Pos Malaysia, Free money and a lot of hot air

If you think this is gonna be a rant, you're right. Partially. Last weekend wifey, baby and me went off to the Jalan Besar Seri Kembangan Post Office to see if we could collect out RM625 (about USD191) that the Government was giving out as a rebate to deal with the rise of fuel prices. We've been hearing a lot of stories of how to actually get the RM625. Turns out, it was pretty painless. You go in and ask for a form to claim the rebate, which turns out to be a money-order ish kinda form with spaces for your name, MyKad number (Identification Card) and your vehicle number rubber stamped on it. Fill that out, take a number, wait till yer turn and hand that over to the person behind the counter. He/she will then take your thumb print (huh? yeah, we still do thumb prints here) put that on the form, hand you a scrap of tissue paper to clean yer thumb and hand you the money. Since dad's car is under my name, I ended up with RM1250. Dad refused to take it when I gave it to him so its mine. Wah..thats what in Malay we call 'Durian Runtuh' (windfall). Until I got into my car and switched on the air conditioning.

Hot air. Tweaked every imaginable setting and all I got was hot air. Called up some buddies to find out why and I got a variety of answers. The figures I was getting in terms of replacing cooling coils and compressors were really frightening. At last, the ever reliable Mr Kee sent me an sms with the contact details of a very reliable Air Con guy:

HENG WA AIR-COND SERVICE CENTRE
3003, Jalan Tun Razak,
50400 KL
Tel : 019 2136170 / 03 26980254

Turns out, the problem was a busted cooling coil and damaged compressor.Oh, the Air con relay was bust too. Pics below. The damage? RM645! So much for the extra cash. Well at least he finished the car in one day. I pity the Mercedes Benz Elegance owner that had his car over there. To change one damaged cooling coil, the entire dash got removed. Back seat littered with the steering wheel, buttons and all kinds of stuff. Sucks to be you dood. :P

Oh yeah, sucky Camera phone pics warning.

The dead Coil



Compressor from Hell. Replacement was a second hand one. New would have cost upwards RM1K. yikes!