kroniq reviews

Extreme Indoor Karts

A friend of mine organised for a group of us to go karting the other weekend. He rang around a few places and tried to hustle a good plan to get us on the track for longer than any of their advertised rates. After negotiating with them all we decided upon going to Extreme Indoor Karts in East Tamaki. None of us had been there before.

We arrived at the track and were told that the guy we had negotiated a price with had gone home and so the offer originally agreed on was not going to be honered. We managed to get an extra 10 minutes track time for free but this wasn’t as good as we had originally planned for.

Not spending as much time on the track probably worked out for the best. The karts were in very poor condition. During my time there I swapped in and aout of no less than 5 karts. The first one had very stiff stearing, not allowing you to turn easily to the right. The kart after that was good… untill the break cable snapped! The following kart was an older generation and had a full steal frame which made it much slower than everyone else on the track. Each new kart presented another new problem, and before I knew it I was back at the first one. I think we calculated that they probably had 2 good karts.

Putting the actual karts aside and looking at the track it was well laid out. It had plenty of good passing opportunites. It included split option to either go quicker on the outside or cut inside with an extra turn, both ways had a similar time but it was nice to be able to out-manouver a slower driver. It also had a small upper level section of track with added a little bit of extra interest.

Overall the experience was let down by the lack of quality karts. The guys there were flat out trying to keep them up and running but were fighting a losing battle. I probably wouldn’t go back there again as there are lots of other options available in Auckland.

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Abbotts Drainage Truck

Unfortunately a couple of weeks back I was alerted to the issue of some water where it shouldn’t be. I quickly diagnosed it to be a blocked drain. I was also able to diagnose that the blockage would be beyond my reach and therefor needed a professional who had the required tools. And that’s where Abbots Drainage Limited come in.

I discovered them through a vigorous web search. I surfed about a dozen different plumbing and drainage company websites and rang a few of the best looking ones for a quote. Abbotts looked like a very professional company by what I saw on their website. It was easy to navigate, provided comforting information and looked the most professionally designed.

Abbotts had a prompt phone answering service and I was speaking to a real person in seconds. They were very polite and easy to understand. They approach each job the same and they are all important.

I was quoted a time when they expected the tradesman to arrive and advised that he would call 30 minutes before he would arrive. He called not long after I made the booking and arrived when he said he would.

I explained the problem to the man when he arrived so he grabbed the correct tools from his track and proceeded to unblock the drain. It didn’t take him long and he was very courteous not to make a mess. He was polite and friendly and knew exactly what he was doing.

Abbotts standard prices weren’t the cheapest option available, but I had managed to locate a special coupon on a directory website which enabled me to reduce the cost of the callout. With this coupon, Abbots were in fact the cheapest option available, but I would have chosen to use them anyway without this incentive.

If I have another problem similar to this, I wouldn’t hesitate to call them again next time.

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Peugeot 206

I have recently bought a new car, but before I could get the new one, it I had to sell the old one. This review is on my old car, a Peugeot 206 XS.

I purchased this car as the first NZ owner from a dealer. It was originally from Japan. At the time I paid a fair price for it, although if I had the time and energy could have sourced a cheeper model.

It was a year 2000 model, 1.6L with manual transmission and included front and side airbags, fog lights, after market racing alloy wheels and a few other features which appealed to me.

I was specifically looking for a Peugeot 206 as I really like the shape of the car. I had never owned an European car before either, so this was something new for me. It takes a few weeks to get used to the indicator and wipers on opposite sides.

The car was really fun to drive, although the pedals were very close together. It would be a struggle to drive while wearing boots or other large shoes. It had excellent turning ability and vision which helped with tight parking. It also had enough power to overtake comfortably on the motorways.

With regards to fuel economy, it was quite good. The majority of the time it was driven stop start around town, but when hitting the motorways could get many KM’s on a full tank.

Soon after getting the vehicle the passenger seat malfunctioned and was unable to recline back further than an upright position. After looking at getting this repaired we decided against it as the parts and labour would be prohibitively expensive, mainly due to the airbags being inside the seat.

Overall it was a fun stylish car to drive, but expensive when requiring maintenance.

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CRS Panel & Paint

Occasionally accidents do happen, and recently my car was involved in one. Luckily nobody was seriously hurt, although a few egos took a hit. The main damage sustained was to my passenger side wing mirror and that’s where CRS Panel & paint come in.

I have used the services of CRS (Collision Repair Specialists) Panel & Paint a couple of times in the past and will always use them again when the need arises.

They have two locations in Newmarket, although they are so close you could easily confuse which one you are going to.

Their staff are knowledgeable and courteous and are happy to explain any of their processes in full detail.

Their results are second to none. No job is too big or too small. They approach each job with the same attitude and the results are always perfect.

All of this would be enough, but they go beyond with the offering of free courtesy cars, free bottles of touch up paint and even chocolates!

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