Car Repair @ Rebond Motor USJ Part 2

Part 1 here: http://gabrielchoy.blogspot.com/2014/08/car-repair-rebond-motor-sdn-bhd-in-usj-1.html



Anyway they called me a few days ago that my car was fixed and ready. The next day (Aug 28) I went to the police station to grab my full set of the investigation result, sketch plan and third party's police report (cost me RM14), and went to Rebond to pass the docs and collect my car. Upon reaching Rebond, i couldn't locate my car anywhere in and around the workup. The staffs weren't very helpful so i went straight to the office upstairs.

I talked to the clerk and she passed me a form to sign (to show I've received the car and everything was fine). Also told me to call into the third party's insurance agency to follow up with the Loss of Car Use claim  after 6 months (RM80x10).

After that i went down to inspect my car and check if everything was okay. As usualy the staffs did not bother with me and so i approached of them and asked for  the location of my car.  He asked to go to the back of the workshop (some foreign worker). So i went behind thinking perhaps my car was parked at the back but didn't see my car. Then i saw the guy who was supposed to fix my car (whom i believe could be asupervisor-'Panjang' his name) told me it's just infront but didnt exactly tell me where. So i went out, and took some time to look for my car. It was parked quite a distance away from the workshop outside. Quite poor customer service and treatment from them.

I inspected the damage and was fixed but there were some things i requested them to fix for me which they didnt do. I looked for that 'Panjang' fella and told me they had agree to fix those for me. He complied and it took about 15-20 minutes to fix. Another thing i noticed was the a rubber seal that was attached to my back door (near the area of the accident) was missing. I asked them but they told me it was already missing when they got it back. Umm yea right :P I guess I should have taken a photo of my car before passing it to them since I had no proof i did not complain further.


I thought everything was ok so i drove back home. Then upon reaching my home, i thought 'Hey i should check the back headlamp they replaced'. I did that and noticed that one of the bulbs didnt work!! I had to drive back there and have that fixed.

That itself took another 30minutes to fix and the staff (Panjang) didnt look happy and just fixed it. He told me it was due to wiring issue and tried not to admit it was their fault. While fixing my car, another old Chinese guy came over and he just remembered that he forgot to his staff to fix the damages i requested them to fix. Oh well. But he was quite a nice chap, unlike Mr PanJang.

Overall quite poor service but they did return the car to me quite fast (about 10 days). Quite satisfied with Etiqa as well as they SMS-ed me one day after i sent in my car to the workshop and anothe rsms the follwing day that my repair request was approved. For Rebond workshop I rate it about 6/10 mainly for the poor customer service and had me return a 2nd time to fix the headlamp issue.  Will i come back here again next time? Probably. it isnt that bad but just a few minor annoyances.

Here are few things I have have done :-

a) Before I sign anything, inspect the car first
b) I should have taken photos of my car before handing it over to the workshop. To show them if there was anything missing atleast i got something to show and back it up
c)  Ask what got fixed and repaired and inspect. Then check those areas and see if there were defects. If they changed a part (eg headlamp) make sure to check it out and everything was functioning properly.
d) Do periodical checking (once a week atleast) and check out the condition and progress of the repair of my car

5 Tips for Early Retirement

Interesting stuff. Something i came across in lowyat.net forum. Just sharing it out here. Here's the link to that  forum https://forum.lowyat.net/topic/2953389/+1460


Ride a bike/Public transport?

The biggest hidden cost anywhere is often the car. Most of us assume it’s the only way to get around, and that cascades into an unhappy and less-wealthy lifestyle. So if you design your lifestyle to be based around walking and biking instead, you end up healthier, happier, and often $15,000 (depends on country) or more a year richer. FYI, M'sia is 2nd most expensive country to own a car.



Make that RINGGIT work for you

Start thinking of ringgit bills as little blue/green/purple employees. If you spend a ringgit, it’s gone forever. If you invest that ringgit, it works for you forever. So your goal is to keep as many of these employees working for you as you can, rather than letting them slip through your fingers. Once the fruits of their labor are enough to pay for all your needs, then you can start getting a bit sloppier.


It’s about the spending

How much you spend is more important than how much you earn. While income can come and go with booms and busts, you can control your spending much more easily. And when you gain this control, it provides a huge happiness boost, because you are no longer at the mercy of the world. As a convenient side effect, your spending rate is the single biggest factor determining when you’ll be wealthy enough to retire.


Turn off the TV (True for me,never watch TV - less than 1 hour in a year  icon_rolleyes.gif )

Do anything besides watching TV. Your hours outside of work are the most valuable ones you have. Most of us discard these hours by plugging the brain into a TV and the opportunity is squandered. But as soon as you completely remove any form of broadcast and cable TV from your house, magical things start happening. Your mind wakes up and starts looking for information again. You start reading, learning and exercising more. You are freed from the inaccurate perception that the world is a dangerous and negative place, an illusion created by the sensationalistic nightly news to keep people hooked. You start meeting more people and opportunities start multiplying. You have more time, money, energy, health and creativity. Life gets immeasurably better.

You don’t have to believe me. Just try it for a week and make a note of how it feels. Then you’ll want to try another month, and so on. I gave up TV 15 years ago and I have never looked back and never been happier.




Fill your life with riches

Learn about happiness. Read some books about it, and study up on managing stress as well. If you make happiness your life goal, which if you think about it is the only goal that really makes sense, you realize that many things you were chasing after are just distractions.


I was reading something interesting on lowyat forum on making money and decided to post it here. Not my work but just sharing. To view the original posting please go here: https://forum.lowyat.net/topic/2953389/+1460


Retire early...35 to 40 years old

1. Fully pay up house/condo/apt

2. Average your spending in a month x 12/year, let say RM3,000 (avg) = RM36,000.00. Rule of thumb 25 times of your average annual spending! 25 x RM36,000 = RM900,000.00, Below 2 options :

Say, average int rate(fixed long term, 3.8%) (BR - 4.6-4.7%)

Option A (3.8% int) You need RM950,000 x 3.8% (auto renewal,% maintain till 30years..), to generate your int. RM36,100.00, any spending less than that, its a saving..

Option B :(BR 4.7% - 5 years) You need RM770,000 x 4.7%, to generate your int. RM36,190.00.



3. You dont need to work anymore, your interest will be generate income for your average spending. Financial Freedom.. rclxm9.gif

4. You still have your EPF not factored in (est RM800/month @ RM198,200 min saving set by EPF)

Car Repair @ Rebond Motor Sdn Bhd in USJ 1

Since I had decided to skip Proton SC for my car repair, Ii browsed the Etiqa website for their list of panel workshops. I found two, one is in USJ7 and the other in USJ1. USJ7 is closer to my place so did some online check. It seems there was a complaint made by a customer in 2010 about this USJ7 Etiqa car repair workshop. He complained that they drove his mother's car around without his permission to do runner's job.

"Days passed by and no calls from the boss so I decided to pay CMS a surprise visit to see the progress and this was on the 25th of Dec 2010 (Saturday) late morning. As I was approaching the workshop - to my surprise I saw my mom's car on the road coming from Taipan! I was shocked so I decided to tail my mom's car & it went back to the workshop.

NO work had been done on my mom's car (0% progress). I quickly stepped out from my car & straight look for the boss but could only find his 2nd man & he took the case lightly saying oh this is a small matter only & after some checking he said his man took the car to find some spare parts NOT related to my car.

Furious with this I called the boss for an explanation & he said the same and told me the car will be ready in 2 days with work starting this very moment. Already pissed I called my mom to discuss about it & we agreed to take the car back after this incident since they're using my mom's car as a runner car and 0% work has been done so far. I don't even want to see what will happen to the car if they started working on it and rush to finish it. Might look like crap if u ask me.

Imagine if they used the car for a robbery or they knocked someone down & ran away. Who would the police find first? My mom! CMS Cars Express have NO respect for the customer's car. Using it for the last 6 days for their OWN PURPOSES."

Source: http://hc3msia.b1.jcink.com/index.php?showtopic=521



My other option: Rebond Motor Sdn Bhd. https://www.motorworkshop.com.my/workshop/rebond/

As usual i did some research of this company via google search and didn't find anything wrong with it. Well no news is actually good news :)

So i went there and asked about the procedures after my police station visit. The workshop is actually quite deep inside but not too hard to find. The workshop looks big and is owned by Chinese. They have a Malay clerk who wasn't too sure of the procedures and she asked a Chinese lady from one of the rooms to come out and answer some of my questions. Anyway they told me I should have gotten the third party police report earlier since they need it  for third party claim. Anyway I will get that next week together with all the other documents required for third party claim (result, sketch plan,etc). At first I asked if they could help me get all these docs on my behalf but they told me its better I do it myself as cost is very expensive if they hire runner (actually illegal to do so). Oh well never mind. At the very least they will do the JPJ part for me (unlike Proton COE).

I talked to the repairmen afterwards and showed them my car. I had some minor requests and they told me no problem. It could take up to 2 weeks to get approval (from insurance company) and about another week for the repair to be complete. Since my cars is below 5 years, they should be able to get original parts. They promised they will replace my bumper, lamp light, knock back the mudguard and do repaint.

Anyway after i left, I remember that I did not get any form of receipt/proof that I placed my car at their place. I emailed them at rebondmotor@yahoo.com but yet to receive a reply (probably wont get). Anyway I will update here again and see how it goes.


Part 2 here: http://gabrielchoy.blogspot.com/2014/08/car-repair-rebond-motor-usj-part-2.html

Car Accident - First Police Report

Gosh I was involved in an accident last night. My car got hit by an MPV along Persiaran Tujuan, at the traffic infamously known for long queuing cars during peak hours.

Anyway I decided to slow down my car when i saw the traffic light turned yellow. Not long after my car was stationary,  i heard a loud "BAM" behind and some vibration but my car hardly budged. It turned out that an MPV hit the back of my car, right bumper corner side - suspect he tried to avoid my car by turning left but still hit it because he went too fast). So we parked out car by the side of the road after the traffic light to negotiate. The driver (accompanied by a young male who can speak Mandarin and another  lady - suspect mother)  who banged my car wanted me to pay compensation for the damages and blamed me for sudden brake. He kept blaming me and told me his car's condition looked worse than mine (which was true). Then I reminded him that the reason i stopped was because the traffic light turned yellow and that  meant he should have slowed down  as well behind my car. He told me he thought i was going to go ahead and didnt expect me to stop my car. Oh well, to cut the story short I told him we should have make police report, in which I did so. Let the police decide. I did my police report after the accident but he only reported his the next day. 

Upon reaching the nearby police station, I was aproached by a nice chap who later gave me his card to his workshop :) Passed my IC to the police guard to get a temporary guest id card, walked into the police station ,got my queue number and when it was my turn, I talked to the sergeant at the police station and explained to him what happened. He was quite rude towards me at first but suddenly turned friendly and suggested a workshop if I'm looking for one. Okay now I'm still waiting to see whose fault it was. Hopefully not mine since my car got hit from the back.

I bought Etiqa Tafakul, which is actually my first time since I've been with Kurnia for the past few years except this year. One thing i noticed is that Etiqa customer care didn't assign an agent to help me out when I gave them a call. Seems like alot of self service. Still hoping i didnt make the wrong choice with Etiqa. I went to the Proton car repair center today and I was told that Etiqa takes alot longer for the procedures and may take up to 2 months (compared to 1 month with Kurnia). Oh crap!

Anyway here are the few thing's I've discovered so far :-

a) i got a receipt from the Sergeant. He forgot to tell me to exchange it the next day to get my police report. Anyway I will get it on Monday to exhange that receipt for my police report.

b) Proton service center doesnt provide runner help. Meaning I need to DIY and goto the police station to collect third party claim documents like :

• police photos
• 3rd party police report
• police investigation result report
• Sketch Plan of the accident
• JPJ Search for 3rd party Insurance (this one I need to go JPJ - urgh)

   In that case I'll try my luck with the Etiqa panel workshops (lazy to DIY) :

    www.etiqa.com.my/English/Insurance/Workshop/Pages/Selangor.aspx

c)  I can do own claim first and then do OD KFK (Own Damage Knock-For-Knock) or Third party claim later. This speeds up the process so that they can fix my car early and make everything faster.

Info : https://forum.lowyat.net/topic/1469045/all

        http://www.kooagency.com.my/motorinsurance_kfkod.htm


Update: 18th Aug
Today I went to the police station and presented my receipt to get my police report (was charged RM4). 

Final Update:
My dealing with Etiqa was very fast and it took like just 1-2 days for them to approve my car's repair after sending in my car to the workshop. I'm actually quite satisfied with Etiqa and it didnt take that long. The total days my car in my workshop : 10 Days. not bad not bad