PRESS RELEASE: Lucky Doctor Wins Kia "Buy A Car, Win A Kia" Contest!!

It was definitely an unforgettable day for a lucky customer Dr Atiqah Farah Zakaria who booked the Kia Grand Carnival at the Malaysia Autoshow 2016 won a Kia Rio Sedan worth RM74,000 at a price giving ceremony held during the launch of Malaysia Autoshow 2017. 

The ear, nose and throat specialist was the winner of the “Buy a Car, Win a Kia” contest sponsored by Naza Kia Malaysia Sdn Bhd. 

“This is a wonderful surprise and a sheer coincidence that I am now winning another Kia car as I had booked the Kia Grand Carnival at the autoshow,” said Dr Atiqah, mother of five children who added that she would be using the Kia Rio as a daily working car while the Grand Carnival will be reserved for weekend trips to her hometown in Melaka.

NEW LAUNCHES: Naza Kia Launched The Kia Sorento and Kia Sportage Diesel Variant!!

Naza Kia Malaysia, the official distributor of KIA vehicles in Malaysia has once again pushed the envelope of diesel vehicles locally with the introduction of The New Sorento HS Turbo Diesel and New Sportage GT Turbo Diesel. Both vehicles are in all Kia showrooms nationwide. 

The diesel-powered variants of the Kia Sorento and Kia Sportage are powered by the 2.2 CRDi (Common Rail Direct Injection) and 2.0 AWD GT CRDi engines that deliver 440Nm and 400Nm of torque accordingly. The improved fuel efficiency for both models can result in traveling close to 1,000km on a full tank. 

New Sorento HS Turbo Diesel 

Delivering a premium look and feel, the New Sorento HS Turbo Diesel effortlessly blends style, practicality and technology. 

The evolutionary styling changes subtly alter the character of the New Sorento, highlighting its sleek and dynamic bodyline profile, thus creating a sophisticated continental appearance and ensuring the New Sorento has a commanding road presence. The face of the New Sorento incorporates projector HIID with adaptive light system headlamps as well as a huge radiator grille, with a distinctive three-dimensional cubic mesh pattern. The New Sorento is also equipped with 19-inch premium allow chrome wheels.

The styling of the New Sorento’s cabin follows a 'modern and wide' theme, providing the interior with a stable, horizontal layout and appearance. Its leather upholstery creates a modern luxury feel to the cabin and gives the New Sorento a genuine premium vehicle ambience. 

The New Sorento has a number of advanced on-board technologies to improve convenience and further enhance the ownership experience including an interactive Multimedia Infotainment System, 7-inch TFT LCD screen on the supervision cluster, a smart power tailgate, 10-way power assisted driver seat, seat variations for the 7-seater, Smart Parking Assist System, Tyre Pressure Monitoring System (TPMS), electronic parking brake and drive mode select system, allowing the driver to choose from Normal, Eco or Sport. 

Equipped with an R 2.2 CRDi engine which produces 200 PS and 440 Nm of torque, the engine is mated with a six-speed automatic transmission. 

The front suspension is fitted with Macpherson Struts to improve ride quality while the rear suspension is fitted with a Multi-Link suspension which incorporates both superior ride and handling stability. 

Occupants can expect class-leading safety features designed for maximum protection in all variants such as six airbags, vehicle stability management (VSM), electronic stability control (ESC), anti-lock brake system (ABS) and hill-start assist control (HAC), all encompassed in an Advanced High Strength Steel (AHSS) body structure. This high level of safety helped the All-New Sorento achieve five star ratings from Euro NCAP and NHTSA NCAP as well as was selected as IIHS’s Top Safety Pick. 

The colours available range from Imperial Bronze (new), Snow White Pearl, Aurora Black Pearl and Silky Silver. The New Sorento HS Turbo Diesel 2.2L CRDI is priced at RM191,888. It comes with a five-year unlimited mileage warranty. Terms and conditions apply.

New Sportage GT

Meanwhile, the New Sportage offers breathtakingly distinct design, an attractive interior, cutting-edge technology and advanced features.

Like its petrol variant, the new ‘GT Line’ specification is available to Sportage customers. Designed and engineered to appeal to those looking for a sportier driving experience from their Sportage, the GT Line specification delivers all the versatility of the Sportage while adding greater visual and dynamic appeal to those customers that desire it.

The New Sportage features a bold new look that exudes a sense of sporty and powerful energy from every angle. Echoing the contrast of smooth and sharp shapes found on some of the most iconic modern fighter jets, the New Sportage creates visual harmony out of the tension between sharp, defined feature lines and smooth surfacing.

Its distinctive new 'face' emanates a seductive force thanks to its elegantly designed headlamps with LED daytime running lights, ice cube LED fog lamps and Kia's hallmark 'Schreyer' grille. The New Sorento is also equipped with 19-inch premium allow chrome wheels.

This diesel variant also boasts an elegant interior that beautifully mixes innovation, comfort and world-class design infused with premium materials. The refined driver-oriented cockpit promises optimal control by maximising clever functionality. The result is an interior that majors on refinement and modern sophistication with greater soundproofing measures adopted to reduce significantly the intrusion of exterior noise.

A range of advanced on-board technologies improve the ownership experience. This includes the Multimedia Infotainment System, 6-speaker sound system, a supervision cluster with a large 4.2-inch TFT-LCD screen and driver and passenger power seats.

Exemplary performance comes in the form of the New Sportage GT Turbo Diesel’s 2.0-liter CRDi engine, producing 185 ps and 400Nm torque with Dynamax AWD and mated to a six-speed automatic transmission. The Dynamax AWD offers a higher level of safety by intelligently distributing traction forces. 

The front suspension is fitted with Macpherson Struts to enhance steering response and provide a comfortable ride feel. The rear suspension is fitted with a Multi-Link suspension that boosts ride comfort and driving stability. 

Its top-of-the-line essential safety features provide a comfortable environment for occupants while emphasising optimal convenience. These safety features include six airbags, anti-lock brake system (ABS), electronic stability control (ESC), vehicle stability control (VSC) and hill-start assist control (HAC), all encompassed in an Advanced High Strength Steel (AHSS) body structure. This resulted in a maximum safety rating score of five-stars in the Euro NCAP crash performance tests.

The New Sportage was also a proud winner at the J.D. Power’s Vehicle Dependability Study, 2016 ‘Red Dot Awards’ for Product Design and Insurance Institute for Highway Safety's top award for Top Safety Pick+ in 2016.

Available in Cherry Black, Mercury Blue, Fiery Red, Snow White Pearl and Mineral Silver, the All-New Sportage 2.0L AWD GT CRDi is priced at RM159,888. This variants come with five years warranty with unlimited mileage. Terms and conditions apply.

PRESS RELEASE: Perodua Bezza Recognised By Majlis Rekabentuk Malaysia

Majlis Rekabentuk Malaysia (MRM), an agency under the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation (MOSTI), has recognised the Perodua Bezza as the best car under the “Public Areas and Transport Products” category of 2016.

In a ceremony to recognise the best Malaysian design last evening, MRM celebrates the various local industries in the country which carries out continuous Research & Development activities to produce innovative products.

“This recognition is a testament to our hard work to produce a truly Malaysian vehicle with global standards,” Perodua President & Chief Executive Officer Datuk (Dr) Aminar Rashid Salleh said.

The Perodua Bezza was also awarded the 2017 Frost & Sullivan Malaysia Car of the Year and the 2017 Frost and Sullivan 2017 Malaysia Debut Car of the Year recently.

“These endorsements will help us to further improve ourselves and our capabilities to meet and hopefully exceed our customers’ expectations as we believe in constant improvement in all our activities,” Aminar said. 

To commemorate this recognition, The MRM presented its “Malaysia Good Design Mark” (MGDM) award to Perodua at “The “Malaysia Good Design Mark” (MGDM) Award Ceremony – 2016/2017 held on 18 April. 

The event was attended by the Deputy Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation, YB Datuk Wira Dr Abu Bakar bin Mohamad Diah.

The Perodua Bezza’s upper body is the first fully designed car by Perodua and is the national compact car company’s first sedan with Energy Efficient Vehicle (EEV) status. 

The Perodua Bezza was launched on 21st July 2016 and is the bestselling sedan for the first quarter of 2017 with over 15,900 units sold. The Perodua Bezza has sold about 50,900 units since it was launched in July last year.

“We are humbled by the strong support from the public for the Perodua Bezza and we would like to thank all our stakeholders including our customers for the strong support given to Perodua,” Aminar said.

PRESS RELEASE: RL360° Committed To The Sponsorship Of RL360° Quantum TT Superstock Race

The longest running sponsor of the Isle of Man TT Races, RL360°, has once again committed with the event with another deal to sponsor the RL360° Quantum TT Superstock Race in 2017. RL360°’s association with the TT began in 2002 and this year will be the company’s 16th consecutive year of sponsorship as the event’s Official Life Assurance and Pensions partner.

Simon Pack, RL360°’s Sales Director, said: “No matter where we travel around the world people have heard of the Isle of Man through the TT. We are both sponsors and huge fans here at RL360°. The Races have an incredible heritage and an exciting future, two things we believe our company has in common with the event.

“We are proud to cement yet another year of RL360°’s proud association with the TT and we will be taking the opportunity to promote the racing amongst our key contacts around the world. Once again we will also be hosting a visit to the Isle of Man by a large group of these stakeholders, who will no doubt react as positively to the spectacle of the TT as our past guests have.

PRESS RELEASE: Hino Motors Sales (Malaysia) Opens "Hino Total Support Customer Centre", First Outside Of Japan!!

Hino Motors Sales (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd today has officially opened its RM8 million upgraded Hino Total Support Customer Centre (HTSCC) which is set to be the catalyst for the company’s next level of business growth in the region.

HTSCC is built on a 39,600 square metre of land size is the first in the world outside of Japan is built with international standard specifications from Japan to assist its customers who need to comply with the Malaysia’s government Safety, Health and Environment Code of Practice (SHE COP) with the aims for HTSCC to reach a capacity of 2000 trainings annually. These trainings are open for truck or heavy duty vehicle drivers who will be trained with highly ethical driving skills to reduce the number of accidents, complaints and summonses and ultimately to save precious lives and business costs.

Mr. Ken Iwamoto, Managing Director, Hino Motor Sales (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd said, “The upgraded facility reaffirms our commitment to continue our investment in Malaysia as we intend to make this facility as the catalyst for our local customers and those in the region. It will be a showcase of a tried and tested way to save lives, reduce accidents and business costs. 

Quoting Ministry of Transport statistics, he highlighted that road accidents cost Malaysia an estimated RM9.21 billion in the year 2016 with a total of 521,466 accidents recorded, an increase from 489,606 in 2015. Out of these road accidents, a total of 80.6 per cent were caused by human error. In 2016 itself, a total of 7,152 people died in road accidents in Malaysia, an alarming jump from 6,706 deaths in the year before. 

The upgraded facility is now built with more difficult obstacles for endurance and technical skill tests such as slopped road for hill driving, banked road for medium speed cornering, professional driving track, wet handing and panic brake facility as well as a 830 meter driving track. 

The centre also comes with a maintenance service bay, an open space canteen and a gallery to increase customers’ and public awareness on the history of Hino as a company, its technological revolutions and product advancement. Hino has been established in Malaysia for the past 40 years.

“Apart from providing free training to drivers of HINO’s vehicle owners, we would also want to encourage the public at large who wants to be a professionally certified truck driver to participate in our training programmes. 

“When there are more professional truck drivers in the marketplace, we hope that such supply will spur companies, organisations and government agencies to put in place a mechanism and a requirement to hire only professional truck drivers certified by HTSCC. This will not only level up the skills set required but also gearing up the entire transportation ecosystem into a new level of professionalism, with better service level and customer care,” emphasized Ken.

For a start, HTSCC will offer extensive training courses to equip truck owners with product knowledge, safety and driving techniques. Hino’s training curriculum is inclusive of theoretical and practical courses. Its current curriculum encompasses:

i) Safety & Eco-cien Driver Training 

- This programme highlights Hino’s philosophy of creating a healthy environment by reducing carbon dioxide’s (CO2) emission. Skills and techniques essential for safe and economical driving that will lead to increased business profitability will be taught.

ii) Driver Familiarisation Training 

- This programme stresses skills and knowledge that ensure customers are familiar with vehicle periodic maintenance schedule, warranty and daily inspection.

iii) Safety Driver Training 

- This one-day programme emphasizes on safety measures to be taken whilst on the road.

Hino intends to gradually increase the modules of its programme with additional four new courses which are:

a) Driver Trainer Training

b) Driving & Human Reaction Training

c) Night Driving Training

d) Drivers Aptitude Test / Training 

Drivers will be tested on fuel-efficient driving, safety driving, and driving training in different road conditions and situations as well as safe driving technique when driving at night. 

Plans have been set aside to also provide sufficient training to equip the drivers with knowledge on how and when to react in a conflict situation driving on the road and during emergencies in the near future, leading to a mindset change in prioritizing safety and ultimately helping vehicle owners save overall business costs and lives of their drivers. 

Hino is currently the number one brand amongst the truck makers in Malaysia with a market share of 35.7%. At the end of 2016, Hino Motors Sales (Malaysia) sold a total of 5,870 units of medium and heavy-duty vehicles. This year the company expects to sell more than 6,000 units of vehicles.

PRESS RELEASE: UMW Toyota Opens New Body & Paint Centre In Kuching!!!

In its quest to provide better services to customers throughout Malaysia, UMW Toyota Motor Sdn Bhd (UMWT) announces their latest Body & Paint Centre (B&P Centre) in Kuching, Sarawak that operated by Boulevard Jaya is now fully operational. The new facility, which began operations at the end of last year, is located at the Pending Industrial Area and complements the Sales & Service Centre along Jalan Datuk Tawi Sli in Kuching.

The opening event was officiated by Mr. Akio Takeyama, Deputy Chairman of UMWT, Mr. Ravindran Kurusamy, President of UMWT , Tan Sri Datuk Ling Chiong Ho, Group Chairman of Boulevard Group of Companies and Mr. Ling Chiong Sing, Managing Director of Boulevard Jaya Sdn Bhd.

The new facility cost approximately RM16 million, including the cost of purchasing about 3 acres of land. On the built-up area of almost 1 acre are 10 bays for vehicles with a full-sized Paint Oven to ensure that the finish is properly baked on for lasting quality. Toyota owners are assured of professional repainting services that are up to the high standards set by Toyota Motor Corporation.

At this B&P Centre, owners can also have their damaged vehicles repaired by trained personnel. Using body alignment equipment approved by Toyota Motor Corporation for repairs, they can restore a vehicle damaged in an accident to its correct body specifications. Assistance with insurance claims are also provided at the facility.

“As the authorised distributor of Toyota vehicles in Malaysia, we have a responsibility to ensure that when our customers require repairs to their vehicle after an accident, they can get the best services from trained personnel. This ensures that vehicle will be restored in accordance with Toyota’s high standards,” said Akio Takeyama, Deputy Chairman of UMW Toyota Motor.

The new B&P Centre is located at Lot 1411 & 2115, Section 66, KTLD, Jalan Mersawa, Pending Industrial Area, 93450 Kuching.

UMWT’s network continues to grow and there are now almost 100 sales and after-sales outlets (including authorised dealers) nationwide to meet the increasing number of Toyota vehicles in the country.

“Through our own branches and authorised dealers, we aim to cover as many areas as possible so that it is convenient for Toyota customers to obtain sales and after-sales services,” said Ravindran Kurusamy, President of UMW Toyota Motor.

NEW LAUNCHES: Ford Ranger FX4 Launched In Malaysia.OTR RM122K!!!

The Ford Ranger sets the standard for pickup trucks around the world, combining smart technology and sheer capability to leave competitors far behind. Today, Ford raises the bar once again with the new Ford Ranger FX4, bringing a tough and sporty new look and premium features to the Built Ford Tough pickup. 

“The Ford Ranger FX4 takes its inspiration from the enthusiast community with an updated grille and striking technical graphics. These emphasize the Ranger’s impressive performance and make a strong visual impression,” said Nick Eterovic, design manager, Ford Asia Pacific.

The Ranger FX4 features an exclusive new grille with a mesh pattern that complements its strong trapezoidal shape, and conveys a sense of power and performance. A bold matte decal design draws the eye to the muscular bonnet, housing a powerful and proven 2.2-liter Duratorq diesel engine. Blacked out fog light bezels complete the truck’s imposing front end.

Along the sides, additional technical graphics emphasize the Ranger’s performance and capability, and identify the truck as a unique FX4 variant. Aggressive, 18-inch Stark Grey painted wheels and a black sports bar were chosen for a cohesive, unified design. On the tailgate, a blacked-out decal features the word RANGER in negative space, allowing the body color to show through.

The strong visual identity of the Ranger FX4 continues inside the cabin, with darker finishes for a bold, technical look. Leather seats complement the dark interior and offer a unique level of refinement within the Ranger lineup.

The Ranger FX4 also features advanced technologies to enhance the driving experience. Ford’s SYNC in-car connectivity system makes it easier than ever for drivers to stay connected while keeping hands on the wheel and eyes on the road. Advanced driver assistance technologies on the Ford Ranger, including Rear Park Assist with reverse camera, Electric Power Assisted Steering, and Electronic Stability Program, are designed to alleviate some of the stress of driving. 

Customers who opt for the Ford Ranger FX4 will enjoy all the rugged capability that helps to set the Ford Ranger apart from the competition, including a class-leading ability to wade through water up to 800 mm deep, 230 mm of ground clearance, towing capability of up to 3,500 kg and exceptional payload capacity.

When venturing off-road, a robust electronically controlled transfer case on 4x4 models, an electronic locking rear differential and Hill Descent Control help drivers to take on the most challenging terrains with confidence.

“Our customers in Malaysia already know the Ranger for its raw capability, advanced technologies and rugged, tough appearance,” said Syed Ahmad Muzri Syed Faiz, Managing Director, Sime Darby Auto Connexion. “The Ranger FX4 builds on this foundation with a bold new look and premium features that we think they will love.”

The Ford Ranger FX4 is available in [Aluminum Metallic, Meteor Grey] at dealerships nationwide. Official on the road pricing for New Ranger FX4 in Peninsular Malaysia is RM121,888.00 including GST.