YowCH & Grace

090303 Toyota Isis confirmed

After a few weeks of trying, testing, bargaining and getting good advice from family and friends, we have signed with Ricardo Cars Pte. Ltd. for a new MPV, the parallel import Toyota Isis 1.8L 7-seater for $67500.00, with another $1,000 top-up for options. The car is silver bodied with beige and grey interior.

The car shall be ready for collection on 4 April 2009 after YowCH passes the Basic Theory Test (Driving) and converts the Malaysian license to a Singapore license on 2 April 2009.

As this is a Japan Domestic Market (JDM) car, infomation is rare and mostly in Japanese (Toyota Site for Isis), but a search in Google would yield some results. The MPV is the tried-and-tested Wish with sliding doors and a higher roof.

The fun part of the whole thing is: Esther and David do not know a thing about the car (family and friends have been told to keep silent on this). They would be really surprised when the car picks them up!

=====

Updated: 6 March 2009
COE bidding ended on 4 March 2009 with $5,101.00 for 1,101 Category B cars (above 1.6L), Ricardo bidded $2,499.00 only, no chance!

=====

Updated: 10 March 2009
Some pictures of the actual Isis we are getting. This is taken in Ricardo’s workshop at Kung Chang Road, just 10 minutes walk from our home. The seats have been taken off for leather fitting.

Front view, not as sporty as the Wish:

Side view, more like a van than a car:

Back view, terrible, not sporty at all, so square, like a loaf of bread:

But the doorway on the left is super wide when both front and back doors are open! No B-pillar:

The dashboard, very similar to Wish:

The VVT-i 1.8L engine, practically same as the Wish:

=====

Updated: 14 March 2009
Some more pictures of the car taken today. The leather for the seats have been completed. They have also fitted the floor mats to the car. We have selected the sports rims, and only the windows tinting, DVD player, reverse camera, alarm, reverse sensor, ERP unit and license plate remaining to be installed.

We chose a dark grey leather to match the upper dashboard and to have minimal maintenance. The dark colour also provides a nice contrast with the basic beige of the car.

Driver’s side:

Passenger’s side:

The driver:

The passenger:

Interior views:

This is with both passenger doors opened and passenger seat folded up:

The boot with 3rd row of seats:

And without 3rd row of seats (folded down):

That’s the rim we selected, simple seven-spokes:

We have also managed to download the entire operation manual for the Isis, which is in Japanese. The download was over 21MB, and broken into parts (56 parts in fact) which must be downloaded one-by-one. Tedious, but worth the effort, now to find a way to automatically translate the pdf.

=====

Updated: 18 March 2009
COE bidding ended on 18 March 2009 with $5,001.00 for 1,110 Category B cars (above 1.6L), Ricardo bidded $4,999.00, just short of $2 to secure teh bid. One more chance to bid on 1 April, as I’ll be taking the car by 4 April if all goes well!

=====

Updated: 19 March 2009
Lots of small problems, like the DVD player originally offered was JVC AVX710 but not available, so they changed to Panasonic VW120 (not too bad). Then they say the alarm might interfere with the auto-door operation. We checked the internet forums and it seems such probalems can arise, however, there are also those who have successfully installed alarms.

At least there are some things that got done:

The rims are installed:

The ERP In-vehicle Unti is installed (but later taken out again for tinting):

And the tinting guys started work when YowCH was there:

=====

Updated: 22 March 2009
Staying so near Ricardo, we visited the Isis again, after the tinting was done. Here’s Ricardo’s shopfront:

A side view of the Isis with tinting completed (darker back windoes and lighter front):

There is also a 6″ strip of solar shade on the upper part of the front windscreen.
Detail of the difference between front and back:

The 3M Solar Film logo is stuck onto the rear:

The 3M Solar Film is guaranteed for 10 years, no bubbles and no peeling. Visit 3M Solar Film here.

=====

Updated: 24 March 2009
Good news, the alarm, AV unit, reverse sensor and reverse camera all done. The alarm works well with the auto-door when tested, but the installer says best to wait a few more days of actual use before confirming the all go.

Here’s the audio-video system, Panasonic CQ-VW120W-3. 6.5″ screen, with front AV and USB input. Functional, but can’t display chinese text. The Isis’ speakers are nice, not fantastic but good enough for driving music. Best seat to listen to music is the second row middle seat.

With the reverse cam activated, the screen looks like this:

Here are views of the reverse sensor and reverse cam:

The alarm, sensor and camera are all cheap stuff. Hopefully they last more than the 1 year warranty. Now, YowCH will study to pass the Basic Theory Test to confirm the Driving Licence on 2 April 09. The car can then be driven off by 4 April 09! Woohoo.

=====

Updated: 1 April 2009
How disappointing, COE bidding not today but next Wednesday, so the Isis won’t be ready until Good Friday on 10 April 2009. Let’s pray that YowCH passes the Basic Theory Test tomorrow morning.

There are some bubbles and grey spots on the sun shade. It seems the applicator advised that the car should receive some subnlight and the bubbles and spots would be gone. Lets see how, we can have 1 week of more sunlight now.

=====
Updated: 2 April 2009
YowCH passed the Basic Theory Test, and holds a converted Singapore Driving License now. Just to wait for COE bidding next Wednesday to get the Isis.

=====
Updated: 8 April 2009
Ricardo put in a bid for $7999 for the Cat B COE. With 1036 bidding for 761 certs, the final price is $7501 which is $2.5k above the COE three weeks ago (it was hovering around $5000 for two months). Our gain! The car registration shall be SJP7#### or SJP8####.

The paper works are in process now, and with God’s grace, all shall be ready by tomorrow evening. Esther and David shall have a grand surprise to ride home in our own car!

Another look at the Isis parked in Ricardo prior to cleaning and waxing for delivery tomorrow.

=====
Final Update: 9 April 2009
YowCH went to Ricardo at 6:15pm and drove off the Isis at 7:15pm! Thank God everything went smoothly, with COE, insurance, registration and loans all in place.