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So I have done my first full tank, and ran it down until the level hit the needle at the very bottom, and I thought I would post my results.

Attached you see the bill the Gas station gave me, which is required for my measures.

At Gas stations, receipts are not usual, so if you really need one, its hand written. The way Gas stations work is you pop your fuel tank open with a button from within your car, and lower your window. The gas station guy comes to ask you what you need, and then does it for you. I asked for Premium fuel (98 octaine) and a full tank. He fills it up, comes back with a number, and you pay him. He gives your change back, and off you drive. So yes, you could say the service is very efficient and convinient. Your tank is full, costs you peanuts, and the guy doesnt even sigh if you dont pay a tip.

The bill is for AED 103, which is $28.2 USD, and this is for a full tank Gentlemen.

One gallon’s price is AED 6,75 ($1,8), which is 4,54 Liters. Here in the UAE the measure is Imperial gallons and opposed to the 3,78 Liters US gallons.
This makes 1 Liter of premium petrol cost $0,4 USD, not bad right? And its still very expensive compare to Saudi Arabia believe it or not.

So we have how much it costs for a Liter of petrol, so lets see the fuel consumption on the Infiniti G35 Coupe I have. Its a 3,5Liter 280 HP engine.

I filled up the car to the maximum, drove it until the meter touched the MIN needle on the gauge and refilled it to full. The Odometer at this stage showed 520 KMs and it took AED 103 for the full tank. One gallong is 6.75, so the 103 got me 15.26 imperial gallons, or in other words 69.3 Liters.

If you divide 69.3 with 5,20 you get the 100km/liter figure, which in my case is 13,3 Liter/100km. Not too bad for a beast like this car is. Of course since I am using 98 octaine petrol, the car runs more efficient, but still I am very impressed with it.

More later, cheers

As every day we do, this weekend we also went to the park to play with the dog(s). Yes, Dogs is the right word, as we have 2 accompanying Momo currently. Our Japanese friend left for Japan and another Croatian family entrusted us to look after their dog. This means we have 3 dogs, actually had 3 dogs as today the one of them went back to the Japanese owner. This morning, while still having all 3 of them, we took these pictures at the park.

For more, click Read More…

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Just leave your car outside while you go for vacation, and this is what you get when you return. This also applies to cars that are waiting in the dealer’s parking lot to be sold. Often time people pay 50,000USD or more for a car that is covered in dust so bad that you can barely say what model that is.

I found this car in the parking lot while walking the dogs, quite shocking. It wasn’t there a week ago …….., this is what the desert does to everything.

In Dubai, all cars are encouraged to be taken for service at every 5000KM, and if you fail to do so, your warranty is void. My car was just at Service before purchased, but as I found the AC not cooling enough, I took it to Nissan for a checkup.

Infiniti being the high end Nissan much like Lexus for Toyota, has a different treatment at the Service center. I was serviced first, and a waiter showed up with a selection of cold drinks to make the wait more confortable. They also assured me that I wont have to get in line with the other Nissans for long, as they are making a separate service aisle for the Infinities, so the owners can feel a more exclusive treatment. To be honest, I had no problem being with the other “plain” Nissans, in fact the service was superb for them also. Its a very typical Dubai thing, if you can afford to pay more, you expect to be treated as a VIP. Me being a simple Hungarian kid, I couldnt care less for the exclusive treatment, although the cold drink did feel pretty good in the heat

Once I get in line, they put a cone shaped object on top of the car with a number printed on it, which will be your service tag number. Then a technician came who was wearing an Infiniti shirt differentiating himself from all the other Nissan shirted guys. He took my complaint down on a piece of paper, checked the car around for body damage in case I would claim them for doing some damage to my car while at service, and then took the keys and drove it off.

As we are in the peak period of the summer, the service took 2 days to get my car fixed. They drained the AC coolant from the car (poor mother nature, I wonder what they did with the dangerous gas they drained), flushed the system with high pressure water, refilled it and adjusted the compressor. On top, they replaced a so called Micro Filter, which blocks all dirt entering the passenger cabin through the AC system. This all costed me 150 USD, as AC servicing is not included in the warranty. Should the compressor fail, they will replace it for free, but just refilling the system is on my account. Nicely enough they gave me a day-pass to the Dubai Ski as part of their promotion, and cleaned the car inside out.

The AC is good as new, and throws ice cubes at me while driving. This particular Infiniti comes with a dual AC system, which means the Left side and the Right side can be adjusted independently. It is also Digital and automatic, like all modern cars are.

This is a picture at the service center, while waiting for the Infiniti technician to assist me.

The service tag I got looked like this. It was hanging on the key-ring when I got the car back. This is actually a fine example of how mobile numbers are important here. They even use my mobile number instead of my name on the tag. In the Driving school they also identified me by the phone number, at fuel stations they identify you when paying for your road toll, etc etc. Its an interesting concept in Dubai, but seems to work very well. Your number is your identity.

Cheers, more on the car later

Dubai summer is at times unbearable hot, and since I need to park my car outside on the street, I wanted to get some protection against the heat and car interior damage.

Most cars in Dubai have tinted windows, which helps the case, and I decided to do some research and go for some quality tint while remaining within the legal boundaries.

In the “Wheels” magazine I found a couple of ads, and the best companies seem to offer heat resistant tinting as opposed to only darkening the windows. Tints range from AED 50 (approx 15 USD) to AED 3500 (approx 1000 USD), which is quite a large window of selection. The top players are LLumar, V-kool, 3M and Solar Gard. They all seem to be efficient in fighting heat, so I decided to get the one that has the best promotion currently. LLumar was offering a full (Side and rear) 30% (Dubai legal limit) tint job with a fully transparent (0% darkened) windshield foil making it an all around foiling for AED 1200 (Approx 300USD). I booked a slot for Saturday 11AM, and drove the car there. We took a taxi and went for shopping and lunch to Wafi Mall, and came back at 1:30PM to find the Infiniti almost ready with the full tint. The guys seemed to be professional, and the tint so far works like a dream. Of course it cannot keep all the heat out, but it helps reducing it by 50%, and the UV and IR rays at 99%. UV rays damage the interior, causing ripped leather seats and faded dashboards. With this, I should be good to go leaving the car outside all day.

Here is a picture of the car at the tint-shop, getting the driver side foil sized and cut out.

For more pictures press the Read more…..

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One of our major concerns was to get Momo, our dog to Dubai, and to find a place suitable for her to stay at.

Things worked out pretty well, we have located a very good company for the relocation services, and Momo arrived to Dubai without any major hassle. She was beaten up for a day or two, but got acclimatized quickly.

Greens in Dubai is a very good place to have a dog, specially a small one like ours. The neighborhood is very much acceptable towards dogs, and walking them is comfortable around the buildings.

We now have another dog from a friend of ours, we look after him until the owners take their annual leave in Japan. Look at the pictures, they speak for themselves. We are walking the dogs in lush greenery, you would think this is a place with plenty of rain and a Mediterranean climate, which in fact it isnt.

More later on the dogs and transport procedures.

Cheers,

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So after having the Driver’s license completed, the next task was obvious. Getting a car that is. I had my eyes on this G35 Coupe for a while, I even drove one back a month ago, but I was still thinking on other models as well. The 350Z and the Porsche Boxster. The Porsche is obviously more expensive, so I could have only bought a 2002-2003 model, which isn’t very promising here in Dubai, specially now that the government is thinking about banning cars aged over 10 years. After all I decided next to the Infiniti for the following reasons:

Very fast and powerful yet comfortable to sit in

Has 4 seats over 2 like that other candidates had, this of course is more of a wife-like concern

There aren’t many G35 Coupes on the road, which makes it more unique

Once I narrowed down the selection, I was off to buy the car, and here is the outcome. Read on for more info.

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Hi
So here we are in Dubai, with no public transportation what so ever, and our life has started on a fast lane with no time to spare. I feel like back in Los Angeles, where you could hardly do anything without a car. Getting a car of course is easy provided you have money or are eligible for a loan, but can you drive it? Well if you happen to be unfortunate enough for being a Hungarian, you cannot unless you go through Driving school all over again. Read on for the adventure of getting a driver’s license in Dubai….

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