In Dec 2013, my friends and I rented a (at the time) 4 or 5 year old Honda Civic 1.8 from a local (Singapore), independent rental company for a 4 day trip to Malaysia. It gave us plenty of memories, for a plethora of reasons.

I’ll quote my friend’s review of the company, because he did such an amazing job of recounting the story:

Participated in a 4D3N drive trip to Malaysia in December 2014. The organizers pre-booked two cars with Siang Hock (the rental company) - a 1.6l saloon and a 2.0l MPV. We arrived at their Kembangan outlet on the morning we were due to depart, expecting to simply pay the deposit, collect the cars and head up North.

The MPV, a Kia Carens, was presented to us with its rear diffuser hanging from 2 clips on one end - this had to be rectified ourselves by removing it at a petrol station later on and keeping it in the boot. Apart from the usual dents and dings you’d find on a sub-par rental car, all was well.

We then turned our attention to the sedan, which they went to fetch while we were inspecting the Carens. It turned out to be a wretched Nissan Sunny which looked like it had been driven to Jupiter and back, with mileage that could put most Comfort Toyota Crowns to shame. We decided against taking it, opting to top up a bit more for (what was perceived as) a more reliable alternative they provided, which was a 1.8l Honda Civic FD1. Boy were we wrong.

First impressions when the car was driven up to the collection area - sketchy paintwork; body panels like a teenager’s face; dubiously modified. Even the wing mirrors were mismatched - one had the wing indicator, one was a regular unit. We also noticed a gouge on the front left tyre, which looked like someone had kerbed it rather badly. Got into the car, the CEL was on. Dear god. We pointed this out to their in-house mechanic, who nonchalantly told us in Mandarin “It’s fine, we haven’t had time to reset the CEL after we changed the air intake”. We took his word for it - mistake #1. Given the dubious condition of the car, we decided to take it for a quick test drive around the block. A friend whose family car is an identical Civic FD1 remarked that it felt a bit weird. However, as it seemed well-behaved during the test drive, and the fact that we were running late, we decided to take the car - mistake #2.

Heading to join the rest of the group (drive trip was a 3-car convoy), all was well - ride a bit bumpy, exhaust rather fruity. Throttle response was pleasantly positive. Popping the bonnet while filling up at a petrol station before crossing the border (yes - the car was presented to us with a quarter tank), we found that the car was extensively modified - aftermarket wheels, lowering springs, carbon air intake, strut bars. Sporty.

Day 1 of the trip, an uneventful journey to Malacca (got pulled over by the lovely Malaysian police for doing 20 over the limit - my fault), the car behaved itself.

Day 2, and time to head further up North to KL. We had barely made it out of Malacca when the car randomly died at a red light. Panic ensued. We managed to get it started and running again, and decided to stop at a petrol station ~1.5km down the road. Between our current position and that petrol station, there were 2 more traffic junctions. As luck would have had it, both were red when we approached. Both times, the car died.

Pulled in to the Shell and it promptly died. Popped the bonnet, seemed fine. Tried to start it, it turned over and immediately died again. Spent 20 minutes letting it cool down, with the entire group of 14 milling around the petrol station. It started again and we went on our way. Not even 500 metres down the road we found that there was another major problem - the car refused to rev past 2500rpm, leaving us stuck in 1st gear, with a top speed of around 40km/h. We (slowly and painfully) made our way up to the North-South, where thankfully, the rpm cut was miraculously raised to 3500rpm and we were able to get to NSHW cruising speed by being very careful with the throttle.

Disaster struck when we reached the outskirts of KL. Trust me, Tuesday evening KL peak hour traffic and a broken car do not go well. To keep the car running, we had to keep the revs above 1500rpm. This meant putting it in neutral before coming to a halt, and constantly prodding the accelerator while stationary like a hyperactive monkey. As traffic got worse, so did the car. It now decided that combining the engine stall below 1500rpm and a 2500rpm rev cut was a brilliant way of torturing us. We had now gotten further into KL where traffic was diabolical. We had to wing it across T-junctions where oncoming traffic was going 60kmh, if the car stalled mid-turn our families could cash out all our life insurance policies.

1 hour, 3 road shoulder stops later and frayed nerves all around, we finally got to the hotel where we gave up and simply pushed the car into a parking spot by hand. Calling the Siang Hock hotline, we managed to arrange for the car to be brought in to their workshop in KL.

The morning of Day 3 was spent waiting for their workshop representative from till 1pm, followed by milling around a random industrial area waiting for the car to be repaired, from 2pm-6pm. When we returned to collect the car, we found it still disassembled, and were told that they were unable to rectify the problem. With the 3500rpm rev cut still in place, we headed for dinner.

The car had one final trick up its sleeve. On the way back from dinner, we realized that the steering was pulling left rather strongly. We stopped at a remote petrol station - lo and behold, the previously damaged tyre (with the gouge) was now leaking air at an alarming rate. Attempting to mount the spare wheel, we discovered that the aftermarket wheels came installed with locking nuts, which required a special adaptor to loosen. This adaptor, which we found in the tool kit, was fine... Until halfway through loosening the 2nd lug nut, it broke. Being about 20km away from the hotel and with no tyre shop open at that time of night, we over-inflated the tyre and hot-footed it back to the hotel - though not too hot as the wheel was effectively held on with 3 and a half lug nuts. Naturally, by the next morning, it had gone completely flat, which necessitated a slow crawl to a nearby tyre shop on the flat. After a very lengthy wait (due to the need for the tyre shop to and source another suitable lug nut adaptor), we finally managed to get the tyre replaced with one of a slightly different size (205/65/R16, originals were 205/55/R16) at a nearby tyre shop with the help of the hotel concierge, delaying our return to Singapore.

Upon return of the car, their attitude was brusque and impolite, with no apologies for our ruined holiday no thanks to their sorry excuse of a car. In fact, one of the staff members insinuated that the problems arose due to abuse by us.

A good 5 months after our nasty experience, we happened to chance upon the car parked at a side road. Surprised to see that the car was still running and not sitting in a scrap dealer somewhere, we inspected it. Lo and behold, the mismatched tyre was still in use.

TL;DR, if you like picnics at random petrol stations or at the side of the highway, or if getting screwed over by a rental company is one of your sadistic pleasures, feel free to rent from Siang Hock.