How cheap is cheap

In our recent trip to Malaysia we also visited Langkawi, the island resort of Malaysia. Langkawi it seems comprises of about 90 small islands. We took the evening 1610hrs flight out of Kuala Lumpur (KL) by Air Asia. The flight was on time and the plane was neat and clean.

We got our luggage very fast and proceeded to a counter for rental cars. There were three people and didn’t know if they all belonged to the same company or not. We bargained for a cheap car for three nights. Initially he quoted MYR180 for a small car. I requested for the smallest of small cars and also cheapest of them and finally negotiated for a price of MYR140, pickup at about 5.40pm (arrived from KL at about 5.10pm) till morning on the fourth day (3 nights). The system there is they will give you with some petrol and you give back with about the same. Easy money for the agency!!.

We went out after paying MYR190 (Includes MYR50 as refundable security deposit) and a man gave us the keys and showed a car, we had to really look hard to find it as it was so small. He gave us general directions to my hotel, the Citin Langkawi.

The car started pretty easily but made a lot of noise through out the journey, almost as if some parts may come loose. Don’t complain, I asked for a cheap car, didn’t I? It had power steering as well as power windows so was happy. We made a wrong turn and had to take corrective action after renewed driving instructions.

We arrived at the hotel within about 30 minutes, the ride was easy as it is almost a straight road. The hotel was right on the main road on the left side. The map did help. We wanted to check-in and then take the luggage so got off the car and I tried to lock on my side. The key turned a little and felt as if the key is made of paper, a soft touch. The metal key twisted in my hand as if a flexible sheet of metal. I tried to turn it back and to my horror found the key break into half. Luckily my wife didn’t lock her side of the car and could manage to take the luggage out.

Called up the agency and told him about the incident and expressed my displeasure at the type of car he gave us. He was trying to justify and told me in clear words that what else any one can expect in a cheap car!! I didn’t know cheap means that anything can break or come off at anytime, especially something important like a key. Thank God the steering wheel didn’t come off in the cheap car.

The agency sent me another car after an hour. It looked neat but no power steering. Drove around Langkawi for the next two days and had difficulty especially in parallel parking without the power steering. It was like driving a truck.

The good things about driving around in Langkawi are the roads are very good and petrol is CHEAP. And this time this ‘cheap’ petrol was for real and nothing got broke and not adulterated etc. So cheap always doesn’t mean cheap as in low quality. We paid MYR19 for 10 litres of petrol.

Hiring a car at the airport was the best thing to do as there is no public transport in Langkawi (At least we didn’t see any) and driving is easy with good roads and being a small town.

On the last day of the trip to Langkawi we just drove to the airport, called the agency and a guy came to take the keys. After inspecting the car for any damages (they didn’t do it before giving) paid back my security deposit of MYR50. That was it. It took us two minutes for the guy to appear, 1 minute to handover. It was a neat arrangement. The lesson learnt is to never ask for a cheap car next time, you may end up with four wheels instead of 5 (I mean the steering wheel may come off!).

Parking is free after 4.30pm, so literally we never paid any parking fee as we moved around mostly in the evenings