Chana CM8

What brand new car will you buy if you have 500,000 pesos to spare?
A funky single person can buy a Kia Picanto for 500,000 pesos while a family person planning to have 4 kids and a nanny can buy the Chana CM8 for 495,000 pesos.

Pinoys have come to know the Kia Picanto and this car has already earned a good reputation in Europe. But who and what is Chana?

Chana is the latest Chinese car company to offer its product portfolio in Pinoy shores. They've been making cars since the 1920's and has partnered with Ford, Suzuki and Mazda to manufacture their brands in China. So they have the capability to make excellent cars that meet the high quality standards of the big American and Japanese car brands that paired with them. They also make vehicles sporting their own emblem and the Chana CM8 is one of them.

This mini-MPV is slightly longer than the Kia Picanto and shorter than a Honda Civic or Mitsubishi Lancer but boasts of 7 seats (2-2-3 seating configuration) , 2 sliding doors, hatchback, 14" alloy wheels, dual air-con, AM/FM/CD/MP3 player, 4 speakers, keyless entry, power steering/door locks/windows, fog lamps, third brake lights and a potential to carry bigger loads than what the Civic or Lancer can carry with it's trunk closed. A gas range, a washing machine or a stationary excercise bike can easily fit in it.

Lets do a comparison with other cars around it's price range.

• The Chana CM8 is cheaper than a Kia Picanto and can seat more people and carry more load. If you want a Picanto equivalent, check out the Channa Benni. It's a 5-seater sub-compact that costs 438,000 pesos and comes with significantly more features than a Picanto such as ABS, driver side airbag, keyless entry, anti-theft system, fog lamps, rear wiper, rear window defogger and alloy wheels.
• The Chana CM8 has the same seating capacity as a Suzuki APV Type II but is 280,000 pesos cheaper and consumes less gasoline with its 1.3L engine.
• The 1.3L engine of a fully laden Chana CM8 has the same kilogram load per horsepower as a fully laden 1.6L Suzuki APV Type II and a fully laden 1.1L Kia Picanto. Kg per Nm of torque is also flat across all three vehicles so you can expect the same engine response.
• If you have a fear of cars sporting the emblems of Chana, Kia or Suzuki, go for the common and proven Toyota Avanza 1.3L J variant for 592,000 pesos. It also seats 7 people and has more horses and torque per Kg of load but you have to live with manually opened windows, manual door locks, no keyless entry, no MP3 player, 14" steel rims and no fog lamps.

The Chana CM8 seems to be a practical car for a family man buying his first brand new car. But Chana still has to prove its durability and reliability in Pinoy roads as well as it's resale value. Let's wait and see.

Tracing my old cars

My first car was a red 1989 Mitsubishi Lancer GLXi. I learned to drive using this car. It was then replaced by a white 1997 Honda Civic VTi. This was the car I used to court my wife and the car I used to bring my wife to the hospital to give birth to our daughter.

Both of them have long been sold to others and for a long time now I've been wondering what happened to them.

• Are they still driving along happily somewhere?
• Are they now sporting funky looks with outrageous paint color like electric pink, yellow green, banana yellow or one of those fancy paints that change color depending on how the light hits them and the angle of the observer?
• Did they fell victim to car crash, then chopped up to be sold as surplus parts?
• Were they used in action movies to be blown up to bits in stunt scenes?

I always look at the plates of similar cars that I come across while driving, hoping to someday see my old friend Lancer and Civic. But I haven't seen any of them so far.

Then LTO introduced their new SMS/text messaging service that gives you an instant status check of a car's registration and a person's driver's license. It gave me a means to know how my previous cars are doing. Well, this is what I discovered.

They are still both alive and driving along somewhere in the Philippines. Yehey!
My old red Lancer is still red and had just acquired it's 2008 LTO registration last February 22, 2008. This car is almost 20 years old and still working.
My old white Civic is still white and still has a valid 2007 LTO registration that was acquired last August 13, 2007. Both cars have no LTO apprehension record and are not on LTO's alarm list.
Good for them.

Here's how you avail of LTO's SMS service.

To get the status of a vehicle, text LTO VEHICLE xxxyyy to 2600 where xxxyyy is the vehicle's plate number without any space or dash.

To get the status of a driver's license, text LTO LICENSE zzzzzzzzzzz to 2600 where zzzzzzzzzzz is the driver's license number.

You can use this service to instantly check if the second hand car you plan to buy is in LTO's alarm list or if you have an outstanding LTO record that would hinder you from renewing your driver's license. Each text will cost you 2.50 pesos.
How are your previous cars doing?

House For Rent (or Sale)

Planning to rent or buy a house in General Trias, Cavite?
The two-storey house below, located in Chateau Real Homes, Manggahan, General Trias Cavite is ready for immediate occupancy.

The subdivision is 400 meters away from Walter Mart, Eagle Ridge Golf & Country Club, Mercury Drug Store, McDonalds, Jollibee, KFC, 7-11, Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Filipino restaurants. 2 Kms away from Lyceum University Dasma, 3 Kms away from Gateway Business Park. 6 Kms away from SM City Dasma and Robinson's Mall. Only 30 minutes drive to scenic Tagaytay City.

The garage has enough room for two cars and has plant boxes for aesthetic gardening. Large luminous switches were used and safety electric receptacles that fit both flat and round plugs.

There are two adjacent areas that have their own wash basins. Plenty of storage space is provided above and below the countertops. The cooking area has good ventilation and has pre-installed ducting for an overhead exhaust.

The interior of the cabinets under the countertops are fully lined with ceramic tiles.

Let's see how the second floor looks like.

There are three bedrooms in the second floor each with its own color theme and large built-in cabinets.

The two toilet and baths on the first and second floor have two-toned ceramic tiles from floor to ceiling and a partition between the toilet area and bath area to keep the toilet area clean and dry. Electric outlet is provided for installation of water heater. Premium water fixtures, lavatories and bowls were used.

Click HERE for a WikiMapia sattelite view.
For inquiries email hermie.unite@gmail.com or send SMS to 09209137107.

This property is for rent or for sale.

Ipoh White Coffee of Malaysia

When you say black coffee it means coffee without milk or creamer. So it is only natural to deduce that white coffee is coffee with milk or creamer. Its true in some parts of the world but not in Ipoh.

Ipoh is a town in Malaysia that is the birthplace of Ipoh White Coffee . It is made from Robusta coffee variety but the beans undergo a different roasting process from the traditional Malaysian black coffee where the beans are roasted with sugar and margarine until it is very dark.

Ipoh White Coffee is produced by roasting the beans in margarine without sugar and roasted to a lighter degree resulting to roast that is lighter in color.

My wife bought a few bags of instant white coffee for us to try at home. Each sachet contains 40 grams of 3-in-1 white coffee mix that you dissolve in 180 ml to 200 ml of hot water - just enough for one small, regular cup of coffee.

40 grams is a lot for a small cup of coffee considering that a regular Nescafe instant coffee mix contains only 14 grams. The 40-gram mix contains Ipoh white coffee, non-dairy creamer and cane sugar.

A light froth forms as soon as you mix in the hot water then the aroma of the roasted beans gets hold of you. A hot sip gets you acquainted with the rich and creamy coffee that has a slightly bitter taste and a subtle but familiar sweet taste and aroma of sugarcane that I used to eat raw in my childhood days while I walk home from school beside a sugarcane plantation.

Decades have passed since I've eaten a tubo (sugarcane). Nakaka-miss.