Prioritise your vehicle repairs depending on budget

This will help the country’s economy to recover quickly.

But today the situation seems totally different because the government, through Deputy PM Chalerm Yoobamrung, has proposed a rather different December 5 amnesty law. Instead of prisoners having to serve at least one-third of the sentence, or the requirement that the cases must not be related to narcotics or corruption, the government suggested that the beneficiaries include those who have not begun serving their sentences and also those who have not served at least one-third of their sentence.

This convinced the majority of the Thai public that the government is trying to amend the law to favour former PM Thaksin Shinawatra, who has been sentenced to a two-year jail term and remains a fugitive. This has compelled many groups to start organising protests, while those who support the former PM are also preparing to rally in support of the plan.

All these developments make me worry that Thailand will again lose the opportunity to develop itself while the government is bogged down dealing with matters pertaining to just one person.

After following the telecast of the Cabinet meeting – I was not following politics for some time – I found out that the chance of official automobile retailers pushing the government to introduce stricter auto-import regulations for grey market importers would be dimmer. That’s because most of the vehicles used by the Cabinet members are those that have been purchased through grey importers.

Meanwhile, as the water has receded in many areas, more and more vehicles that have been submerged are now being repaired. And many well-known garages must now offer queuing systems due to the large number of customers. Many authorised service centres even announced that they need at least a month to carry out the repairs.

Most vehicle owners think that this type of repair is under the same conditions as usual repairs, and forget that these vehicles have been under very deep water for a very long time. This results in heavy damages, especially modern vehicles that have a large number of electronic control systems, unlike older ones which relied mainly on mechanical systems that are more durable, as well as easier and cheaper to repair.

To repair vehicles in this condition, owners must plan their budget carefully, and should know which components need to be repaired first and which can be repaired later or even removed altogether to lower the repair cost. You just have to repair necessary parts to get the vehicle back in running condition quickly.

For example the GPS system (including the screen), can be omitted first, as it is rather costly and not necessary to get the car running again. For vehicles with two or more airbags and submerged for more than a week leading to damage, the owner must decide whether to replace them or hold back the replacement for later and save at least Bt50,000.

The same goes for the pretensioner systems for the seatbelts in which the control system is positioned lower in the vehicle. When they are under water for a long period of time, they surely get damaged. Another piece of equipment that the owner can decide whether to repair is the central locking and remote system.

You can see that if you plan the repair job carefully, vehicle owners who don’t have much money can still get the car back in running condition. And it will cost much less than repairing all the damage systems at once. You can use the money to repair your house instead, or purchase electrical home appliances that have been destroyed.

However, there are several equipment that may not seem to have been damaged much by the flood water. However, if they were submerged for over a week, I suggest that you replace them in order to ensure safety, such as the braking system. This includes the brake pads and pistons in the brake booster. As for the brake discs, you can at least have them reconditioned.

The reason I advise you to replace them is that the brake pads are made from several different materials, and when they are submerged for a long time, they tend to separate. This may not be visible to you, but when you drive the vehicle and brake many times, they could start splitting.

As for the brake pistons, when they are submerged they could also be damaged. And once this happens you can never be sure of safe braking. Accidents will follow.

So, repairing the braking system should be the priority when repairing submerged vehicles. It is useless if you spend Bt100,000 to repair the vehicle and then crash it when you start driving it again.