I extended my ten year old Nissan Latio COE by five years for about 29 grand. Before I did that, I got my Singapore mechanic to do a check. He said new shock absorbers were needed and that it was worth extending the COE. He quoted me about a SGD 1,000 for the repair.
A number of the church members, especially the golfers, have been doing their car maintenance and repairs in Johor and urged me to do so. One member had an uncle there that ran a car repair workshop. He asked his uncle to give a quotation for shock absorbers replacement and it came to RM850(SGD283) with labour charges . I wanted to change all my tyres to Michelin 185/65/r15 which in Singapore would cost SGD$105 each and this is regarded as a good price. The Johor quotation was RM250(SGD 85) for each tyre.
With my Garmin hooked up, my wife and I picked up my brother in law and wife, and together we headed for Tebrau City area via the Causeway. The workshop was a minutes drive from the shopping mall. We wandered around a while because my Garmin Malaysia map was not updated and the highway was new. I should have listened to my friend and used Google Maps navigation offline. Anyway we finally reached the workshop and their clerk gave us a lift to the mall. We arranged a time for them to pick us up. Then we had a late breakfast, window shopping and a good lunch and more shopping.
As the church member had already informed him of what I wanted done, he had already prepared the authentic parts and the tyres. This speeded up the work and I rode the car home feeling satisfied with the smoothness of the ride, even over the bumps. I asked him to check the engine mountings and he said only one needed replacement. Mostly I was satisfied with the substantial savings. The hassle (the jam and finding the place) was minor compared to the cost benefits. The rental and labour costs over there in Johor is much cheaper than ours and the Singapore dollar has the advantage of a strong exchange rate.
If you need more information and want to go to this workshop and get a few other quotations from around that area here is the name card with address and map.
