let’s all buy Mercedez to save money.

Ubah gaya hidup? Credit to Paul Tan's blog for the picture.

No, that’s not a typo. Apparently the new strategy to save money if you have a car is to buy a more expensive one with the argument that the servicing costs in the long run will justify its purchase. I don’t need to tell you that a Mercedez is more expensive than a Perdana V6, only a blind man will say otherwise. Even the deaf and dumb can guess which one is more expensive. The Terengganu’s MB decision to buy 14 Mercedez Kompressor E200 to replace their current fleet of Perdana V6 Executives just boggles the mind. Not only because of the amount of money spent, but also the rationale behind it.

Terengganu State Secretary Mokhtar Nong argued that the decision was made as a result of the Perdanas’ lack of reliability, explaining the Perdanas often require costly maintenance, especially on the gearbox, when used for continuous, long distance journeys.Two of the Perdana V6s in particular needed cumulative repair costs of RM175,229.97 and RM132,357.76 respectively since 2004. However, Proton denied the allegation of high maintenance costs from Terengganu state government, citing the regular maintenance (motor oil and oil filter replacement) for the Perdana to be around RM200. The controversy had created a possibility of maintenance fraud by the state government of Terengganu, as the regular cumulative maintenance costs of a typical Perdana V6 for the same period is far lower than the claim by the state government and also due to the fact that there was no such warranty claims being made by the state government since October 2004 for one of the defected cars.

Is he trying to insult other people’s intelligence by claiming that the repair costs for a car component is more than the cost of a new car altogether? I don’t care what car it is, (even if it’s a Bugatti Veyron) it just does not make sense that repair costs of a Perdana V6 is more than the cost of the car itself.

This whole illogical and incredulous sequence of claims leads to a high degree of suspicion that there was some hanky panky going on regarding the details of the entire car maintenance process for the Terengganu Excos. Who serviced them? Why did it cost so much? Are the numbers correct? The Star reported through its SMS alerts service today that several senior officers have been interviewed by the Terengganu ACA over the Perdana fleet’s maintenance costs. Sigh, maybe some people’s ambition in life is to taste how owning a Mercedez is like.

Sometimes, when people do something wrong, we try and find a way to give them the benefit of the doubt. Otherwise known as ‘bersangka baik’. But this is just too illogical. And I mean, literally.

We hate people who are corrupted. We hate them more when they are corrupted and idiots.