Just last week I decided to catch a movie downstairs at my place. It has always been ultra convenient having GSC cinemas located below where I live and I really do will miss that convenience the moment I move away.

Anyhow, I was stuck at work and busy working so when I made the decision to get tickets via my iPhone GSC app, I chose Prometheus.

A team of explorers discover a clue to the origins of mankind on Earth, leading them on a journey to the darkest corners of the universe. There, they must fight a terrifying battle to save the future of the human race.

After reading a summary of the movie as shown above, I thought it couldn't have been such a bad show since it was directed by Ridley Scott, the same guy who directed Gladiator and Alien.

The story starts at the point where humans have already gotten used to space travel and now they are travelling far into space. But just think Star Trek with Jean Luc Picard exploring the universe but without warp speed. So yeah, they travel extremely slowly and with the usual "logic", we have to put humans into a stasis sleep in order for them to survive the ultra long journey.



Why are humans travelling into space this time around? Apparently to find out the true origins of humanity. Well apparently we were created by Gods hence through some historical find, we were created by aliens. Hence the whole super ultra long space travel to the distant stars to find our creators.



The movie was indeed action packed and the details and the graphics of the show was top-notch. Definitely an interesting storyline, of course there are certain weird questions that arises as the story progresses. Believe you me, you might end up having more questions after the movie.

At the end of the day, it wasn't too scary of a movie especially since somehow somewhere I saw the tag "horror" on the show hence my initial guess. But aside from the dark view of things, it ain't too scary and it does entertain you. Well, it did for me.

Also, I loved the ending! Made some sense to me.

Overall, I give this show a good 8/10 rating!

 

It's funny that I wrote this post title since April the 8th and yet here it is still in my draft inbox of my blog. Anyhow, this is going to be a short and simple review of the E90 320d. The version I drove is the M-Sport kit with the full i-Drive system which is all in all a very good package. Especially now that the F30 has just been launched, you still might be able to get good bargains and fantastic discounts.

Coming from a guy who has driven a front wheel drive car all his life (well I had experience with a 4WD car when I was driving my Perodua Kembara previously), moving over to a rear wheel drive car was a new beginning for me. Personally, I can't really tell much of a difference, I did bring my car up Genting for a couple of runs but the main difference I can feel immediately was the steering. I tend to oversteer now a lot more compared to my Golf previously which tend to understeer at corners.

Handling wise I haven't had the chance to fully utilize BMW's so called perfect balance of a 50:50 weight distribution but being a fat 100kg guy, I think I totally screwed that up the moment I sat in the car. Right now the car is completely stock and even with the M-sport suspension, the car is comfortable indeed. That is mostly also due to the 17" rims it comes with and with rims that size, the tyres are on the tad comfortable side of things.

Now before anyone asks, for the 320d, the d stands for Diesel and yes, the diesel engine does make a bit of a noise hence I call the car a lorry or a taxi at times (well the older taxies which ran on diesel now that all the newer ones run on natural gas). But the moment you step inside the car and close the door, you can barely hear anything. Ride comfort is good and you just have to get used to the engine noise when you accelerate. Its not the usual engine sound you hear but rather, the sound of a diesel powerplant pushing you all the way

I used the term pushing is because this damn car gives you 380Nm of torque on paper. I brought it over to Sunway to have it dyno tested and the results was rather surprising! It resulted in 171whp and 370Nm of torque. All of that on the wheel! I definitely would encourage those of you who have the 320d to get the powerkit which then pushes the car to over 200hp and 420Nm of mouth watering torque. But thats just me, a performance junkie, well in some way. I just love the thrill of the acceleration but I usually chicken out at high speeds.

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="616"] Source: PaulTan.org[/caption]

Interior wise everything is as standard as what BMW can give you, comfortable leather seats, electric seats, a nice M-sport steering wrapped in leather, i-Drive with Navigation and DVD playback. All in all a good package. I really did like the bluetooth integration with my phone as well as the DVD player made me go out to buy a bunch of DVD-R to burn some TV series and Top Gear on them.

In terms of running or servicing costs, because BMW's come with their BS+RI (BMW Service + Repair Inclusive)  which basically means that your service is free for the first 3 years or 100,000km, that means you don't have to pay for anything when you bring your car in for service. And I mean everything including engine oil, brake pads, etc.



Compared to the F30, it uses the same exact engine but the F30 has a new gearbox. The downside is that at this point in time the F30 320d has quite bad specs, no navigation and the screen is only 6.5". The F30 is indeed a little roomier especially for the rear passengers but for the front seats, the seats are not the sportier type and its aimed more towards comfort hence the feel of a larger cabin space.

In conclusion, the car is indeed crazy, crazy that you have so much torque and crazy that at a full tank of diesel (RM1.80 versus RM1.90 for Ron95 petrol), I can travel more than 700km. Heck, at a full 100% city driving, I manage to achieve 700km even through the notorious KLCC traffic jams on Tun Razak. So if you are keen on getting a BMW on the cheap, head over to your nearest dealer to find out some of the fantastic deals they have.

Real-time Fuel Stats

You can check out the current fuel consumption of the 320d in the link below.


 

When you advertise a movie that came from the same producers of 300, it is definitely a movie I wanted to watch but the only problem with that was it created a huge hype. Now the problem with having such a high expectation of the movie, the moment it slightly disappoints, critics will be all over it.

Storyline was straight. Absolutely straight. A tale of a hero that the Gods believe in named Theseus. Set in the time of ancient Greece, the land was at trouble and amongst a peasant  village emerged a hero. So what else is new? Greece is still in trouble today with it's financial crisis that I wonder if there would be a hero that emerges to bail them out.

Anyway the whole story is about an evil king, Hyperion, who wants to unleash the Titans to challenge the Almighty Zeus who lounges about at Mt. Olympus. In order to do that, he needs a magical bow (as in bow and arrow) to help him do that. Of course this is where Theseus steps in as the hero.



The fight scenes were pretty good, I love how far Hollywood has progressed in terms of the fight scenes to match that of chinese kung-fu movies. The graphics were good but the one thing which irked me the most was our Malaysian censorship board. Everything kept skipping and certains bits were censored off which really did spoil the mood of the show.



Personally, I had a lot of expectations to the show and perhaps that it would have been better if there wasn't any censorship (I know where I would go and get one that isn't censored) and perhaps if the storyline was a little better.

I would give it a 5/10 overall.

Check out the movie trailer below.

The Ping Pong in Hong Kong! A line from the movie which sort of stayed within the confines of my brain. Why is that? It's because "Real Steel" was a totally awesome show. I have actually heard of the show but because it really didn't garner as much marketing budget versus some other movies where they had the movie posters plastered over billboards across town, Real Steel was really a great movie in hiding. I guess that's why there are so many movie reviews written about this movie right now.



Most movies that have been hyped up usually target a summer launch in order to catch the crowd so by the end of the year, I never did expect a fantastic show such as "Real Steel" to really wow the crowd. I haven't read a single negative review about the movie yet although it garnered a 7.5 score on IMDB but personally, this movie deserves a 9/10 in my books.



Set in the near future, where robot boxing is a top sport, a struggling promoter feels he's found a champion in a discarded robot. During his hopeful rise to the top, he discovers he has an 11-year-old son who wants to know his father.

The story begins with a very washed out Charlie Kenton (played by Hugh Jackman) an ex-boxer who now has lost his livelihood since Robot boxing has taken the arena. As he struggles through life with mountains of debt and robots, him finding out that he has a 11-year old son really changed his life.



We have always known Hugh Jackman as a very tough man especially in his roles as Wolverine, this time, Hugh Jackman played his role very well and turns this movie into both an action packed story line as well as one that tugs on your emotional strings.

What I was thoroughly impressed was the amount of CG graphics (computer generated) used and how it blended in nicely with the story as well as the overall ambiance. It wasn't overly done but executed extremely tastefully. But hey, who doesn't like to watch two robots punching each other in a ring.

Overall, Real Steel is really an underdog movie which definitely is worth watching in the cinema for its awesome CG graphics and even for the story line. It's nice to feel that nice fuzzy warmth at the end of the show. Watch the show, and you will know what I am talking about.

Prior to the launch of this movie as well, a viral site was also launched in accordance with the move. Do check out http://www.wrb.com/

Note: I would recommend reading my review on the Golf 1.4 TSI before reading this as most of this is based on a comparison between the Roc and the Golf

One of the benefits of joining other Volkswagen enthusiasts especially during a teh tarik session is that I get chances to test drive other member's cars. One of them, which I managed to sneakily test drive a number of times was the Scirocco 1.4. Now I have always been curious to see a car with the same engine as the Golf 1.4 TSI, but priced at RM188,888 has to offer.

The Scirocco was also featured in the recent Karate Kid movie but of course, it's an extremely old version. Also called the Roc for short, here is a quick and brief history of the Scirocco.

So let's see what are some of the differences here.

First Impressions

Right off the bat, the moment anyone looks at a Scirocco, I am sure there has to be a reaction. Whether it may be a good one or a bad one but still a reaction. Perhaps you might be like James May where he might have a fizzy little thing between his legs when he sees a car which gives him the fancy, yeah, something like that but irregardless, it definitely turns heads. The first time I actually saw a Scirocco was when Top Gear featured an episode on it where they had to come up with an advertisement for the 3-cylinder diesel version of the Roc (you can view their silly results here and here).



Interior and Boot Space

From other Roc owners, you can still set up a baby chair in the Roc and it comfortably fits 4 people in total due to its 50/50 split folding rear seat design (you can squeeze in 5 for short trips but it wouldn't be legal as there are only two rear seat belts available). One thing that stands out between the Roc 1.4 and the Golf is that the Roc comes with a flattened steering wheel, the same one which is given for GTI and R owners. The Golf 1.4 comes with the standard round steering wheel which also is available with the Passat CC sold here.

Shown above is the flat bottom steering wheel designed for the R-line cars. The GTI ones look exactly the same except that it has red stitching on it. Another thing to note that Scirocco's that were manufactured in 2009 have a completely different interior than the current ones mainly because it takes the same styling from the older Golf MkV. The ones sold here by Volkswagen Group Malaysia are based off the newer interior but I have seen 2009 Rocs for sale on Mudah brought in by the local dealers.

The rest of the interior is standard and there isn't much differences between this and the Golf. In my opinion, the steering wheel itself provides a nice sporty look and feel and to optionally get this steering wheel itself can cost around USD$500 (searching through eBay).

The boot however, is surprisingly deep and you definitely can store a lot of stuff in there. I haven't had the chance to test it out with my full-sized golf bag but it definitely does look like it has a lot of space.

Another benefit you get with the Roc 1.4 is that it comes with 17" rims as it's standard compared to the Golf's 16" rims.

So far there hasn't been any complaints as well for the Roc owners especially when it comes to the "rattling" noise experienced by Golf owners especially when taking the corner. This issue actually comes from the fact that the rubber lining along the doors tend to dry up in our weather, hence the noise. Because the Roc has only two doors, I guess you can hardly hear the sound.

The Drive

After taking off in the standard fashion and the moment I enter the first corner, or basically, leaving the mamak stall and turning the first corner; the Roc shines here. Due to it's lower profile, this car handles way better than the Golf 1.4 which I think is a little soft around the suspension areas. You get the planted feel when tackling corners and I could hardly feel the side G's pushing me. Of course it does help that it's only a 2-door car hence you get less body roll due to a more rigid and firmer chassis.

Differences

Other differences between the Roc and the Golf are rather miniature in nature. For example, the Roc doesn't have sensors at the front but only sensors at the back as compared to the Golf which has sensors all around. The Roc however has two reverse lights versus the rest of the other VW cars mainly because I think the rear window is so small and the C pillars are so fat, that it is extremely difficult to reverse out.

Interesting Mods

Of course with every VW car, comes plenty of modifications. Here are some of the mods you can do for the Scirocco to stand out from the rest of the other Rocs.

• Bodykit (Rieger, Caractere, etc, etc) - This of course changes the look of your car!


• Scirocco R rear lights - This isn't as fancy as the Golf R rear LED lights. It's just a darkened rear Roc lights


• Aluminium pedals for the Roc 1.4 as well as the OSIR footrest or you can opt for the full R-line pedal sets.


• Unibrace for the Roc to improve its handling further. I am not too sure if they have the Crossbrace for the Roc as well.


• Head unit upgrade to either the RCD510 (the Roc 2.0 comes with this) or the RNS510 which offers satellite navigation and DVD playback.


• Custom downpipe for the Roc


• Engine remap


• Cold air intake


• Quad exhausts


• H&R or Eibach lowering springs

So far there hasn't been any announcement by VW to provide daytime running lights for the Scirocco.

Conclusion

To conclude up this review, would I say that the Scirocco is worth the extra RM30,000? Well it all depends on your taste. If you like a 2-door car, then yes, I would say it would be worth the RM30,000 extra. But if you are considering the 2.0litre version, I still have some doubts mainly because a 2-door Renault Megane RS is priced currently at RM236k which is RM15k cheaper than the 2.0 Roc and it has a lot more features to the car. Overall, the Scirocco fits into a different segment compared to the Golf hence I guess it's a nice compliment in their line up.

The Roc which I tested was a very unique Roc, because the owner, decided to bring it in for a dyno run and the results were astonishing. The Scirocco 1.4 TSI is stated to provide an output of 160ps running on Ron98 but his Roc managed to generate 170horses at the wheel, yes, 170whp! That is insane!

By the way, there is currently a Scirocco R in Malaysia already. Apparently someone managed to bring it in via a local AP and it made an appearance at the Volkswagen Club Malaysia's TT session two weeks ago. So far no concrete rumours about Volkswagen Malaysia launching the Scirocco R but there has been changes in terms of the prices for the Golf R. What I have heard is that the prices have been raised from the rumoured RM270k+ to RM300k+.

Now I have never owned a white car before and one of my biggest worry that I have is to see it turn mellow! Hence resulting in me scouring through the interweb to fine out ways to keep the car shiny and clean and nice. Initially I was introduced to various methods of waxing and various services provided but one recommendation I received was to try out Sierra Glow.



Located out in USJ1 in Subang, I decided to drive there early in the morning to drop off my car there. Met with the owner, Choong who was a very friendly guy who also gave me a lift to Summit because I didn't want to wait 6 hours for my car at the workshop nor was there any other shop in the industrial area.

What Sierra Glow preaches is not to use wax. They state that conventional waxes and other polishing products merely stay on top of your car paintwork without removing the dust and dirt that are trapped into the paintwork. In fact, rubbing the wax in only pushes the dirt deeper into the paint.



So what is Sierra Glow actually? It is basically a chemical which bonds microscopically with the paint and at 5 microns thick, it is stated as harder than steel. In layman terms, there is a small thin protective layer which sits on top of your car's paint thus keeping and maintaining it's shine intact. What sort of sold me to this is that it provides a 5 year guarantee as well as because there is a protective layer on top of your car now, you don't need to polish and wax it anymore. A simple wash would just be sufficient!

Of course, the other selling factor was that I saw this car which was already there owned by another customer who had Sierra Glow applied on their car!



Here are some of the steps they take for the entire procedure,

1. Prepare the car by washing it and ensuring all grit and grime have been removed


2. Clay bar - basically removing oxidation and marks on your car's body


3. T.C Hard and T.C All which is their patented method which removes surface scratches, swirls and water marks


4. Polish - Ironically they do polish the car after what was explained to me but this is to polish the paint coat


5. Glassglow - Applying the 5-micron layer of GlassGlow.

After a LOOOOONG break in between (of course a big thanks to the owner for giving me a lift to Summit while they took 5.5 hours to complete the whole procedure), here was what I saw when I returned to the shop.







And I was very happy with the results! After 4 months, I am still very happy with the results of Sierra Glow.



Conclusion

Personally at the price I paid, it was totally worth it especially the 5-year guarantee. One of the key areas which sold me was the fact that I didn't need to polish my car and since I live in an apartment where there is no area to wash my car, Sierra Glow seemed like the perfect solution. Also with this, I can safely NOT renew my membership with CARs International because I feel that the amount I save (RM5 for each car wash) does not cover the entire cost of 1 year's membership which was in the range of RM400. Worse of all, some of their centers had really bad service hence I am glad that I am not renewing my membership.

Directions to get to the shop:



A final note:

Unfortunately while I was on my way back home from the Sierra Glow shop, I got caught in the jam at Subang and it poured heavily! The instructions I received was that I was not to was my car for 48 hours but thanks to our wonkey Malaysian weather, I was rather unlucky. When I reached back home, what came to my surprise was the formation of water beads on the car. This is definitely thanks to the protective layer which now protects the shine and colour of my car.

Last updated: 21st September 2011 - New map update from APR, results are looking good!


(Image source: Motortrader.com.my)

After all the hype about me posting up on the Golf on both my blog as well as on Facebook, Wearnes VW saw my post on their fan page and informed me on Friday (September 2010) that the car was available for a test drive. This is definitely thanks to the power of social media. Immediately I called Wearnes VW and made an appointment with them for a test drive on Saturday the moment the opened. Not that I was super kiasu or anything, it's just that I had a number of wedding meetings and errands I had to run hence I decided for an early test drive.

Both CW and BK as well as Ash followed me to the dealership for the test drive. Ash had already placed a booking for the Golf earlier but I just wanted to test drive the car first hand to see it. Of course there are plenty of pros and cons when I sat in the car and looked at it. Initially I did say I wanted the car to be red but after seeing the red colour in person, I felt as if it didn't have the same effect as the Golf MkV had with their tornado red paint jobs.



First Impressions

The unit that was available in the showroom was in Amaryllis Red and I didn't like it that much. Stepping into the car, the first thing I noticed was the lack of leather seats as well as manually adjustable seats (versus the electric seats you get with the GTI). Of course these luxuries have been taken away in order to bring the price of the car down. The dashboard looks decent as well as the number of knobs and gadgets are a plenty. Build quality was good as BK was trying to figure out how in the world did they make such a good solid feel for the compartments in the car especially on the side hand rest.

Although there were some comments on my Facebook which I totally agree with, was that the 16" rims and the fabric seats does give it a budget look and feel.

Visual differences compared to the Golf GTI

 

From the outside, there are quite a number of visual differences between the Golf TSI and the Golf GTI. First and foremost would be the front bumper where the GTI's front bumper is different and it also includes in a front lip as well. The GTI sits lower compared to the Golf TSI. The number of fingers I can fit between the gap of the tyres and the car is around 4 fingers on the TSI versus 3 on the GTI. The GTI has a simple side skirt (although I don't really think its a full skirt). The rear bumper as well is different as the GTI cater's for twin exhaust versus the double exhaust ports on the TSI. Another small but important difference is the rear spoiler, the TSI's one is a little short which seems a little short. Also the GTI's brake calipers are red in colour.

On the inside, the GTI car is wrapped in leather and the driver's seat has electronic seat functions. The steering wheel is wrapped in leather and red stitching and it's a flat bottom steering wheel which gives a better and sportier feel to it. The TSI uses the same one in the Passat CC. Also the GTI does have aluminium sports pedal versus the standard rubber ones on the TSI.

Cabin Space and Boot Space

Let's face it, the car is small and it has less boot space then what I am used to. Well as a comparison, what I am used to is ferrying 3 friends to the golf course with 4 golf bags in the boot of my Honda Civic. I am definitely not going to be able to fit in 2 let a lone 3 golf bags unless I bring down the rear seats which in turn means I can't ferry the other people as well. Seating wise, it's still comfy but the fabric seats that come with the car are a little more on the hard side of things.

I am having slight difficulty fitting in a large-sized golf bag into the boot. In order for it to go in, I had to angle it in such a way that the bag is laid down diagonally. But other than my golf bag,  there hasn't been much of an issue getting other luggage in. It is rather ironic that the Golf has difficulty fitting a golf bag in its boot.

The Drive

The most important thing to me was the drive, I drive a lot. As in, I travel over 100km a day to and from work alone and this does not count in lunch runs and dinner runs or the occasional trip to the city center for meetings. But most of the driving time is limited to the highways where I feel fuel consumption comes into a very big effect here. The engine was beautiful, pickup was good, way better than what my 1.8 Civic can handle but there have been comments about it being a little bit of lag before the turbo kicks in. I guess I probably would need to have driving experience with a GTI first to have a good comparison.

Power (updated Sep 2011)

Now I have to be very frank, the power output between both the 1.4 TSi and the 2.0 TSi engines are really day and night. I have driven the GTI as well as the Roc 2.0 and the power difference can be easily felt. The amount of torque generated and the pull factor will leave you pressed back against the seat. So this is the true difference between the 1.4 TSi and the 2.0 TSi versions. To some, 160ps is enough for their usual day-to-day drive but I guess the power junkie in me seems to want to have more power!

I recently brought the Golf to GT Auto in Sunway (Sep 2011) again using the same dyno machine as the previous run below. The difference this time is that APR has released a version 2 of their 1.4 twincharger map and I wanted to see what is the difference on a proper dyno machine instead of relying mainly on my butt dyno. So using the same machine and also seeing the previous results (170whp and 267Nm torque), this time I came out with a smile! Latest figures is that I am running on 194whp (wheel horse power) with 307Nm of torque! That's more torque than a stock Golf GTI and the horse power is quite close to that of a Golf Mk6 GTI. Definitely a happier guy right now! Note that hardware wise, everything remained the same with the exception that I changed my drop-in filter to a K&N drop in filter.

I brought the TSI to GT Auto in Sunway and put it through a couple of runs on their dynometer. On paper the spec rated it at 160ps and that is achieved using Ron98 fuel. So with Ron95, based on other 1.4 TSI cars including the Roc as well, power on wheel was around 150-155whp when running on Ron95 fuel. After remapping the engine to a Stage 1 APR v1 map, I only managed to pull around 170whp on Ron95. I still think that is a little low and even the guys at APR has informed me that the reading was on the lower side. I definitely have to bring the car out for a datalog session to check out the readings and the boost levels.

The infamous DSG Gearbox

Gear change was quite smooth and the paddle shifter were fun to play with but as the shifter are in a fixed position, the weird part comes when you are turning on a winding road and you wanted to change hence you might have some difficulty changing gears quickly using the shifter. You have 3 different gear modes, the standard "D" mode for your every day-to-day driving, the manual mode where you have to change gears manually without the need of a clutch and the "S" mode where you usually red line your rev meter a lot more before it changes gear.

Braking powa!

The brakes were very sensitive as a little tap would send the car to a screeching halt almost immediately. That is quite good considering for a car that has 160hp.

Handling and suspension

Handling on the car wasn't too bad, although the salesperson didn't let try to slalom the car along Jalan Maarof so I can't give a good perspective on that. In my defence, there were plenty of potholes on the road which allowed me to snake my way in between them but I also wanted to try out the suspension comfort whilst going over the potholes. Compared to the Golf GTI and even the Sciroccos, the Golf TSI is a little wobbly especially after taking a high-speed corner. You definitely feel a lot more planted in the GTI and the Roc due to their stiffer setup.

Features

The car comes with plenty of features which include optical parking system(OPS) in front and at the back of your car. Whenever you park your car, you get a display on your head unit, which in my case is the RCD 510. Note that the original head unit you would receive with your cars would be the RCD 310.



Definitely comes in handy especially when you try to reverse into a tight parallel parking space.

Other features also include the ability to plug-in your USB thumb drive into the player as well as your iPhone/iPod via the MDI (media device in) connectors. Note that upon delivery of the car, only the MDI-to-USB cable was provided. I managed to source through eBay to get the MDI-to-iPod cable hence I am now able to plug my iPhone into the system and control it via my steering wheel (control meaning controlling the volume and switching of songs). All of this whilst the car also charges my iPhone at the same time.

Some interesting features which may seem standard for those of you who are used to drive a continental car but seem to be exciting for me because this is my first European car would be the auto rain sensor, auto lights, paddle shifters on the steering wheel, radio and MFD (multi function display) on the steering wheels and much more!

Fuel Consumption

Technical specs states that the car can travel up to 100km on 6 litres but I would be happy if it could go for 700km on a full tank of 55 litres.

At the end of the test drive, we were brought downstairs to the basement to have a look at the various other colour models available, reflex silver, a deep blue colour and another red was available. The test drive car was in white (candy white). Personally I would have chosen the blue but once you have driven on the highway everyday for the past 4 years, you would know that our highways are filled with stone and small pebbles which would eventually chip away at our front bonnet and bumpers. Hence going for a light colour is always preferable.

By the way, I also saw the Polo 1.2 in the basement. It's not the final one which will be launched as it is a manual version brought in here to pass the Puspakom test. From the outside, it looks exactly like a Golf, only smaller. Not mini-me small but just a little smaller.

Overall I would say it is a fantastic car, European built quality and the power is there. Two thumbs up from me :P

Some updates on the fuel consumption. I have also included in the Ron of the petrol I used to fill it up with. Personally I swapped over from Ron 97 to Ron 95 mainly because of the fuel hike but I can definitely notice the difference in terms of pickup and power. Overall power is slightly less but with Ron 95, the pickup feels as if it is a little more sluggish.

• 1st run - 520km (Ron 97)


• 2nd run - 520km (Ron 97)


• 3rd run - 500km (Ron 95 mixed with Ron 97)


• 4th run - 500km (Ron 95)


• 5th run - 520km (Ron 95)

As of right now, I am sticking to only using Ron 95 petrol as the prices of Ron 97 has increased.

4th Jan 2011 - I have driven almost 4,000km and my average fuel consumption is around 9.7km/L

11th March 2011 - I have driven almost 7,300km and my average fuel consumption is around 10.7km/L. I get about 550km average for a full tank of Ron95 petrol.

21st April 2011 - Trying out the new Petronas Ron95 Extra petrol, still see no difference in terms of mileage. I get the average 550km for a full tank of petrol

4th May 2011 - I just downloaded an app from the iTunes store for my phone. I need to fuel up my car for another 3-4 more times before getting a good set of data. Will post those up pretty soon.

Fuel preferences:

1. Caltex Ron95


2. Petronas Ron95 Extra


3. Esso Ron95


4. Shell Ron95


5. BHP Ron 95 - I get the worst fuel economy out of BHP

Car Maintenance:

This is my first hatchback car ever and I have never had a chance of maintaining one. Since the car is still relatively new, the service period hasn't popped up yet hence there aren't much information about it here. One of the things that I am rather anal about is how clean the car is and the colour I chose for my car was white. Personally I would have loved it in Tornado Red. Anyhow, no matter what the colour is, the car gets very dirty very easily especially the back. In rainy weather, mud, grime and dirt gets trapped at the lid of the 5th door so you will see that the back portion of the car is always dirty.

I have sent the car in recently to apply Sierra Glow on the body to maintain and sustain its white shine. You can read more about Sierra Glow in my review post here.

Car Services:

As I have recently passed my 7,500km mark, I have decided to send my car in for a simple service. Note that I did not send it in to the official VW service center as all I needed was a simple engine oil change and replace my fuel filter. I sent the car to Exquisite Marques over at Sunway Damansara and the 1st cost was RM380 in total of labour charges.

7,500 km - RM380 @ Exquisite Marques
15,000 km - RM525 @ Wearnes Service Center at Sg. Besi (total service time was about 6 hours)

Car Modifications:

When I first wrote this article, I would probably think that keeping this car stock would be very good already but once the modding bug hits you, it hits your hard, as well as your wallet. Here are some of the modifications you can do which may or may not void your warranty.

• Change your existing head unit (RCD 310). Alternatives around would be the RCD 510 as well as the RNS 510. Both the RCD and RNS 510 sport a touch screen LCD whilst the latter provides 20Gb of hard disk space and a built-in GPS navigation system.


• iPod MDI cable so you can control your song list using the steering wheel controls


• Change your rear lights to the Golf R LED lights. Shops which sell these babies include Ryou's Modshop (found on Facebook), Exotic Mods in Sunway Damansara, Exquisite Marques in Sunway Damansara and many more.

• Change your rims, let's face it. The stock 16" Atlanta rims just doesn't quite suite it especially since the advertisement features the Golf with 18" Atlanta rims. I fell in love with these Caractere rims!


• Upgrade your ECU with APR's tuning. Bring your car from 160bhp to 205bhp! Other tuning brands include MTM, ABT, DKTuning, Custom ones available at Exotic Mods as well.


• Change your pedals to aluminium racing pedals! Love these from OSIR.

• Add a bodykit, ABT has a showroom in Glenmarie. Get a copy of Hypertune and you can find loads of them available for the Golk Mk6.

• If you are thinking of increasing the power for your Golf TSI, I would also recommend that you change your brakes! Get the Golf R BBK (big brake kit) or 3rd party market brakes such as Brembo discs and brakes.

• Door sills scuff plates to protect your sides from scratches especially if you track on a lot of sand and dirt.

• For those of you who bought the 2010 Golf TSI, the latest mod you can do is get the front DRL Bi-Xenon lights. The 2011 Golf TSI and Golf GTI's will come with these lights as standards (damn Volkswagen! If only I had known!)

Places where I wash the car

• Waxsons in Aman Suria - Best place and very good cleaning job. A RM28 nano-wash and interior cleaning job really is worth it here! What I can notice is that even the dust on the air con vents have been cleaned up!


• Cars International - Expensive and don't really get many benefits by joining their membership.


• Susheteki in Tropicana City Mall - Don't like the staff's attitude, didn't really do a good job and must be a member to wash your car during the weekends

Conclusion

It would sound extremely biased especially if I said that this car is a very good car but with so many other choices within the price range, I can safely say that the ride and power on this little white rabbit is really amazing! Of course the next closest thing would be the Peugeot 308 Turbo which also offers similar power ratings (on paper) with the Golf but because it is a CKD model, the interior and ride quality doesn't come close to the Golf. But then again, you are paying a lot less for the Peugeot 308 Turbo. Overall I am very pleased with the Golf and even though I pump it with Ron 95, there is always power available especially when I want to overtake cars. The feel of the supercharger and the turbo kicking in is awesome. Only problem I have is that thanks to our wonderful Malaysian weather where it rains almost every other day, a Candy White car gets dirty very easily!

Discussion Groups and Forums

Do check out these forums where I participate together with other VW Golf TSI owners. Good source of information and a great place to hang out and learn from one another. A warning, you will get severely poisoned by some of the members there :)

• Lowyat.net VW Discussion Thread


• Autoworld VW Group Discussion Thread


• Volkswagen Golf Club Malaysia Forums

Do look out for me there in those threads. I am known as either "Mavik", "mavicarus" or "rendezvous".

Other Test Drive Reviews

• Check out Motortrader's more comprehensive test drive here.


• Check out ZerotoHundred's test drive review here.

After mentioning about the Volkswagen Golf GTI Mk VI in my older post here and the new upcoming Volkswagen Golf 1.4 TSI here, I managed to find some interesting videos on YouTube about the Volkswagen Golf 1.4.


Thought the advert above was very interesting.


Some reviews of the Golf VI on Fifth Gear


This video shows the acceleration speed of the Golf 1.4 TSI with a 160hp. Only difference is that it is fitted with 19" rims instead of it's stock 16" rims.


The Golf VI 1.4 in action, tornado red. I like that colour a lot.


And a video reviewing the Golf but in a different language! Anyone can translate this for me?

Way back in January, I wrote this post about my obsession with the Golf GTI. Frankly, that obsession is still here. But then Volkswagen announced the Golf 1.4 TSI and that got me a little bit excited as well.



Why is that? Well, the Golf 1.4 TSI, as it's name states, comes with a 1.4 Twin charged engine (both turbo and supercharged) and it produces about 158bhp and 240NM of torque. Pricing for this bad boy starts from RM148,888 onwards and from what they mentioned in their packages, the first batch would include the "Light & Sound" package and push the price to RM155,888.

Light & Sound Package (optional additional features)

• Bi-xenon headlights for high and low beam with integrated turn signal indicator
• Cornering light system: static and dynamic bending
• Dynamic headlight-range adjustment
• Front fog lights
• Headlight cleaning system
• MEDIA-IN USB/iPod media interface

This is somewhat cheaper than the Golf GTI which is currently priced at RM211,063 (on the road price) and I would see a lot of people running to book this car (the Golf 1.4). A check with some of the local dealers, FA Wagen (Jln 222), Cergas (TTDI) and Wearnes (Bangsar) states that you would need to put a RM5,000 booking fee to be able to get yourself a batch of the first 70 cars (unconfirmed number) that will be brought in here late September.

Frankly, yes I might seem excited about this car but still its no GTI. The torque is insane but overall there are a number of differences which makes both these models different. Here are some of the differences.

• Engine displacement - 2.0L vs 1.4L (The 1.4 would have a cheaper road tax and be less painful on your wallet at the petrol station)


• Power - Of course the GTI has more power, duh! But the Golf 1.4 is no weakling with a rated power of 160PS and APR having an ECU remap mod which brings it to 190bhp.


• Torque - The Golf GTI produces 280Nm of torque from 1700RPM onwards and the Golf 1.4 produces 240Nm of torque but from 1500RPM onwards


• Leather seats - Our variant of the Golf 1.4 doesn't come with leather seats unlike our friendly neighbours down south who gets more accessories and model variants there (they have the 140PS Golf variant there)


• Gearbox - The GTI comes with a 6-speed DSG versus the Golf 1.4 which comes with a 7-speed DSG gearbox


• Weight - The GTI is about 30KG's heavier compared to the Golf 1.4 in terms of it's gross total weight


• Suspension - The GTI comes with Adaptive chassis control DCC (sets your suspension settings to either auto, sports or comfort) but the Golf 1.4 we are getting doesn't have this feature. I guess this is one of the few things removed to get the prices down.


• Rims - The GTI comes with 17" rims whilst the Golf 1.4 comes with 16" rims

You have a choice of 8 different colours (1 solid, 5 metallic and 2 pearl effect choices) to choose from. I am guessing the Candy White would be the most popular colour but I am leaning towards the Amaryllis Red or the United Grey. Here I go again, getting ahead of myself as if I am buying the car :P

Some additional points about the Golf 1.4 is that it won the 2009 World Car of the Year award and the 1.4 engine won the Green Engine of the Year Award in 2009.

At the moment, the cars aren't available for test drive yet. I have left my contacts with the 3 dealers and hope that they would follow up the moment the car is available for a test drive. Can't wait to test drive this new car and see if it can really get me off the hook with my obsession with the GTI. Quite a number of people have already booked the car and I guess the two awards I mentioned above seems to sell the car. Plus, the Golf is indeed a beautiful looking car.

Ok, I better stop drooling here. Anyway on top of the news as well is the recent MoU signed by our Malaysian government with VW on getting 3 variants to be locally assembled. Rumours states that it could be either of the following combinations (VW Jetta, Passat and a MPV, Polo, Golf & Passat). Note these are just rumours and no official confirmation on the models have been released.

One of the many questions people ask me is what do I use my iPad for? Well I would love to say I use it to wow my clients and also showcase not just my presentation skills but also some of my photography work as well. And I managed to do just that using a very nifty software called Dropbox.

You see, I have a number of laptops and PCs and a Mac about, each of them having a specific purpose individually. So when I want to share files and work with some files, it is rather cumbersome to keep on using a thumbdrive to transfer the files and after a while I ended up overwriting the wrong versions of documents and this caused a huge nightmare for me.

So when I started looking around for a cloud storage software, I found out about Dropbox. First of all, why I chose Dropbox was because it was free! Yes, absolutely free for 2Gb worth of space. Now if you are thinking of using it for large files then I would suggest another alternative but if it is to sync some of your important documents, 2Gb is more than enough. Of course, if you want more than 2Gb of files then you have to pay for the service.

So how does it work?

Dropbox functions as a specific folder that resides on your PC/Mac which syncs directly with the cloud. It looks exactly like a folder in your PC and you need to do is just treat it as your folder! So you can copy and paste files into it, create sub-folders according to your own liking and drop files into that folder.



Another cool feature about it which I learned about it recently is that Dropbox allows users to share their folders with other people! How cool is that? When I was submitting my photos to be included into The Nut Graph's article (I blogged about it here and view the article here), I worked with Jo-Ann by sharing my photos via Dropbox. This also included me making some changes to the photos as well as include in captions explaining what the photos meant. Now this was extremely helpful for us both as I am sitting here in Cyberjaya while she is all the way in KL.

Now earlier I mentioned that I had a more elaborate setup, well it isn't too complicated as Dropbox makes it so much easier now. So I decided to create this diagram to show you all what I really mean when I use it extensively.



In my work environment, I would also assume that most of our work laptops have certain limitations as to what we can install on our laptops and one of them is iTunes. So thanks to that, I can't really sync my iPad with it and hence I can't really sync files with it. Thanks to Dropbox, that is all in the past. Note that with the iPad, I can't edit files in my Dropbox folder but I can view them. Tip, for best viewing pleasure such as presentations, I would save my presentations as PDF files so that the formatting doesn't run.

Anyway, if you are really interested with Dropbox, you can head over here and sign up for a free 2Gb account now!

Update: 10th June 2010

Since the Cruze now has been officially launched, the price for the car is at RM97,888, and the on-the-road price would be around RM98k. Still a lot cheaper than the current price of the Honda Civic 1.8.

Over the weekend I had the pleasure of being crashing  invited for Cergazam's sneak preview of the Chevrolet Cruze over by their showroom next to the Federal Highway. With only 4 hours of sleep thanks to the previous night's frivolities, I dragged my sorry ass over to the showroom, unshaven and half asleep only to be greeted by not a single coffee machine in the place.

Well, enough about my condition. Let's talk about the car and the event. The event started off with a couple of speeches by some big shots and then a product demonstration by one of their technicians.

Since they didn't allow anyone to take photos during the event especially photos of the car and it's interior, I can't really show them to you but rather narrate it out or help you visualize it with what I am about to type.

Ok, close your eyes and image that you are sitting in a car. The car is meant to compete against the likes of the Honda Civic or the Toyota Altis and also the newer and more recent Kia Forte. So it is rather roomy inside but it felt smaller compared to a Honda Civic.

The number of electronic gizmos attached with it is definitely a very good plus compared to the usual Hondas and Toyotas. Some of them include the following:

• Rain sensor to automatically activate the windscreen wipers. With Malaysia's weather, that should be perpetually turned on.


• Automatic light settings, it turns on your lights when you go into a dark place such as a basement or a tunnel automatically


• Different settings for your remote control, for example you can set that whenever you unlock your car with your remote, you can only unlock only the driver's side. Very useful if you are a lone single driver and you always have that fear that someone might just barge into your car and nick your handbag, laptop bag or knickers.


• 6 CD changer in car, yes you only see a single CD slot but you can slot up to 6 CDs into it.


• 6 speed shiftronic gearbox which performed quite sluggishly when I was test driving the car. I could really feel the jerked after I switched gears up or down.


• Auxiliary jack and a USB port


• A large boot space!

What is missing which I thought might be embedded into the car or into this version is there is no keyless entry and start stop button for the car. The interior feels plasticky and a super quick and efficient "mark" test tells me it wasn't made properly or some 200 other people have decided to use the "mark" test. (The "mark" test includes pressing every available panel spacing with their own fingers and if there is a squeek, that is a negative point).

The worse part about the interior is that they have no leather seat option as well as they have garnished the interior with a very ugly blue cotton-cum-suede material which totally does not go well with any of the car colours available. Now don't get me wrong, blue is my FAVOURITE colour and yet they manage to destroy it's beauty! Worse of all, its also on your dashboard. The good thing about that is they have a light grey option which wasn't available at the time of the sneak preview so I have no chance of seeing it. Doubt that it would be any difference.

The inside of the car feels bulky thanks to its garish interior design which sort of have a fixation of looking "muscular". To put it into perspective, image a buffed up body builder covered in body oil and have muscles that squeek each time you perform the "mark" test on him. That pretty much sums it all up.

The 1.8 litre engine felt a little bit unresponsive just the same way how I feel that the Civic 1.8 isn't responsive unless you tweak it up a bit. Road noise was minimal when I test drove it but no chance of testing it at higher speeds such as driving at 110kph on the highway.

Handling felt very normal and bouncy thanks to it's soft suspension. I guess you have a trade off between comfort versus handling performance.

The spare tyre is the typical black steel rimmed ones. The signal light is located on the left.

The engine was made in Germany and the front windscreen is from France. The car was assembled in Korea so technically this car is a CBU unit.

Price wise, the car will be priced cheaper than the Civic so for those people who are looking to spend that amount of money, they have now a new choice to look at, which is the Chevrolet Cruze.

Note that Naza is now the importer of the Cruze and they have the official launch where our lovely Prime Minister will be there to launch it at KL Convention Center on Thursday.

In case you have been living under a coconut shell lately, or haven't even caught up with the amount of movies you need to watch or if you have 2.45 hours to spare in your busy life, let me tell you what you should do. First of all is to head over to your local cinemas and buy tickets to watch this amazing show, Avatar. Why is it amazing? Let me tell you why.

My first thoughts about the show when I watched the trailer was that it was going to be a fully a computer generated film. That was my benchmark for the film. Only to be surprised that it wasn't fully (although it was considerably made with CG), but the storyline and how the plot was built up made it very very entertaining.

Directed by James Cameron (Titanic, Alien), the story talks about a marine by the name of Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) who is handicapped due to a previous combat experience taking the place of his deceased brother on an alien planet inhabited  by blue locals called the Navi.



In this show, the humans are depicted as the enemy (much like how I saw a tweet about the movie depicting America going to war against Iraq), where they went to this planet in search of extremely minerals called unobtanium. During their survey, the humans discovered a large  deposit of those minerals sitting directly beneath a tribal village of the Navi.



In their attempts to move the village/settlement away peacefully, the humans developed Avatar's which is a combination of the human DNA as well as the Navi where the humans will link up with the Avatar's and go undercover amongst the Navi and interact with them. Each Avatar could only be controlled by the folks whose DNA was used and when Jake Sully's brother (a scientist) died, he was then tasked to take over his brother's role.

The movie then talks about how as Jake Sully used his Avatar and learned the ways of the Navi and only to learn that they weren't the ones who are really savages.

The movie is indeed visually stunning and it contained enough action films to keep us at the edge of our seats. If you get the change to watch this show, please watch it in 3D! I missed that out so I am going to catch it again in 3D. Personally, the movie is indeed fantastic and I rate it only second to Star Trek (of all the 2009 movies).

Still don't believe me that it is worth going? This is a movie that was rated 83% by Rotten Tomatoes!

I managed to catch this show last week and to be frank it was a fantastic show because not only was it action packed, I always have been a fan of the X-Men. Note that I don't actually read much of the comics but coming from a movie fan (I never really liked how the shot the first 3 X-Men movies), this show really was a huge improvement.

The movie starts with how Logan was a boy and how he eventually ran away from home and the scenes move from him being part of the American Revolution, to world war 1 and world war 2 and eventually in Vietnam. The weird part about the beginning was that Logan started off with bone claws.

Anyway he was recruited by Stryker to join a team of other mutants where they went on missions around the world. Logan's real story begins when Victor (a.k.a Sabretooth) went on a killing rampage during these missions which made Logan decide to quit and head into exile to live a peaceful life. When things start to go wrong and Stryker entering back into Logan's life a few years later, Logan was then driven to avenge his lover's death (killed by Sabretooth).

With revenge in his mind, Logan then decided to join the Weapon X program under Stryker and then received his adamantium skeleton and claws.

The movie was interesting to me because it also showed other heroes from the Marvel universe in the forms of Blob, Gambit, Wraith, Agent Zero, Deadpool and many more. From my discussions with some of my friends who were real avid fans of the X-Men comics, they have mentioned that the storyline is very different compared to the that of the comics.

I guess this argument holds true for the most recent movie, Watchmen, where the movie was created to reach audiences who were more unlikely not to have read the comics. The same goes for our Asian creators as well in the forms of Anime vs Manga where both have different views but of the same character.

My take as a viewer who never really followed the comics:

3.5 out of 5

Ok, the movie is not pronounced as "ai-pee man" but rather "eep-mun". It is a dude's name and not a movie about IT geeks gone wild or crudely put it as the next geek flick. On the contrary, this movie reminds me of the good old kung-fu flicks that I watched as a boy and this movie does not disappoint.



"Ip Man is adapted from the life story of Ip Man, the grand master of the Wing Chun style of kung fu and sifu (master) of legendary kung fu superstar Bruce Lee. This movie will be the first important record of the master's life. Ip's persistent devotion to Wing Chun is a classic example of the love and respect shown to wushu and the freedom and spirit it represents. Ip Man is a concept, a spirit, a way of thinking - and it represent a new peak in Hong Kong's wushu movies. "

Based on a true story and coupled with realistic fight scenes, like I said earlier, this movie does not dissapoint. Everything about this movie was excellent and I figured that I would enjoy this show.



The movie brings us back to China just before the Sino-Japanese war, a city called Fushan which was famed to house many martial arts practitioners. With martial arts being popular and people wanting to show that their own style of martial arts is popular, the scene portrays a city where martial arts dojos are the cash cows of the city's economical height.



Ip Man was not one of those who set up a training schools and teaching disciples but his reputation of a skilled martial artist precedes him and his humility reminded me of how Jet-Li portrayed "Wong Fei Hong" in the "Once Upon a Time in China" series.



The supporting casts of Simon Yam, Fan Siu-Wong and Lynn Hung added the much needed sense of drama, romance and friendship which makes this movie complete. If you thought that "Crouching Tiger and Hidden Dragon" was a real kungfu flick, you are sadly mistaken. This is as real as it gets, there are not fancy flying about waving your swords through the air. This is real down to earth martial arts at its best.

I give it a 9/10 rating. If you haven't watched it, what are you waiting for, catch the next available show!