Somewhat funny approaching at car vs. public transport

[Dave Hounddriver]

27 minutes ago, Dr. Shiva said:

But in my eyes it would be still better to drive any type of car

Safety is relative.  Would a Ford Pinto be safer?  A '65 Corvair?  Many of the cars put together in Philippines are similarly lacking in safety systems but I will concede they are likely all safer than a tricycle.  But a tricycle is safer than a bicycle on Philippine roads and arguably safer than many motorcycles in use here.  A car with a driver's airbag is safer than one with no airbags.  A car with dual airbags is safer than one with only a driver's airbag.  A Humvee is probably pretty safe if you can maneuver around the streets.  Each person has to decide how much safety they "need" and can afford.  I agree with OnMyWay when he suggests the best compromise between need and want is:

14 hours ago, OnMyWay said:

I've been lucky and bought both of my cars when they were only 6 months old with about ~5000 km on them.  Same as in the U.S., finding a 1-2 year old well cared for used car is usually the best value if you need a newer car.

 

[GeoffH]

1 minute ago, Dave Hounddriver said:

Many of the cars put together in Philippines are similarly lacking in safety systems but I will concede they are likely all safer than a tricycle. 

 

From what I saw when looking to buy the Avanza it seems that most new cars sold in the Philippines now come with front air bags, side intrusion bars and most come with ABS.  Electronic stability control, side or curtain airbags, lane departure and auto braking seem to be rather uncommon however (at least in or near the price ranges we were looking at).

 

 

[Dave Hounddriver]

1 hour ago, GeoffH said:

From what I saw when looking to buy the Avanza it seems that most new cars sold in the Philippines now come with front air bags, side intrusion bars and most come with ABS.

Perhaps most, but from what I saw looking at the brand new Kia Picanto with no airbags, and the Hyundai Eon with only one airbag and the Toyota Wigo with 2 airbags, (I am not sure about side Intrusion bars), I would hesitate to draw that conclusion from looking at only one vehicle.

EDIT:  And when I said

1 hour ago, Dave Hounddriver said:

Many of the cars put together in Philippines are similarly lacking in safety systems

Let me clarify that I really did mean many of the cars put together in Philippines, such as the owner's Jeeps and the multicabs and the surplus vehicles and the Racals (yes they make cars too, or at least vans) etc.

Edited November 16, 2017 by Dave Hounddriver

[GeoffH]

9 hours ago, Dave Hounddriver said:

Perhaps most, but from what I saw looking at the brand new Kia Picanto with no airbags, and the Hyundai Eon with only one airbag and the Toyota Wigo with 2 airbags, (I am not sure about side Intrusion bars), I would hesitate to draw that conclusion from looking at only one vehicle.

 We didn’t Just look at the one vehicle, before we decided upon the Avanza we were going to just buy a small car.  We looked at the Wigo, the Eon, the Picanto and later the Vios and the Yaris (as we decided the smaller cars wouldn’t do what we needed).  One of the main criteria we checked was safety features.

The Kia Picanto has ABS and twin airbags only in the top variant, the Toyota  Wigo, the Mitsubishi Mirage and the Suzuki Celario all have ABS and dual airbags in all variants.  The Hyundai Eon has only a drivers airbag and the Suzuki Alto has none.  That is 4 out of 6 entry level cars with dual airbags and ABS available.

We did not look as closely at mid sized cars as we decided if we were spending ‘about a million’ instead of ‘about 600000’ then the Avanza was a better match to our requirements but I’d be surprised if it was much different in that market segment.

Edited November 16, 2017 by GeoffH

[Dave Hounddriver]

9 hours ago, GeoffH said:

The Kia Picanto has ABS and twin airbags only in the top variant

That interests me as the salesman told me that there are no airbags on the model he was showing me.  It is possible that he was doing the standard filipino sales tactic:  The one we want to sell you has no airbags therefore we are not going to tell you there are airbags on another model.  Had he done so I may have been driving one today.

[Dr. Shiva]

Quite terrible if they are selling new cars with only few or even no safety utilities like airbags, ABS, ESP and so on. But even with no safety tools is a car still more safe than a motorcycle.

Preferably buy a car with some safety utilities like airbags and ABS. If a dealer want to sell you a car without them then go to another dealer.

Edited November 17, 2017 by Dr. Shiva

[Gary D]

18 hours ago, Dr. Shiva said:

Quite terrible if they are selling new cars with only few or even no safety utilities like airbags, ABS, ESP and so on. But even with no safety tools is a car still more safe than a motorcycle.

Preferably buy a car with some safety utilities like airbags and ABS. If a dealer want to sell you a car without them then go to another dealer.

With the amount of import duty on cars they could not sell anyhing but the most basic models.

[Jack Peterson]

1 hour ago, Gary D said:

With the amount of import duty on cars they could not sell anyhing but the most basic models.

Beg to Differ, there is Not a lot of Import duty on new cars that are assembled in ASIA

[OnMyWay]

4 minutes ago, Jack Peterson said:

Beg to Differ, there is Not a lot of Import duty on new cars that are assembled in ASIA

Yes, not sure what Gary meant.  He might be referring to the excise tax which is already in place but will be going up soon.

In my area a lot of people drive expense cars and the tourists from Manila are often driving expensive models.  The latest that seems to really popular is Subaru.

[Jack Peterson]

2 hours ago, Gary D said:

With the amount of import duty on cars they could not sell anyhing but the most basic models.

 

1 minute ago, OnMyWay said:

Yes, not sure what Gary meant.  He might be referring to the excise tax which is already in place

 Maybe but they are 2 Totally Different things