busybee2

never been there at nite so perhaps thats why. dont like the place, expensive poor service.

kittycat1

and the charges have hit! My fair was up by 6 aed this morning which I know sounds tiny, but adds up over the year (I sounds like mentalist now)

boo hiss at the RTA

scrubbedexpat141

6 this morning so assuming 6 each way

= 12 per day
= 60 per week
(4 weeks per month say) = 240PM (c40 quid)
(48 working weeks say) = 2,880 PA (c480 quid)

You basically can't buy a Latte from a coffee planet machine anymore.

Interestingly, that must be a couple of gates each way.

So your fare is probably 30? 40? 45?

Call it 40 with the new increase included.

40 each way

= 80 per day
= 400 per week
(4 week month) = 1,600PM (266 quid)
(48 working weeks) = 19,200PA (3,200 quid)

You spend more on taxis a month than my car costs me in repayments on the car loan.

To be fair, I'll include insurance and re-registering and two tyres per year...so I pay about 1,848 a month with all that included.

You pay 1,600 per month. To be driven by maniacs, asked for a shag, made to smell BO and with zero convenience.

You need a car KC. Even just hire one, no extra costs then, I had a lancer for 1450 a month...it was fine.

EDIT: I pay about 200 in salik every 5 weeks = 160 a month, so figure is roughly 2008 a month. Not bad at all.

Millhouse

she will still be paying for fuel and salik though...

kittycat1

Hey scampy, you are right- I need a car!

However parking is 9 aed a day, Iw ill still go through 3 saliks and petrol/running costs of a car....

Its now 50 aed each way btw changing my licence over as soon as a I get a chance.

Now to buy or hire? How long do you need to be staying for to make it worth your while buying? As I don't want to say on here how much longer I'm staying for so can someone work it out for me - scampy- you did an amazing job on my taxi fair so if you could just work it out for me - and which car I should buy please :-)

scrubbedexpat141

Petrol is negligible. Maybe 200/250 a month? Salik - I edited to include.

OK so...

100/day
= 500/week
= 2,000/month
= 24,000/year

My car costs + petrol now come to 2,258 per month.

Your monthly costs are 2,000.

If you hire a crappy lancer like I did, for the freedom and gutsy little bugger that it is, then you'll pay say 1500 (I know a man).

Add on your parking fee's = 180 per month
Add on your salik = 300 per month (generous)
= 1980

I'm saving you money.

If you're going to be here less than a year I'm not sure it's worth the hassle to buy, unless....you buy something cash for about 30,000 and blast it about and sell it for at least 6,000 to ensure you're still better off than the taxi trips.

You can get a nice old shape Range Rover for about 20,000....

Meow

I'd suggest hiring/leasing a car for the first month, at the very least, until you get used to driving here.

scrubbedexpat141

I hired for 6 months. Well worth it to learn the roads and bump into posts before doing it in your own motor.

The_Citizen

I'm just hiring at the moment and because I do the Abu Dhabi commute every day the value on the car would go down dramatically if I bought a car! If I am still her in 8 months I may consider buying a better car though!

The Dean

On a related note.............

I just received a text saying I have passed through a SALIK gate with 'no balance in your SALIK A/C' so I just went and topped up with a scratch card.

Strangely, the full top-up amount is now showing as the credit balance........ surely that means the balance must have been a credit before I went through the gate? If it was zero, my account would have gone negative, and my 100 top-up would have taken the credit balance to 96, not 100??

Or am I missing something?

scrubbedexpat141

Bizarre isn't it.

I wait until I've had a couple of them and then top up online with the credit card. Generally after a few I get the odd few dizzers taken off...maybe you just got lucky...or they count going through the gate using your last bit of money counts as going through with none?

Interestingly, I took Al Khail today, because there is no salik, no junctions and wait for it....NO SPEED CAMERAS (for large portions of it).

The Dean

I assume I'm going to be fined a huge amount............

Millhouse

You wont be. You have roughly a weeks worth of grace before the fines kick in.

I also got the no-balance text last week - I bought a 100dh top up and the new balance was 102Dh. So, I probably was not charged either.

scrubbedexpat141

Nah, don't worry about that. I normally wait until I've had 2-3 of those messages.

Never had a fine and check the statements for them in case.

You maybe failed to pay less than 70pence. Stop worrying.

Mogs

From memory, you can have up to five unpaid trips without any fines until you top up your account. I phoned them a couple of years ago to find out the penalty for going through a toll without any credit and was informed of this.

I have gone through a number of times without credit, without penalty, and then when topping up 100 Dhs - the full 100 Dhs gets credited to my account.