vishkid

Same here, mine was changed in Oct 2010. No medical check.

I have to say the 2014 model is looking much sharper; in both style and features than the current gen. Colonial says they will bring the 3 down by November latest and should cost around 4.8 - 5.2 m for permit. It does not come in the MT spec for Sri Lanka though, as per Colonial. US has a MT spec, but only for the lower grade model; all the S and grand touring models come with 6AT.

So you think that 'matter of days' is what it will take for some alien brand to capture the 70% market share that was built by Anchor and Fonterra over two decades. Amazing! I sure am impressed, but I don't think the actual brand consumers will be as amused. But on a more relevant note, I would expect some heads to roll once the truth of the matter is out. The ITI is trying to dig it's way out of the hole, which if they fail to do (i.e. provide at least one further DCD positive test for Fonterra or Maliban products), would certainly discredit them locally and internationally as a capable or credible institution. The cabinet committee is trying to cover up the issue by hiding it under the - bigger issue of - lack of F&B testing standards or test facilities in Sri Lanka while Fonterra suspends operations of one of Sri Lanka's biggest brands and product and Maliban is offering 1 million rupees to anyone - including ITI - who can prove any existence of DCD in their product. [ST Link] The thing is, if this was a credible country, some heads should and would roll. But accountability counts for jack shit here and many experts including health care professionals (including GMOA and Nurses associations) showed an absurd and mystifying ignorance on the actual facts of the matter which makes one wonder whose game they are playing. The fact that most of the docs who came out guns blazing confused the botulism issue with DCD is beyond my comprehension. This is supposed to be 21st century where we are supposed to have all the info at our fingertips (and thus make informed decisions), but most of these experts act as if they are stuck on the '70s SL, where lack of information and lack of choice was the norm! As hyacc noted above, this is just one episode of the comedy played out for the benefit of ignorant masses. But this should carry bitter lessons for everyone involved - especially consumers, who can no longer implicitly trust their watchdogs and health care 'professionals'.

You'll probably get a re-mix of that when the new audi "swarm" OLED lights come in to production (according to Philips, this will be circa 2017).

Now this is proper interesting!

Yeah, how many times we hv heard that? I do believe what is actionable is the best, it sucks to be a realist sometimes. No .. I would never miss a Jezza reference. It's just that it doesn't really make sense - the effect is something after, the cause is something before. So .. you know.

I agree and disagree. While we have the ideal .. we hv to focus on the practical (and possible)!

Not unless you CAN control the stop. I come to sudden stops all the while, so far so good I mean really it's actually internal hemorrhaging that will kill you 90% of the time, if we're splitting hairs.

You're thinking of our current driving test. That's why I mentioned improving driver competence and using testing criteria as a medium. That's one way the culture change can be achieved.

LMAO .. I can smell an autolanka award ... yeah, the other kind!

Speed kills! Really? Are all the motorsport drivers dead? Nah, that was a stupid analogy - however, it's not speed that kills; it's uncontrolled speed. And that can be due to various other reasons .. but going (really) slow is not the answer. Increasing driver competence can go a long way towards this and in Sri Lanka we can only do this when the DL is applied or renewed. Our test criteria and re-testing intervals should be updated, so that the majority can enjoy clean uncongested driving on the roads.

Have to echo what Supra said. Maybe you can canvass some people who hv already SOLD their Korean SUV's and ask them why? Certainly an interesting question if the background is right but stupid to expect an answer from non korean suv owners..

I've taken my (previous) auto K11 from Colombo to Mahiyanganya via Kandy when the 18 bend road was under construction and not many vehicles went that way (I didn't know until I came upon the 20 kilometers of mud and rocks that was the road at that time!) The car was virtually brown from top to bottom when I reached Mahiyanganya. Next day, back to Randenigala via raja mawatha and to Nuwara Eliya via Walapane and some of the steepest, bendiest and narrowest roads I've come across. Then to Horton plains via Ambepussa, Pattipola and later, down through Ohiya to A4 in the dusk where we had to detour via Haputale due to a landslide in Beragala road. It was 8 pm when I hit A4 and was in Nugegoda by 11.30 pm! It was just me and my wife though and the car never felt like it was being asked to do something that it didn't want to do. The manouverability of that K11 in those bends and slopes were exceptional and the drive was really fun. I might hv scraped the bottom of the car a couple of times in the 18 bends (which was to be fair, just off road at that time) and again a couple of time on the way down via Ohiya. Just wanted to say that it's certainly possible and fun to take some of these cars up through these roads but maybe not with that sort of load.

Lol .. anyways, I think this is one good move by Dialog. If they manage to move all their channels to MPEG-4, LBN/PEO and the rest of the competition might struggle to match the quality of delivery with current infrastructure.

Not exactly to do with decoder capacity. The older decoders can handle 500+ channels. But they cannot decode MPEG-4.

Going OT, but keeping to recent turn in discussion ... Dialog TV recently moved Discovery Turbo and Setanta Sports to their MPEG-4 transponder (which houses the HD channels). There is a noticeable improvement in the picture and audio quality of those channels with the - far better - MPEG-4 compression. Since you need the new HD decoder to access the MPEG-4 transponder, they replaced the decoders of everyone who had subscribed to any of those channels. But now, it looks as they are replacing every decoder as a preemptive measure to migrate all of their channels to MPEG-4. I got the HD pack and decoder a year back to watch the olympics in HD and had not been disappointed, specially when it comes to Formula 1. Now it's even more useful because you can activate individual HD channels, thus rationalizing the cost factor as well. If you want HD and better compression, there is no choice other than DTV and the Indian HD providers.

One word of caution - this is probably because the contention for 4G signal is pretty low in most areas. Though I assume that by now, there would be a lot of 4G consumers in Colpetty area (both fixed and mobile).

I have to grant that what GayanR said above applies to open roads - just not driving in city traffic.

GayanR, you described the exact opposite of the way I drive .. and I'm glad for that! In my very humble opinion, if you worry too much about driving economically do all these things; 1. You're not going to enjoy your driving nor your motor 2. You're going to piss off a lot of other drivers who want to get from A to B faster 3. Eventually when the vast majority tries to practice this - the traffic is gonna be F'd up; so that no one will benefit from driving economically as you will spend that much more time on the road. Most considerate driving you can do is not leaving a quarter mile gap to the vehicle in front. If everyone is able to accelerate just that little bit quickly from stops, it will eventually save everyone time and money by having an efficient traffic flow - less time spent on the roads.

I use it at office (Colombo 03) for a special project, recently they updated the bandwidth so it's between 20-25 Mbps. Which means you hit download speeds around 2MBps consistently. We can download a 800MB torrent in 5 mins (special project, yeah ). You get 60GB monthly for 4000+ with taxes. After that the bandwidth becomes virtually null!

As noted above, a couple of commercial shipping options available from US to Sri Lanka (Kapruka/Aramex). A lot of us know someone (maybe who knows someone//) who's coming back from US for holiday, break from work, office trip etc and that's how I bring a lot of stuff down.

Amazon ships a lot of stuff to SL. Just not electronics and auto parts, if that's what WCW was looking at.

Yep, a normal 2007 auto - and it really didn't feel any stiffer than my 2005 Axela on Colombo roads and while it felt low, it didn't bottom out anywhere with 2 people in it. So obviously, they hv tuned it much stiffer in the Type S.

I think you're spot on. Infact EU regulators treat it the same way iirc. Isn't stiffer suspension an issue (or a positive for some) in all Mazda's? I hv driven only one RX-8 and it didn't feel any stiffer than my Axela. It improves handling a lot - just not on our roads. (but the roads are getting better, aren't they?)

Not all models of RX-8 gives you power over 200 bhp but even the lowest powered models come close, so not a big deal. Rotary engined cars are a different animal to drive as well as to maintain, if you apply conventional (driving as well as maintaining) to it - it wont really respond well. One thing to note for someone who might inadvertently stumble in to the allure of RX-8 is that Mazda had to discontinue RX-8 in 2011 (spirit R) due to economies - the car could not be sold in EU due to fuel efficiency (and some other parameters) not meeting strict EU criteria. So we actually don't hv any Mazda rotaries selling at this moment (I can't think of any other major rotary make selling atm, but that's just me) until 2017, when they will hopefully revamp the RX-7. Most local specimens of RX-8 on auto shift might do 5-7 km/l with later models yielding better consumption's than pre-2007 models. So if you're happy with that and thrive on high RPM's, then this is probably a good investment - specially if you can get hold of a spirit-R model which are limited in supply but with better looks and fuel economy which might give you a better re-sale value (or antique value in 2060, being the last production model of RX-8 rotary!). I'm looking for one .. then again my company pays for the fuel!