) Tiger & Sachs Biker's Club

and it is right the Tiger Gmax is basically the PGO Gmax .

Tiger/Sachs Club - Mbox

The Tiger GMax is a good looking bike. It also has big tires and that is a plus. It also has a relatively large fuel tank (over 7 liters) and that's yet another plus. What I don't see is spending 69,000 baht when you can get a Nouvo Elegance for 52,000 baht (with wire wheels). I've also noticed the Gmax has 11 horsepower. The Nouvo Elegance has 11.2 horsepower. Furthermore the Elegance is liquid cooled whereas the Tiger G-Max is air cooled. Of course there are advantages to each cooling type of system. Nevertheless the trend has been to water cooling for the automatic motorbikes which is being billed by the manufacturers as an evolutionary step upwards.

No crap about it. Just plain simple fact. There's a PCX in our condo parking lot. Along with my Yamaha Nouvo Elegance. My Elegance measures approximately 25.75 inches across the handle bars. The PCX measures 28 inches. Across what I might refer to as a small fairing the Elegance measures 17 inches to the Honda's 21 inches. With the foot pegs pulled back on both machines the Elegance measures 19 inches to the PCX's 22 inches at this point. Lastly the seat area is 19 inches wide on the PCX---the Elegance is only 17.

So.....When the traffic gets jammed up and I find the smallest gaps between the cars and bikes lined up, so small at times that it seems I have only an inch on each side of my bars and I'm going so slow that I'm scraping the ground with my feet, the Elegance still gets through the narrowest gaps. In a lot of those places the PCX is simply too wide to slither through. This might mean that I'll get through a light when it's green while the PCX is still sitting unable to inch through. There's no denying the pure physics here...the Elegance is going to be able to knife through gaps that are going to stop the PCX cold. It's also going to be easier to park in the tight spots.

Oh please..........do you have any more stats....it's soooooooo interesting , either ride the bike or shut the F up !!

That's mighty kind of you. Now read those stats again and report back to me your findings.

1. You need to ride the bike instead of continually coming out with crap like:

"Can't say for sure as I've never driven the PCX but greater weight and girth, and larger tires, is going to have definite disadvantages. Example in point, there is no way a PCX could have squeezed between the cars and motorbikes I squeezed through today on my Nouvo Elegance and I doubt the PCX will have the acceleration my Nouvo Elegance has"

"or a more agile slimmer machine that is more versatile"

the above comments having the inference that the PCX is unsuited to riding in traffic. I have ridden Click's, Waves and Airblades and I can assure you from first hand experience there is no discernable difference in versatility between them. The PCX doesn't feel any wider to a competent rider and has better acceleration. In summary - The PCX is totally usable and as versatile in traffic as any of the other small autos.

No crap about it. Just plain simple fact. There's a PCX in our condo parking lot. Along with my Yamaha Nouvo Elegance. My Elegance measures approximately 25.75 inches across the handle bars. The PCX measures 28 inches. Across what I might refer to as a small fairing the Elegance measures 17 inches to the Honda's 21 inches. With the foot pegs pulled back on both machines the Elegance measures 19 inches to the PCX's 22 inches at this point. Lastly the seat area is 19 inches wide on the PCX---the Elegance is only 17.

So.....When the traffic gets jammed up and I find the smallest gaps between the cars and bikes lined up, so small at times that it seems I have only an inch on each side of my bars and I'm going so slow that I'm scraping the ground with my feet, the Elegance still gets through the narrowest gaps. In a lot of those places the PCX is simply too wide to slither through. This might mean that I'll get through a light when it's green while the PCX is still sitting unable to inch through. There's no denying the pure physics here...the Elegance is going to be able to knife through gaps that are going to stop the PCX cold. It's also going to be easier to park in the tight spots.

For me the PCX would offer bigger tires than the Nouvo or just about anything else in its class and that means a better ride, greater stability, and for me especially in my area better going over all the speed bumps.

How does a little 14 inch wheel do that over a 16 or 17 found on other scooters ?

That is a point. More centrifugal force with the larger diameter tires and a little longer contact space to the street. However.....those PCX tires seem quite large. Just look at a PCX sitting next to a CBR and the PCX tires seem larger. One definitely gets the impression this thing's going to have the same stability as a motorcycle.

Ignis,

I've never ridden a PCX so cannot pass judgement one way or another on them. I've had a Nouvo Elegance for the past 2 years and am very happy with it. I'm not as tall as you but a mate of mine who is 2m (6'6") and cannot fit onto Airblades, Clicks e.t.c due to his knees fouling the handlebars, found the Nouvo fitted him fine. He used it for a couple of months, mostly 2 up and never complained. dam_n sight cheaper than a PCX at around 52-55k new and secondhand for about 35k.

Cheers,

Pikey.

There's always tradeoffs. One of my buddies here at the condo jokingly refers to the PCX as a "Fat Ass motorbike" meaning that it's designed for guys who are "Pretty large". Then again, my buddy fits his own "fat ass" definition pretty well. For me the PCX would offer bigger tires than the Nouvo or just about anything else in its class and that means a better ride, greater stability, and for me especially in my area better going over all the speed bumps. Also...the 6 liter fuel capacity represents a definite improvement over the 4 liters in the Air Blade and 4.8 liters in the Nouvo Elegance. Can't say for sure as I've never driven the PCX but greater weight and girth, and larger tires, is going to have definite disadvantages. Example in point, there is no way a PCX could have squeezed between the cars and motorbikes I squeezed through today on my Nouvo Elegance and I doubt the PCX will have the acceleration my Nouvo Elegance has. And I most definitely can strap on more large items with Bunge cords or haul more bags of groceries due to the hook in front of me. So I suppose its a matter of apples and oranges. Both are good. It just depends what appeals to the buyer---a smoother riding and perhaps safer bike offering superior comfort or a more agile slimmer machine that is more versatile...even down to the fact that for short distances at least I can put my girlfriend behind me and a big guy as well due to the general robustness of the Nouvo Elegance and its long wide seat with no humps on it. I'd rate it a tossup and when you factor in the fact that the PCX costs nearly 20,000 baht more (nearly 40 %) the Nouvo Elegance still is top dog.

PCX looks good to me ... only issue may be bodywork damage if you drop it? But it's nice looking for a scooter.

I have a Yamaha Nouvo Elegance 135cc - also a good bike - bigger wheels than a PCX so good on rough, broken roads and enough zip for city traffic. Only problem I have with the Nouvo is warm starting can be a problem ... need to kick it over before pressing the starter.

PCX has fuel injection so starting may be more reliable?

If you drop any bike it's likely to hurt !

The low friction motor (which in part enables the 'idle stop' feature) added to the fuel injection virtually guarantees you'd never have such a problem with the PCX. Starts every time like a dream......... totally reliable !

Here's something interesting I've just found New belt system for autos by Yamaha If you check you will find more info on this. The development is of a much more compact automatic transmission unit employing a drive belt that is 40 % shorter than what the autos use now. From what I've read the belt will last twice as long (up to 50,000 kilometers or so) and the horsepower to the back wheel efficiency will be substantially greater. Anyone know more about this new development?

Not allowed here, don't repost

Photos removed

Hmm...I wanted to edit that last post but can't seem to find the edit button. anyway, here's my edit

But perhaps texting and talking on phones while motorbiking is less dangerous in Thailand than in VN just because the traffic is a lot less dense in Thailand. VN is a more densely populated country, and the major cities are, as Phil notes, traffic mayhem. Add to that, in VN everyone is honking their horns all the time, adding to the general confusion. They don't do that in Thailand, do they?

The Thais are as others have mentioned very reckless. As for all the horn honking in VN, I took my Thai girlfriend to Hanoi a few months ago and she absolutely hated all the horn honking. In fact she's not too high on returning to Vietnam and it's almost entirely to all that horn noise in Hanoi.

whoever said there are 100,000 road fatalities in Thailand per year is mistaken but his point is well taken. I've seen figures between 28 to 40 per 100,000 population and with a population of 70,000,000 this comes out to about 28,000 fatalities. However one must keep in mind that the U.S. with a population of over 310,000,000 has only about 34,000 so one has to figure that Thailand has a rate of about 4 times as many deaths as in the U.S. I suggest the main two causes are as many others have pointed out, Thais in general do whatever they want to do on the road and 2. The police aren't doing a dam_n thing about it.

I regard Pattaya as being far more dangerous to drive in than the rest of Thailand. It is what it is, and along with being what it is it attracts the worse Thais and the worse Westerners so we end up having a lot of brain dead people out about.

Nevertheless I still drive a motorbike here. What I try to do is to reduce risk whenever I can while always being alert to the fact I'm surrounded by a bunch of idiots who are out to kill me whether intentionally or just out of plain stupidity. So much of the time if I'm headed out at night I'll drive up the back roads and park my bike out on Naklua Road, preferably in front of a bar where I'm known and then I'll take the 10 baht taxi to wherever I'm going. Last night I left my bike at the Naklua Lek Villa Hotel where my buddy is staying and from there my girlfriend, my pal, and I took the 10 baht taxi down to Beach road where we got out and walked over to Soi Bukeaoi where we hit some bars. There we were met by another friend who had driven his bike from the dark side of Sukamvit Road. In my example my friend assumed a lot more risk than I did. By the time my gf and I went home there was nearly zero traffic on the back streets to my condo.

If I have to go relatively far on my bike during the day....say I want to go to South Pattaya Road, I like to get there around 11 a.m. rather than wait until mid afternoon when a lot of people are out and about who have just woken up with hangovers. Once again, I'm reducing risk by choosing to travel when there is a bit less traffic out there.

I try and avoid making right turns into heavily traveled streets wherever it's possible instead choosing streets where there is a light or I might head down to Dolphin Circle where the speeds are very low and everyone's into this "taking my turn, now you are taking your turn mode." I prefer this to making a right turn into Naklua Road which has four lanes of traffic because if I make a right turn I can drive against the flow of traffic the way many Thais do and cut into my lanes when I'm able to do it or I can drive across two lanes and turn right into either the 3rd or 4th lane. That's too much for my mind to focus upon because I need to know every split second what everyone's doing in four traffic lanes while still watching out for the idiots who are driving against the flow of traffic. So I am willing to drive further to catch a light or a strategic spot like Dolphin Circle rather than simply making a right whenever and wherever. If no light is nearby I might turn left and go the opposite direction I'm wanting to go and then look for the most opportune time to reverse my direction. I must be very careful doing that however, but at least I only have to keep a sharp eye out for two traffic lanes simultaneously.

I try to keep my speed low enough that my mind can take in all the idiot moves drivers around me are making and how I can best avoid them and so that I can brake in time or be able to suddenly maneuver quickly to avoid colliding with someone who's just done something that's unforeseen and stupid. Lastly I regard my fellow drivers as the enemy. I don't mean that I hate them or that I get angry with them. I just regard them as an enemy that is likely to injure me at some time or another or kill me because they are such terrible drivers. So I keep my mind more in a war mode than a cruising along the river bike trail mode.

Hey guys, like most of you here I own the nice little Honda CBR 150R and it's my best friend when getting around town in Bangkok. Nothing to complain about, except the power...

Now, as many know it's a 4-stroke engine and not that fast/powerful, and is surely outrun by any 2-stroke and mine even got a tough time competing with all the little scooters and finos around; those things are so dam_n light... have any of you modified as per below link? Few adjustments and buying a racing exhaust should get you a speed close to an 2-stroke NSR or something, meaning I'm hoping to get a speed of close to 180 km/h out of it.

My bike is an older 2003 model though, so the engine is a bit old but still running smooth, would any such modifications decrease engine quality on an older engine or considerably increase fuel consumption? Have any of you modified the tech significantly? Thanks for any suggestions/experiences.

http://www.motorcycle.in.th/article.php/Mo...-a-Honda-CBR150

I once had a Sebring supercharger put on a Mazda Miata Sports Car, had a header and a after market exhaust put on as well. Originally the car put out just 116 horsepower (it was a 1992 model, new models have about 170 horsepower stock). This totally transformed the car and I think the horsepower came up to around 180 or so. What was happening is on demand the supercharger was pumping more air into the engine while the new fuel management system was metering in more fuel as well. I blew three engines at a couple of thousand dollars apiece and finally had the supercharger removed. The car was very reliable from then on until I hit 150,000 miles when the transmission finally gave out. Miata sports cars are the most reliable cars Mazda produces and transmission failures are practically unheard of. My guess is the engineers built this transmission to withstand the torque of a 116 horsepower four cylinder engine not for 180 horsepower plus that produced the torque of a small V-8.

As to my blowing my first engine here's my theory on that one. Stock that Miata would top out at around 118 miles an hour. In fifth gear she had enough power to pull say 6000 rpms and that would be it. With the supercharger installed I had a tremendous increase in power and I could now get 139 miles an hour out of the sports car. Every time...precisely 139 miles an hour because that's the speed at which the rev limiter would cut in. The car wouldn't simply stop accelerating. At 138 miles an hour it was still accelerating like a bat out of hel_l. She'd hit a brick wall and the car would stop delivering fuel. But here's the kicker. I was now doing over 7200 rpms in fifth gear which put me right at the red line. But.......the car was meant to go up to the red line but only for extremely short periods of time say while accelerating from 2nd to 3rd, then from 3rd to 4th and as soon as the gear change was completed rpms would drop. This was not the case while I was trying to see how fast I could take the little car. It might take me a minute to get to 7200 rpms in fifty gear as my speed built up to 139 miles an hour. Clearly the engineers did not build that engine to withstand 7200 rpms for prolonged periods of time.

I learnt my lesson which was not to screw with what a bunch of savvy engineers had built into a given machine whether the machine is a car or a bike.

To get back on topic, it sounds like the OP should look at a manual bike because the small autos do bog down on the steep hills but with a manual bike you can just keep it in a low gear and keep speeds up. I'd look at Yamaha's Spark 135 or CZ1.

You mean automatics lag on steep hills such as I found on Koh Samet? A picture is worth a thousand words and here are a few of a Honda Click automatic set up with dirt bike tires. There was no stopping it and do check the hills out in the pictures while keeping in mind that a camera has a tendency to flatten out hills.Koh Samet Honda click auto becomes a dirt bike

I'd take a 135 Spark anytime over a Honda Wave. However, neither has significant under the seat storage such as the larger autos have so one would need a basket although one can live with it having a basket right over the front tire does not provide good handling.

Lastly one has to wonder why Honda decided to market a 125 c.c. premium priced automatic in the form of the 125 pcx when it already had the 150 c.c. HOnda SHi in other Asian countries such as Vietnam and it was about to market the 150 c.c. SHi model in countries such as the U.S. Why Honda didn't do a slight remake of the 150 SHi for Thailand or simply introduce it to the THai market is beyond me. When the competition is already selling a 135 c.c. bike for 53,000 baht it makes no sense to me whatsoever to introduce a smaller 125 c.c. automatic for 69,000 bike or whatever price 125 px's are now selling for. Also why Honda was so slow coming out with automatic bikes in Thailand when Yamaha was selling well its Nouvos and Mios for years beforehand is a complete mystery. Me thinks that Honda Thailand is behind in the learning curve and the only thing that keeps it ahead is the myth of Honda invincibility.

Maybe Honda PCX engine is an SH engine?

Why introduce PCX here when SH is already....... Maybe, just maybe PCX is made HERE. So is not subject to import duty.

With a quick search I couldn't find a 135cc automatic Thai scooter but Honda's are water cooled so they can have higher compression than air cooled competition, as such the get higher power per unit of displacement. It think Honda gets about 13ps whereas an air cooled 150 G-max is only 11-something. 135 Spark is only 11.5ps but torque is higher.

Why 125 and not 150. Fuel consumption? Keeping purse snatchers below 110kph? Who nows?

As for the OP's question. Take your daughter to all the dealers and let her choose. It will all be about colour anyway.

There is no hook in front of the driver's legs that I use to carry up to 3 grocery bags on my Yamaha Nouvo Elegance. And there is no kick starter one can use to start his bike with in case the battery fails.

They are called a Curry Hooks you can buy them anywhere.

When was the last time you saw a car with a starting handle. I used to have an '86 Ducati it had no kick start. That was over 25 years ago.

I don't know either so that's both of us so it really doesn't matter. Trouble is, I don't think Honda knows either. It does not make sense to price a 125 c.c. automatic at 69,000 baht just to save a few bath due to better fuel economy over what it might get with a 150 c.c. engine. This is a premium priced piece of equipment and I think the guy who is willing to pay 17,000 baht more for a PCX over a Yamaha Nouvo Elegance is not too concerned whether he saves a few baht or not due to better fuel economy one way or the other. Besides the Nouvo is substantially lighter which is going to nullify the fuel economy disadvantage of its having a higher displacement engine.

Automatics are extremely trouble prone and most of them are relatively ungainly to drive compared to Dreams and the like. Alas you cannot buy a Dream new anymore, though you can still get Waves they aren't quite as nice. Up here in Isaan it is even extremely hard to find a used Dream (I've been told they mostly end up exported across the border), but a decent used Wave can be had for 15,000. Buy a good used Suzuki Smash, Kawasaki Kaze, or Yamaha Spark if you see one - they're 90% as good as the Honda, and tend to be quite a bit cheaper.

Personally I'm not much interested in driving four strokes, but the old small two strokes (Tenas, Tiaras, Belle Rs, etc) are getting so rare it is really hard to find them in decent shape.

Lastly I wonder if anyone remembers the Honda Nice - there is a shop in my town which claims to have new ones for sale, but they haven't been built in a few years to my knowledge. I could be misunderstanding the dealer, but anyway I guess they've sat on his floor since built. The Honda Nice was a great little bike - very similar to the Honda Sonic but without the troublesome engine.

Where are your facts? "Automatics are extremely trouble prone" and "other manufacturers' bikes are 90 % as good as the Honda"?

I live in Pattaya full time where I drive a motorbike nearly every day. Owned a Yamaha Nouvo 115 c.c. Nouvo for three years and now had its successor, a 135 c.c. Yamaha Nouvo Elegance for nearly a year and a half now and my biggest problem was I had to replace a rear brake pad in the first bike for 200 baht. My pal Ross has now had his Nouvo Elegance for 2 to 3 years with no problems. My pal David has now had his Air Blade for about three years with no problems.

Just downloaded the Yamaha Elegance owners' manual in English and read Yamaha calls for a v belt change every 25,000 kilometers. The nearby Honda dealer told me Honda recommends a belt change every 25,000 kilometers as well. Honda tells me the belt costs around 1000 baht and from what people report here that's about what it costs. Okay.....that about covers the alleged "trouble prone" drive mechanisms of the automatics. Let's move onto the engines now. Any reason an Elegance 135 c.c. liquid cooled engine should be more problematical than a Yamaha Spark's 135 c.c. engine? Or a Honda Air Blade's 110 c.c. liquid cooled engine more trouble prone than a 125 c.c. Honda Wave's?

Let's move onto the electronics. Does a Honda Air Blade employ inferior electronic components to say a Honda Wave's?

It is true that Honda sells more bikes here in Thailand than Yamaha. However, most Thais come from rural areas. For the most part people from these areas are poor. When I recently went with my girlfriend to the village her family lives in, I discovered that EVERY member of her extended family who owns a bike owns a Honda 100 c.c. Wave. I'm sure the reasons are 1. They are cheap to buy and 2. They use less fuel than a 125 c.c. Wave not to mention an automatic and since they don't have the cash most of us have they buy the most economical machine that will do the job for them.

Let's now move onto a very practical point for those living in Thailand that I never thought of before and that I don't think has been mentioned here. I was just discussing bikes with the Thai chef who works at my favorite restaurant here in Pattaya Naklua. Just a few months ago the restaurant owner relocated his restaurant up the street a few hundred meters. He used to rent from the Prima House hotel and while he had his restaurant at the Prima House, Joe had FIVE Honda Waves stolen. Joe told me he now owns a Yamaha Spark because the thieves prefer Hondas because they can move stolen bikes to Cambodia very easily where they are much in demand. And speaking of stolen Honda Waves, my neighbor Gus had his Honda Wave stolen in broad daylight not far from the restaurant and our condo building. Joe further commented about his Yamaha Spark which he's now had for three or four years and which has obviously not been stolen, "It's very strong," meaning it's a lot more powerful than his Honda Waves.

I see no reason to believe that a Honda is built better than a Yamaha other than this being a myth in the eyes of a lot of uneducated Thais who don't know any better. In fact, I'd suggest that here in Thailand Honda is behind Yamaha. A 135 c.c. Yamaha Spark manual will walk all over a 125 c.c. Honda Wave. And in spite of many fine attributes of the new 125 c.c. Honda PCx there are no tie downs for strapping relatively large objects onto the bike that you find on Yamaha nouvos, Honda Waves, etc. There is no hook in front of the driver's legs that I use to carry up to 3 grocery bags on my Yamaha Nouvo Elegance. And there is no kick starter one can use to start his bike with in case the battery fails.

Lastly one has to wonder why Honda decided to market a 125 c.c. premium priced automatic in the form of the 125 pcx when it already had the 150 c.c. HOnda SHi in other Asian countries such as Vietnam and it was about to market the 150 c.c. SHi model in countries such as the U.S. Why Honda didn't do a slight remake of the 150 SHi for Thailand or simply introduce it to the THai market is beyond me. When the competition is already selling a 135 c.c. bike for 53,000 baht it makes no sense to me whatsoever to introduce a smaller 125 c.c. automatic for 69,000 bike or whatever price 125 px's are now selling for. Also why Honda was so slow coming out with automatic bikes in Thailand when Yamaha was selling well its Nouvos and Mios for years beforehand is a complete mystery. Me thinks that Honda Thailand is behind in the learning curve and the only thing that keeps it ahead is the myth of Honda invincibility.

Got it and it printed just fine. Interestingly enough although Yamaha recommends a periodic inspection of the V belt, it recommends its replacement only every 25,000 kilometers. Considering i only put on 13,000 kilometers on my first Yamaha Nouvo and it took three years to do that I don't think a belt replacement very 6 years is too bad. And that's just 1000 baht for the replacement which is $30.00 U.S. Oh well, so much for maintenance costs on automatic bikes.

It might have been a good idea to ask while you were in the shop don't you think?

Well i would have asked but my Thai is not that good and her English was worse.

If you have nothing constructive to add to the topic please refrain from posting snide remarks.

I'll second that. In the Yamaha dealership where I bought three yamahas so far, none of the people in charge speak good English. Good shop though