My Toyota Hilux Incident in Eagle Ranch, Port Dickson

On May 9th, my colleagues and I went on a sort of team building trip to Port Dickson. A lot of activities were planned including an exciting treasure hunt and a few team building exercises. (See "Misadventures on a Recce Trip to Rachado Lighthouse in Malacca", which was in preparation for this team building trip.)

One of my main responsibility was to book and pay for lodging enough for 32 people. We were on a very tight budget and the Eagle Ranch Resort was the perfect place for us as they have dormitories that could accommodate us all.

I arrived at the Eagle Ranch Resort at around 3:35pm and managed to check-in and pay for the dormitories by 3:55pm. After that, I was to proceed to Tanjung Tuan check-point to meet the rest of the treasure hunters.

As I reversed my car out of the parking lot, I did not notice that there was a drain behind. My right rear wheel went over the curb and dropped into the drain, which was about 3 feet deep.

I did not even feel the bump or the curb (as the ground was almost the same height as the curb) when my wheel went over it! My right rear absorber was caught on the curb and the wheel was dangling over the drain. I engage my 4-wheel drive and tried to maneuver out of the drain.

I tried that a couple of times to no avail and was at a lost of how to get out of that predicament!

Lucky for me a few cooks from Eagle Ranch came over and offered to help. After some brainstorming and some major teamwork (not what I had expected to be doing... :-), we got together some sawn logs, chopping boards, car-jack and a long log to try to provide traction for the dangling wheel. You can see what we did from the photos below.


We managed to raise the truck using the car-jack high enough for us to insert the sawn logs beneath it in the drain.


The long log was inserted between the wheel and the curb using the chopping boards as leverage.


We lowered the wheel on top of the sawn logs (making sure that the hand brake was on). Right after that, I could easily drive off the curb while engaged in 4-wheel drive... :-)


The cooks laughed as I took photos of them helping me out.


The cooks were very modest as I thanked them.


With my truck out of the drain, they proceed to clear the "tools".

All in all, I considered that day to be a very fortunate day. Again, the most important thing is that no one was injured and that with teamwork, we could easily solve an almost impossible problem... :-)

My other misadventures with my Toyota Hilux:

• Black Wednesday
• How to Steal a Toyota Hilux
  

Black Wednesday

Yesterday, Sean and I set out for Singapore to collect the Echo Pure trial bikes we purchased from Armstrong. The order was placed in January and arrived on Tuesday. We were both very excited and could not wait to get our bikes.

The day started off well and we left my house in Bukit Mahkota for Singapore. After we passed Malacca, we stopped at one of the rest area to go for a much needed toilet break at about noon. When we entered the public toilet, two policemen in plain clothes stopped us and ask to test our urine for drugs. We were both very surprised. I found it rather amusing that a urine test would be conducted in one of the rest area on the North-South highway. The cops gave us a specialised plastic container that can be made to immediately produce the test result by turning a plastic key.

Give us your Pee

They told us to fill up the container with urine when we pee. The thing was that they were standing behind us and expected us to pee into the container while they watch. Their reasoning were not because it turn them on... but rather to make sure that we actually filled it with our urine and not some other liquid... LOL.

Let me tell you. Sean and I were in desperately need of visiting the toilet when we exited the highway. But when we were told to pee into the plastic container while the police were watching, it just made the desperate primal human need vanished.

Finally, I told the cop that I needed a drink and will try to pee again later. After the drink and a very clear mental picture of a gushing waterfall set in my mind, I managed a trickle which eventually turned into a much needed release that almost overfill the plastic container.

I was told to close the container and hand it over. One of the cop used a plastic key to activate the test. Through some sort of PH-like chart, they concluded that indeed I was not on drugs (which I told them so for which I received a lecture about disco and drug abuse).

During that time, I noticed that Sean requested to go drink water as well. I dunno how he managed it, but Sean managed to produced a container full of urine as well and his test came back negative as well.

As we were leaving, I noticed that in and around the toilets and parking lots, there were numerous plain clothes cops. Btw, there was a Malay man sitting hand-cuffed in the toilet, so it goes to prove that drug abusers do use the North-South highway and that the cops were justified to conduct these tests... :-)

Oh Shit! Oh Shit! Oh Shit!

We left the rest area and headed for Johor Baru. It was raining on and off throughout and along the highway. Suddenly, when we were about to pass Machap, my Toyota Hilux skidded and aquaplaned. I was doing about 100km/h when I lost total control of the vehicle. It swerve to the left heading into the drain but I managed to wrestle some control back and turned the pickup to the right which further make it spun clockwise and the left front rammed into the metal divider thereby pivoting the vehicle banging the left tail section hard into the divider before turning further clockwise to a stop blocking the entire two lane of the highway! All this while, I was cursing, "Oh shit! Oh shit! Oh shit!", for the longest time.

I remembered looking back and saw a truck and maybe a Volvo coming towards us. Quickly, I started the car engine and luckily for us it came to life on the first try. I drove the Hilux to the side of the road and parked it as far away from the main road as possible.

It started raining very heavily as Sean and I sat inside the car and looked at each other stunned. I knew from the handling of the car that I had a puncture on the front right wheel. Sean looked out his side of the window and gave me an assessment of the damages. Basically, we sat inside the car until the rain stopped, which luckily for us was in less than 10 minutes (if my sense of time can be trusted at that time).

It took us about 30 minutes to change the tire. We continued our journey and arrived in Johor Baru at about 2:45pm. I went to a tire shop to see if I could get the puncture fixed. The proprietor took the tire and did a number of leak tests after he inflated it. He said that there was nothing wrong with the tire and that there was no puncture.



I asked him how come and he could not come up with an explanation. From the look of the rim, it looked like the tire deflated which resulted in one side of the rim being flattened due to the friction caused by the grinding on the the road when brake was applied.

X-Files

Strangely, the tire that "punctured", which was the right front side, did not come in contact with anything and was not the side that rammed the divider. So how come the flat tire? Secondly, the abrasion on the rim clearly showed that the tire had to deflate first before the rim can come in contact with the road surface!

In the end, I concluded it as x-file and decided to change the two front tires completely. Better safe than sorry, I thought. All in all, I was VERY glad that nobody was hurt and that Sean and I got away injury free. We were really blessed!

After a quick lunch, we left for Singapore at about 4pm. We were both new to driving into Singapore. After I checked with Joe, I was told that I needed an Autopass for my car to get into Singapore. We went through immigration and custom, and almost drove out before we realised that we missed the point to buy the Autopass. Sean had to walk back and purchase the pass before we could leave.

By about 5pm, we managed to find our way to Toa Payoh Lorong 10 to met up with Hor Fun. Hor Fun was helping Armstrong (whom went to Taipei for a show) to get the bikes to us. We went up to Hor Fun's apartment to collect the long awaited bikes of ours.

The bikes were the only reason we drive down to Singapore and went through a shit day of urine testing and life threatening accident. After what had happened, the bikes almost makes it worthwhile.

Disappointing Trials

But unfortunately, the bike was less than par. Some of the parts (the Echo hub with a built-in tensioner), according to Armstrong, was discontinued by the manufacturer. Without the tensioner, the chain could not be installed. On top of it, the stems were on loan to us (from gracious Peng :-) until the the ones meant for the bike arrive.

It was indeed an unfortunate day. The bikes was disappointing! After what we have gone through, we could not even ride the bikes. (Today, I discovered that the front gear cog where the pedals are attached was wobbling side to side as I turned the pedals... sigh!)

However, all is not lost. We met up with Hor Fun and Peng, whom are trial riders themselves. They shared with us their experience on how to maintain a trial bike. We really appreciated their help. We wished we could have spent more time with them but it was getting late and we had to leave for KL asap.

Complete Waste of Time

So we left Toa Payoh at about 7pm and headed towards the causeway. Almost reaching the traffic lights leading to the causeway we were caught in a jam which took 3 hours and 15 minutes to get through. The reason for the jam was because the police were looking for a terrorist fugitive which escaped from their prison.


There must have been a few thousand motorbikes caught in the jam.

We managed to get into Johor Baru at about 10:35pm. Our first stop was the loo and a place for food. We ate the best in the world "Kueh Tiau Kia" and left for KL at about 11:30pm.

Thankfully, without incident, we arrived in my house around 3:30am. I believe Sean reached home about 4:30am.

Blessed on Black Wednesday

I must state that yesterday was a horrendous day. A black Wednesday. I have no intention of going through something like that again. Sean and I are blessed to have survive that terrible accident and for that I am eternally grateful that no one was hurt.

How to Steal a Toyota Hilux

Well, my Toyota Hilux was almost stolen for the second time in December last year during the Christmas week.

The first time was about a year ago in an apartment in Vista Komanwel, KL. The thief had managed to disable the alarm and rewired the engine to start. The fool had not checked to see if there were a clutch/brake pedal lock first before trying to rewire the engine. Upon getting the car started, the car lurched and the stupid moron realised that he could not press the brakes or clutch pedal and the car stalled. F**king stupid moron!

I had to claim insurance to restore the whole wiring, key and alarm system, which cost roughly about RM10k (ask Toyota why so f**king expensive lah!)

This most recent and the second attempt to steal my Toyota Hilux was in Bukit Indah, Johor Baru.

The Hilux was parked outside a terrace house in front of the autogate. At about 3:30am, the alarm went off and my sister-in-law (thanks to her for being a light sleeper) woke up. She looked out and saw a man hunching over the hood of the Hilux. She woke and told her husband what she saw. He quickly called me and woke me up.

Being groggy, I had thought that he needed me to move my car as it was blocking the driveway, and he goes to work in Singapore early in the morning. Only when he informed me that someone was trying to steal my car did I really wake up and realise what was going on. When we went out to the front gate, we saw a man sitting in a blue Toyota Wish parked in front of the Hilux. When he saw us, he calmly drove off. His car registration was something like JHH 79xx. I missed the last two digits.

I went out and tried to start my car, and of course it was dead. The alarm siren had been disabled and the connecting cable to the battery removed. Basically this is what I think was the modus operandi:

1. Stage 1. First the thief popped the bonnet using a tool of some sort.
   
2. Next, he quickly disabled the "stupid" casing which Toyota called an alarm upgrade (which I paid Toyota RM100 plus for), to get to the siren by removing the two pins holding the casing.
3. After that he took out the siren and cut the connection to the siren's external battery pack, thereby making the alarm completely useless! What's an alarm without the siren???
4. After he had disabled the siren, he went back to his car and waited to see if anyone will respond to the sound of the alarm that went off before he disabled the siren.
5. If there were no response, then this was when he would move to Stage 2, where he would probably contact his accomplice (probably specialising in re-wiring the Toyota Hilux electrical system to bypass the immobilizer).
6. If they were successful, the car engine would start and they would be able to drive off.

Fortunately for me they did not reach Stage 2, thanks to my sister-in-law. I reconnected the battery and managed to start my car. The car alarm system was re-activated and I could lock and un-lock my car doors with the remote. The only thing missing was the sound of the siren beeping when locking or un-locking.



As I was about to drive my car into the driveway, I noticed a Waja driving pass into the road perpendicular to the road I was on. The Waja stopped in front of a terrace house and the driver did not alight from the car. I got suspicious and decided to drive my car closer to the Waja. As I approached, the Waja moved off and turn into a junction to the right. I followed and the Waja increased speed and sped off. I gave chase for a few kilometers and decided to turn back telling myself not to be foolhardy. I caught a glimpse of the car registration and it was similar to the previous Toyota Wish, it read JHH 79xx as well. Probably both fake registrations.

I believed the Waja was supposed to be Stage 2 of the unsuccessful car theft. In any case, I parked my Hilux inside the driveway, locked the autogate and went back to a fitful sleep!

The next morning, I took the car to a car accessory shop and basically told the guy there my problem and he was nice enough to help me solder back the connection to the siren, thereby making it effective again. I "macgyver-ed" the stupid Toyota Siren upgrade casing back into place, hoping that it will hold until my next service at Toyota.

Here are some prevention tips that I am pretty sure will f**ked up the thieves' modus operandi!

1. Find a way to bolt/lock the bonnet - If they can't open the bonnet, they cannot disable the alarm. This will delay the thieves tremendously!
   
2. Find a way to add more sirens - This is to throw a wrench into their thievery process by doing the unexpected. Install another siren in different part of the car!
3. Pedal lock the brakes and clutch - I used the Carryboy 3-In-One pedal locks. So far it has been effective. The fact that it prevented the first theft, has made the RM480 I spent really worth it!
4. Next find a way to make the siren unreachable - I have not figured out how yet, but this will definitely screw the thieves plans.
   

Short of these f**king thieves putting a gun to my head or knife to my throat, these are the best ways I can think of to foil the theft.

If you have the money, I would strongly suggest that you install the expensive GPS based theft prevention system. As for me, I am contemplating selling the f**king Toyota Hilux as soon as possible. It's too much of a hassle to be constantly wary of where one parked the car and the constant fear of car-jacking, etc. especially when you have children on-board!

Footnote:
I think the modus operandi for stealing a Fortuner is more or less the same as I outlined above. I have seen Fortuners parked at Toyota service center in Shah Alam where the wirings were ripped out of the dashboards. Go sell your Fortuner as well... :-)