At last , I own the Fairlady ...

Today was one of the exciting days of my life. I finally took possession of the Nissan 350Z Fairlady. It was not quite the "few days" that I thought I could get the car after placing the order on August 5 2009. It turned out to be a few weeks. I wasted some 7-8 days looking for the right financial company and a few days to decide to get the right insurance company.

At about 4.00 pm, I took the car for a drive starting from a Shell station to KLIA on the highway and back again to fill up the tank to the same level as at start. The idea is to determine the consumption. The odometer reading at start was 16,444 km and at end it was 16,531 km. For that distance of 87 km, I had consumed 8.49 litres of petrol at a cost of RM 15.28

The consumption rate was 87/8.49 km per litre or 10.2743 km/litre or 29.153 miles per gallon. Petrol cost was 15.28/87 RM per km or RM 0.1756 per km. Simplifying, my petrol cost was RM 17.56 for a 100 km. Should I drive for a 100,000 km in the next 5 years, I would probably be spending some RM 1,756 in petrol cost.

Of course, this is just one instance based on a test drive on a highway and will not be representative over a distance of a 100,000 km. The 29.153 mpg is too good by any standard.

The drive on the highway was not as smooth as when I drive my Mercedez. I believe that the shock absorbers on the Nissan were more stiff than those of my E230 and, come to think of it, the ride was a bit rough. But what was exhilerating was the ease with which I passed the cars on my left as I lightly and gingerly pressed on the throttle. I need some time to get used to driving the Nissan 350Z Fairlady.

There are a few more things I have to check - as for example the proper tyre pressure, how much wear there is on the brake pads, or on the tyres, and perhaps to install a few accessories like a DVD changer, a GPS system, and so on. The most important item to add is a fool-proof device to improve the security and protection. A system similar to the Kinsei Security System was shown to me this afternoon but it cost RM 2,600/= while a similar system using the GPS would set me back RM 3,200/=. I want a system that warns immediately with stealth when my car is tampered with, not simply an alarm that could be deactivated by an expert thief within seconds.