...is actually our Perodua Myvi. To those that aren't aware of this fact, The car is either brought in as a whole from Perodua's plant in Rawang, Malaysia or partly assembled in Indonesia by Daihatsu from parts brought in from Malaysia. It is basically our 1.3liter Perodua Myvi with a Daihatsu badge stuck on it. There is no other difference from the Myvi we have over here. All you have to do is go to daihatsu.astra.co.id and you will be able to see the difference. Or lack of it.
But anyway, this isn't the issue which actually makes me a little cheated. It is the fact that Daihatsu actually offers a 16 inch wheel option for the Sirion over there in Indonesia. The 1.3liter Daihatsu Sirion can be had with large alloy wheels whilst the people in the country that actually made it gets stuck with measly 14 inch wheels. This is even though we also get an uprated 1.5liter version too. I mean the Myvi can really move with the 1.5liter engine and it is still coupled with smallish 165/65/14 tyres.
Some of us actually think that the Myvi is now overpowered for some Malaysian road users especially since it comes with skinny tyres. I personally believe that the 1.5liter Myvi should come with the same tyre option as the Perodua Alza - the 185/55/15 tyre and wheel combo instead of the skinny 14 inch setup. If you actually did a lot of travelling, one will see 1.3liter MyviS doing over 150km/h and if this is possible for the 1.3liter, the 1.5liter Myvis are going to go faster. Much faster.
Now the obvious answer Perodua will give those that question why they aren't indulging their customers and giving them the option of larger wheels I think they'll just say that 14inch wheels are adequate and that Malaysian customers usually like to buy their own wheels. Yes they do but there are those that like to buy things all complete too.
If Daihatsu can give such an option in a poorer country like Indonesia why can't Perodua (or Daihatsu) give such an option to people here especially when we tend to buy them by the thousands? Indonesians aren't buying the Sirion in large numbers as I did not see many on the road. In fact, I only saw one (I will get to that somewhere below). It is because of this I believe that Malaysians are being taken for a ride (errr...literally).
Don't believe me? I have a scan of the Autocar Indonesia that I managed to purchase when I was over at Jakarta recently. It actually featured the Daihatsu Sirion test drive by Indonesian journalists over in Malaysia. They started out in Putrajaya and ended up at AFamosa in Malacca. One of the cars in the magazine featured the large 16inch wheels (the white one in the scan above).
Why can't Perodua give such an option to Malaysians? A large engine sometimes deserves larger wheels to compensate. It also gives customers more choice. Doesn't it?
I also have a photo of the earlier Indonesian Daihatsu Sirion aka Myvi that actually came with a manufacturer bodykit and the 16inch wheels. This was actually the only Sirion I managed to catch a glimpse of during the whole time I was in Jakarta/Bandung (a good 6 days FYI). Favourite small cars seem to be the Suzuki Swift, Nissan Juke and the Mazda 2.
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