Goodbye darling, hello baby!

Sometimes you get things wrong to get things right. That's just the way it is.

After deciding to upgrade from my Proton Waja, I scouted around for a worthy replacement and found the Ford Focus S2.0.

The fun lasted for a while, until the car started to act up, requiring thousands upon thousand of ringgit in repairs.

So, I sold the Focus and bought the Kia Forte 2.0 SX. After driving the Forte for more than two weeks, I've come to realise that this is what I should have bought right after selling the Waja.

Of course, the Forte would not have been around about 3 years ago. Still, looking back, I can't help compare my old Waja to the Forte and conclude that the Forte is what the Waja should have been.

Let me explain.

You see, the Proton Waja was the first "performance" car that I owned. Yes, do laugh out loud, because we all know that, as far as performance goes, the Waja can't come close to being called that, at least not without heavy modifications.

And heavily modified was what my Waja was. From custom made extractor, to soft turbo, to spark plug enhancers, to adjustable coil springs and shocks, to stabiliser bar, etc, the Waja was quicker at standing start and around corners than most other cars on the road.

But then, it had two basic flaws. The first was its under-powered engine, which needed several thousand ringgit more to boost, and second, it didn't come with anti-brake lock/electronic brake distribution system (ABS/EBD).

Now, the Kia Forte 2.0 SX is not a performance car either, but it's what I aspired my Waja to be. With a 2.0 litre engine, the Forte 2.0 SX can outpace most cars on standing start without going all the way to 5,500 RPM (revolutions per minute) and it takes corners without tilting a lot (almost flat) or without swerving, thanks to its stiff chassis and traction control system (TCS).

Granted that the springs and shocks are a little soft, at least they allow the Forte 2.0 SX to perform well around corners, whilst providing a comfortable ride on bumpy straights - not like the Waja's adjustable shocks and absorbers that tended to bounce the car quite a bit.

As for overtaking, the Forte 2.0 SX is surprisingly eager to rev, such that I have to be careful when pressing down the throttle to shift automatically to a lower gear before passing other cars.

Once, I kept up with a Camry 2.4L that tried to outrun my Forte 2.0 SX for the fun of it. The Camry didn't manage to outrun my Forte 2.0 SX.

More interestingly, when I looked down at my speedometer and my rev metre, I saw that my Forte was doing 170 Kmh at 3rd gear and still accelerating.

"Okay, time to throttle back", I said out loud. "This is not why I bought this car," I added, reminding myself loudly that I didn't buy my Forte 2.0 SX for racing about.

Interior wise, my Forte 2.0 SX reminded me a lot of my old Waja. The central column cup holders are where they were in my Waja and the handbrake is on the right side (which is the correct side) of the cup holders instead of to the left. The seats are firm, yet comfy. And the cabin space is sufficiently spacious.

Plus, unlike my old Waja, my Forte 2.0 SX has most of the "bells and whistles" you'd expect in the latest generation of high-end cars, such as push-button start, keyless entry and locking, lighted-speedometer, 6-CD MP3/WMA player with bass-boost settings, auto-dim rear view mirror, etc.

All for the price of RM94,000++.
Again, I say, this is what my old Waja should have been like. In one word, the Forte 2.0 SX is "perfect".

That is to say, you don't need to tweak its performance and you certainly don't have to try very hard to do up its looks - I just added wider and slightly larger tyres because I like how larger tyres look on a car and I swapped out the honker for something more macho sounding.

The original honker sounded like a Kancil's honker. Not so perfect, huh? Well, swap that out and the car will be :)

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Addendum: Notice that I didn't compare my Forte 2.0 SX to my old Focus S2.0. Well, that's because the Forte 2.0 SX doesn't pretend to be a performance car like the Focus S2.0.

Proton has Quality Issues, Still

It's not my intention to turn my blog site into a Proton hating site. I just want to share a piece of advice I gave to a friend recently about buying a Waja.

Having been a proud owner of a first generation Waja 1.6L (M), I can say that the car has good acceleration and handling for something bulky that comes with a relatively puny engine. I spent more than RM10K doing it up so that it could go faster and handle corners better, aside from looking better as well.

So, when a friend asked what I thought of the Waja and if I'd recommend buying one, I felt rather mixed.

I like the Waja a lot. Yes, it looks dated now. Still, it has a lot going for it.

At the same time, Protons are known to have annoying quality issues. My first generation Waja had loads of them and, after taking a cursory survey among Proton owners, I've deduced that nothing much has changed.

Yes, Proton has improved somewhat in relation to quality. At the same time, it's not quite there either.

My mother-in-law recently took delivery of a Savvy AMT. Guess what? Something underneath its chassis rattles annoyingly when it's cruising.

This only strengthened my belief, based on my cursory survey, that Protons aren't quite there yet when it comes to quality control.

So, my final advice to my friend was, "Waja is good. Proton has quality issues." If you don't mind spending time going back and forth to the Proton service centre to repair a brand new Proton car, then, go ahead. If you're too busy for that, buy a different marque.

Satria Neo CPS - Proton Gets It Both Right and Wrong

The first time I saw a picture of the Satri Neo, I became convinced that it would be the car to replace my Waja 1.6L (M). However, when I actually test drove one, I said, "No, not gonna happen".
In terms of its shape, this car can really turn heads. But up close, you start seeing all sorts of design oversights that would cause you to whinge.
The most troublesome is the misaligned driving position, in that the steering is off-centre to the left in relation to the driver's seat. Over the long run, this misaligned position would cause back-aches.
When I brought it up with a Proton bigwig, he said half jokingly, "I don't know what you're talking about".
Clearly, he had no choice but to be in denial. Proton had already committed to producing the Neo with such a serious defect that to rectify the mistake (which involves product recalls) would be financially ruinous.
Nonetheless, I must say that the CPS engine in the Satri Neo CPS is quite good. With some more tweaking, it can easily produce about 140 Bhp, which is 15 Bhp more than its factory specification.
And if you really have the money to spare for engine tweaking, you should also weld and bang into place a bucket seat that's properly aligned with the steering wheel (as much as possible).
But if you're going to go down that path, you might as well do something about the over-flared wheel arches. Proton has done nothing to compensate for the sunken-wheels look that the Neo CPS comes with now, especially in the back.
This makes the Neo CPS look comical and even hideous.
Oh, well. This is probably to be expected. After all, Proton is known for getting things right and wrong at the same time.