Category: Automotive

Looks like the local Ford dealership battle is over. According to a news article in the Arab Times,”Ford Motor Company has terminated its dealership agreement with Arabian Motors Group WLL for the Ford and Lincoln brands in Kuwait effective July 27.”

Alghanim Auto also recently opened their new Ford showroom in Shuwaikh although I have yet to pass by it. If anyone from Ford is reading this, I call shotgun on the Ford Focus RS test drive!

City Group (the company behind CityBus) have introduced a new service called CityVan which is a carpool service. CityVan allows you to select your pick up and drop off locations and then find a carpool option that is available. If there isn’t one available, then you could propose a trip and when enough people want a similar journey then you’ve got yourself a carpool. All the vehicles and drivers belong to City Group so it’s basically a door to door mini-bus service.

Prices vary depending on pick up and drop off locations but just to give you an idea:

Pick up point: Salmiya
Drop off point: Kuwait City

Single Trip: KD1
Return Trip: KD1.5
Weekly Package: KD7
Monthly Package: KD20
Quarterly Package: KD57

So if you go with a quarterly package your return trip will cost you just 650 fils. The service is priced somewhere in the middle between a regular bus ride and a cab service. CityVan just launched so there are not much pools available at the moment but once people start proposing times then pools will start coming together. I love what City Group have been doing recently, first with their airport express busses and now this. If you’re interested to find out more about this service check out the CityVan website [Here]

Thanks Muntasar

I’ve heard two different stories about the video above. The first story is that the gas pedal got stuck and the second story is that the driver was intoxicated.

I love this, a lot. The car is from Kuwait and I’m guessing its probably the same group of guys who do the yearly Jahra to Europe trip. If anyone knows them please put me in touch. I’d love to join them on their next trip and document the whole experience. I’ve got my Datsun, just need to plaster some cheesy stickers on it and it will be ready. [YouTube]

In case you’ve missed the posts from the previous years, here are some links:

No Speak English – Kuwait to Paris 2015
Donuts in the Alps
From Jahra to London

According to a friend of mine, he was driving down the 2nd Ring Road a couple of nights ago and got stopped at a traffic light. There was a cop walking amongst the cars looking for violators or potential violators and because my friend was on the phone, the cop told him to park on the right hand side where some cops were handing out violations. Since my friend had just recently renewed his car registration, the registration paperwork was with his driver. So what was supposed to be a ticket for talking on the phone while driving turned into a car impoundment. So they loaded up his car onto a trailer with a bunch of other cars, all standard stuff so far but here is where things get interesting.

So my friend calls his mum to come pick him up. When his mum arrives the cop saw that his mum had come to pick him up so he called my friend over and told him to go to the trailer and pay the driver KD10. The trailer guy will then drive down the street away from the main road and dismount his car for him. And it wasn’t just my friend, there were 5 other guys who were told to go pay the trailer guy KD10 to have him dismount their cars down the street from the checkpoint.

If you were going to let the guys off the hook why not just dismount the cars right there? Why dismount them down some side street away from the main road? And then on top of that why do they have to pay the driver KD10? The whole thing sounded a bit shady to me so I wanted to post about it and hear some opinions on this.

Image from Arab Times

Last week I posted about the First Ring Road construction that will turn it into an infinite loop and a reader shared a link to a video that shows how the project will look like once completed. Spoiler: There will be lots of underpasses. Check out the video above or on [YouTube]

Thanks غنيمة

Last week my brother got a flat tire and when he took out his spare tire he noticed that was flat as well. So his choices were:

– Call a tow truck
– Go get his spare fixed and then install it on the car and then drive back to Canada Dry street to get the main tire replaced
– Call a mobile tire service company and have them come over and replace his tire

He ended up going with the third option and called Star Service since it was his most convenient option. Star Service are an emergency roadside assistance service that also do home calls. Say you end up with a dead car battery or flat tire, you would call Star Service up and they’d come over and get you up and running again. If you have a flat tire you could call them up and give them your tire size and brand and they could bring a new tire with them. In my brothers case since his tire was rare, they couldn’t get him one so he ended up buying the tire himself and they then came over to his place to install it for him.

Star Service come over in a small fully equipped van. If you’ve ever had a tire replaced you know that they first need to remove the old tire from the wheel, then install the new tire on the wheel and then get the wheel balanced. Star Service can do all of that inside the van since all the equipment needed is in there. They even have a small generator to power up the computer and the machine needed for the wheel balancing.

ُThe cost to come over and do a tire replacement was surprisingly not too expensive costing just KD10. If you ever get a flat or a dead battery and need their services, they work daily from 11AM to 7PM except for Fridays. Their phone number is 90997823.

Update: Garagee is another company that offers a similar service, their phone number is 50250280 and their instagram account is @garagee.me

I’d be heartbroken if that happened to my car. [YouTube]

via Frankom

Under the direction of His Highness the Amir, the Amiri Diwan has taken on several key projects in Kuwait. The Diwan’s project portfolio includes projects such as the new Al-Jahra Hospital, Al-Shaheed Park and Kuwait’s two cultural centers (Abdullah Al-Salem & Jaber Al-Ahmed) set to be complete by year’s end. On 20 June, the Amiri Diwan announced the awarding of a KD 49 million contract to local developer Bayan National Trading Company to design and build Kuwait’s Motor Town.

According to press reports the project aims at building seven race circuits compatible with international standards. These circuits would enable Kuwait to host Formula 1 and MotoGP races in the future.

The project is located south of the city, in Orafjan, adjacent to the Wafra road. The contract also includes the construction of a pit building and a media center. According to press reports, the project is set to include a hotel and shopping mall at a later stage (not part of the current package). [Source]

Hard to believe but it looks like we’re finally getting a race track in Kuwait. Not any racetrack might I add, but a FIA Grade 1 circuit designed by Hermann Tilke, the same guy behind a number of popular F1 tracks including Yas Marina and the Baku City Circuit.

I couldn’t find a lot of information on Kuwait Motor Town online other than the video above and a couple of renderings along with the following brief description on the Tilke website:

Kuwait Motor Town shall position itself as a new place making destination with a unique FIA grade 1 circuit as the nucleus of the state of the art facility, which will attract a wide spectrum of people. Whether professional race driver, or families seeking for leisure activities, or club members desiring premium level services, Kuwait Motor Town with its fully integrated portfolio of entertainment assets will create the upmost exciting and innovative automotive experience for the whole region.

I’m not fond of the name Kuwait Motor Town but it will probably change by the time the project is completed and honestly, even if they called it Cupcake Town it doesn’t really matter because end of the day we’re finally getting a race track. Now I just need to convince Alghanim to give me an 80% discount on the Lotus Exige S.

Thanks q8-msc

Just a quick post about this place. Al-Hakimi has been a life saver for me, I’ve been finding and getting a lot of my mechanical parts for my Datsun from them. They seem to have everything except body parts. So far I’ve gotten my fuel pump, brake pads (can’t believe I found these!), oil pan gasket and intake manifold gasket from them. They even have shocks that fit my 240z. A friend of mine was looking for parts for his Toyota AE86 and turns out they had them as well. It’s a gold mine! So if you’ve got an old Japanese car and need mechanical parts for, I can’t recommend these guys enough. Here is their location on [Google Maps]

Update: Here is a link to their [Website]

Back in April I bought a 1973 Datsun 240z that was in pretty great condition for a 43 year old car. When I initially decided to buy a classic car I didn’t want one I could just drive on the weekends every now and then but one I could drive every day if I wanted to. Since I bought it I’ve been driving it at least three times a week, mostly more, it’s become my evening car. The experience has been great so far even though I’ve had issues pop up.

Since I bought the car I’ve improved things in it quite a bit. I replaced all the bushings (rubber thingies that cushion metal parts) which removed all the rattling the car had, I installed an AC system so I could drive it during the summer, added a new carburetor to improve performance and a ton of other minuscule things all to make the car more driver friendly. And it’s worked. The car is more fun than ever to drive which is why I take it out so often.

But the car isn’t without issues. Firstly because the car is so old, there are no warning lights meaning I need to keep my eye on all the gauges all the time. When the fuel is low you don’t get a cute little orange warning light to let you know, instead I need to check the fuel gauge often to make sure sure I’m good on fuel which I’m not used to doing. Such a small thing but I can imagine when the first car came out with a low fuel warning light people must have thought it was the smartest idea ever. What makes things even more unpractical in my car is the fuel dial isn’t even in the dashboard in front of me, it’s on top of the center console to my right and the second dial out of three there. Same with the temperature gauge, while driving home one day during Ramadan, one of the fan belts tore off and I didn’t notice. So my car started over heating and of course I didn’t get a warning light and since the temperature gauge is not in my field of view I didn’t notice the car over heating until water started splashing out from the radiator under the hood. Now I constantly look at all the dials every few minutes to make sure everything is working right. I also now drive around with my full tool kit in the trunk and a Haynes 240z Repair Manual just in case.

If you’re wondering how I still find parts for the car there is a shop locally I’ll be posting about soon called Hakimi where I’ve been getting my engine and mechanical parts from as well as from online shops like thezstore.com. Even with the random issues I’ve been having (and I’ve had a bunch but they’re too boring to list), I still love the car, a lot. I still enjoy driving it like I did the first day I got it and even more since the car drives a lot better now. Part of the fun of owning a classic car is fixing it up, it keeps things exciting.

I’ve been doing a bit of work on my Datsun and one thing I needed to get was a new carburetor. My car had a small single barrel carb and I needed to get a larger 4 barrel Holley or Edelbrock so I did a google search and found out about a shop called ProRPM. I passed by them but they turned out to be a tiny store and I couldn’t find what I wanted. When I told my mechanic I was having difficulty finding the part, he told me about a place called Super Shop. Not only did I find what I was looking for there but the price was also pretty similar to the price on Amazon. So I went around and took note of all the different brands they carried in case someone in the future is googles like I did. These are the brands I saw in their shop:

AFE
ARP
Auto meter
B&M
BBK
Comp Cam’s
Cometic
Edelbrock
Eibach
Fel-pro
Holley
K&N
Magna Fuel
Manley
Mcleed
Moroso
MSD
RPC
Wix

So if you’re looking for any of these brands for your car then this is the place to check out first. Their instagram account is @supershop_kw and here is their location on [Google Maps]

Careem is a taxi app similar to Uber but one that actually works in Kuwait. Some of the features of the app include:

– Ability to add a credit card to your account and use it to pay for your rides
– The rides are metered
– Track your ride in real time
– You can pre-book a cab in advance

I’ve never used them but the biggest complaint I had heard about them was that they were expensive. They must have heard those complaints because they’ve now reduced their prices by 30% in addition to the fact they now accept cash payments.

Their app is available for both Android and iOS devices and if you want to find out more you can visit their website [Here]

Update: Careem just contacted me to let me know they created the promo code “248AM”. If you use this promo code in their app then you get 50% off you first “Economy Ride” journey. The promo code is valid until July 31 and applies to cash and credit card bookings.

Haven’t tried using this app yet but hopefully it’s more reliable than the other taxi app I’ve tried using before, Q8 Taxi. I tried ordering a cab with Q8 Taxi when I had to drop off my car for detailing and the drivers kept canceling my taxi request. Whats taking Uber so long to launch in Kuwait??

To download Abi Taxi on your iPhone just search for Abi Taxi in the app store or click [Here]

A friend sent me two videos from a chase that supposedly took place this weekend. Seems like the crowd was rooting for the getaway driver. If you have any more videos of this chase let me know.