ClareQuilty

Quite an adventure there pokerspiv! Is your engine the 1600cc 16 valve 'dohc' engine? I heard some had the 'sohc' engine, which, though less powerful, was a bit more durable.

This is what I call a valuable old Toyota...

Nice, but not really relevant to those of us who can barely afford a 60,000 baht vehicle.

Just thought I'd bump this to say I bought one of these exact cars today in BKK for 65k from a private seller in a Bang Na tent. 1992 model 1.6L Corona. I'll keep you informed if it blows up on my drive back to Samui

Fantastic, very similar deal. Any idea of the kilometers?

You fellows may have an inaccurate picture of the sellers - they're middle class people who drive all new cars.. this is just the old car they've had left around the house for years, rarely used. It might be a bit neglected, but mostly from disuse and lack of interest, not from budget constraints or DIY errors.

Hey thanks guys, I was about to give up on the car, but maybe I'll give it another look. The owner said that by this week he would have the wheels aligned and balanced, so I'll go look at it again.

Clare, you maybe interested to know I still have my little Honda Tena, got a new Spark up for sale as it's just not as much fun as my 17 year old "Funny" Got Funny up to an indicated 120kph today, great 'fun'

That's great! I still have two Tenas, fantastically reliable, durable little bikes. Over the last couple of years I sold 2-3 of my Tenas on to some other foreigners around Khon Kaen and Sarakham, and they're all still tooling around on them without any problems at all.

Well guys, I went and test drove the Corona.. and I'm pretty down on it for one reason: driving straight down the road the steering wheel wasn't straight, but was turned quite a bit to the right. If I let go of it, the car veered pretty strongly to the left. The engine was fantastic, smooth, powerful, the transmission/clutch was great, but I suspect of course the car was in an accident. I asked my friend about it, and she admitted that they assumed as much, but having owned the car for 7-8 years in that same condition (cockeyed steering wheel), they figured it was ok.

Looking at an old Corona, about a 1990 or 1991 model, with about 300,000 kilometers on it, 5-speed manual with a 1.6 engine. Just 60,000 baht.

The model I'm talking about looks like this:

Any Corona owners here or anyone have any experience with this model?

try looking up the worldwide price of a liter of crude oil. Anywhere.

BTW, a barrel of oil is defined as 42 US gallons of oil. Where's that in the SI tables?

the weight of history.

but the sooner everybody gets rid of gallons, ounces, feet, yards, miles, etc. the better.

This is when I know I'm an American - I can't stand the place, its politics, its food, or anything about it, but if you propose doing away with our dear measuring tradition my blood boils.

But yes as some people have pointed out the cost of living is actually not all that low in Thailand - overall a 'middle class lifestyle' with car, real house, and everything is about the same cost here as in the (non CA/NY) USA. And with virtually no employment/income opportunities.

I was just calculating, and given that the PTT yellow 'real gasoline' that I use tends to run around 47 baht per liter, and given that there are supposedly 3.78 liters per gallon, that's 178 baht per gallon, or about $5.70/gallon at today's exchange rate (about 31.3).

That's pretty shocking. Almost 65% higher than in the USA, according to gasbuddy dot com.

One lesson - never leave your passport anywhere for any reason. They can rent you a bike based on a copy of your passport or Thai driver's license. I've never had to give my passport anywhere to rent a bike.

1. Working fine and not neededing any work. This is the most likely state of your engine, built of high quility material for a long life with proper lubrication.

2. Experienced slight occasional seizure. In normal usage it will also perform as 1, Perhaps will have slightly lesser performance. It can be a precondition for situation 3.

3. Major seizure, and you should know what that means.

Now, if perform any work on a "state 1" engine, you're looking for trouble and waste of money and time.

Most of the two-strokes I've had rebuilt never seized at all, nor were they 'working fine'. Specifically, they were weak and lacking power. After the rebuild power was normal again. I think the situation might be due to some inadequacy of compression? I don't know, but it seems to me there are some occasions for rebuild that might not involve seizure?

Wow, the Raider looks exactly like it used to. Nice. Wonder what they'd be selling it for.

Manual transmissions are going to be long term a lot more durable and less expensive to keep going than the autos, particularly the CVTs, besides which a 1.2-1.3 liter engine with an automatic is an utter dog.

Try going to large bike dealers and asking to go to the 'back room' or 'back lot' to look at the trade-ins.

Great advice. Is your experience from Bangkok or Pattay?

Thanks! But no I haven't any experience in those places, only in Isaan, but I suspect if anything you'll find even better deals down there on the old stuff.

Thanks all. I agree its just as likely if not more likely just some issue with the door itself - hinges or latch. I'm going to try to take it to a 'body-shop' one of these days and ask for an opinion.

About nine months ago I had an accident in which a motorbike smashed into my left front bumper rather high speed, destroying the bumper... the left front wheel was knocked slightly out of alignment, but after realignment its driven straight and true with no vibration ever since. I never bothered to fix the bumper or bodywork.

So, the problem now is that the drivers door - on the right side - is making a lot of rattling noises whenever I hit even small bumps in the road.. I'm wondering if it might be that the structure of the unibody of the car is compromised from the accident. Any opinions? Back in the USA I only ever owned 'full perimeter frame' cars, not unibodies, so they were pretty much impervious to any accidents. So I'm not so sure about how delicate these unibodies are.

I drive an approximately 30 year old car for 'every day transportation' - actually I only use it a couple of times a week. It has been amazingly trouble-free and reliable, however its just a Toyota Corolla, nothing unusual. Even my rather common car can be somewhat challenging for the repairman to find replacement parts due to its age.. the few times it has needed repair it took up to a week to find the parts and have them sent. (things like a new fuel pump or a new rear differential).

Try going to large bike dealers and asking to go to the 'back room' or 'back lot' to look at the trade-ins. A lot of large dealers simply don't bother to put second hand bikes out front for sale (particularly the cheaper, older second hand bikes), and let them go very cheap out the back to wholesale dealers. Typical most Thais will only buy brand new, and will eschew any vehicles that have even slight cosmetic problems.

This is how I've bought most bikes I have. A perfectly serviceable old Honda Wave, Yamaha Spark, or Suzuki Smash should be no more than 10,000 baht. Personally I strongly prefer the old two-strokes, but these are getting harder to find. You could find an automatic for 15-20k baht, but they're not very durable and cost a lot to fix, so they're not really recommended for cheap second hand.

Once when filling up my old Kawasaki Cheer after it had sat unused for a few days in an isolated place the gas-attendant and I discovered a huge skink (is it a gecko?) under the seat. He was so startled that he tried to kick or stomp it as it wriggled away. Happily he didn't manage to hurt the creature.

Ok, nothing needs fixing. That should avoid any late night phone calls to the ex-girlfriend to arrange a tow truck!

So, when you picking it up?

One breakdown in five years from a 30 year old car I bought for 50,000 baht is excellent reliability, BSJ. My total repair expenses in 5 years of useful service has been about 12,000 baht.

As for the Honda City, I'm sure it would be months before any deal is struck. There's no rush - everything moves slowly up here.

In any friend to friend car deal one party generally ends up unhappy. From an acquaintance? Fine. From a close friend? Not me, I don't have enough of them to chance a falling out to save a few bucks on a generic car.

My current car is a 30 year old Toyota Corolla that I bought from an old and dear friend (in fact an ex girlfriend). The car's been great and we're still on the best of terms, no issues or problems regarding the car at all. I think she might've been a little annoyed that the one (one time!) the car left me sitting beside the road in five years of ownership, I did call her at about 10:30 pm to ask her to call me a tow truck, but that's it in five years.

100K Tops.

I doubt you'll ever see any of this model and year of car for sale for 100,000 unless it is wrecked or has no engine in it. Perhaps you don't know anything about the Thai used car market.

OK, it's this one.

CropperCapture36.jpg

200K seems like a fair price for something that will need lots of fixes.

The one I'm looking at is in perfect condition, low kilometers, nothing whatever to fix.

Just checked that Taladrod.com thing - its the first one so far that I was able to operate despite the Thai. Looks like 150-190k is more realistic:

http://taladrod.com/w20/Search/TbSch3F_Inf.aspx#y1:1999+y2:1999+mk:29+md:131

http://taladrod.com/w20/Search/TbSch3F_Inf.aspx#y1:2000+y2:2000+mk:29+md:131