nerdstrike

The single traffic policeman in Devon must be busy chasing caravans. I've heard of quite a few people getting ordered to replace their plate in the greater London area and other busier parts of the country. I like your choice of wheel!

I have yet to see a normal UK market headunit that has the rounded corner oversize fascia to match the Toyota slot. I find myself wondering if I can persuade my mate with a 3D printer to fabricate a suitable surround.

Adrian Flux are often very competitive. Can be troublesome in the event of a claim, but tolerant of mods. Also it can sometimes be tricky to figure out exactly what terms you've agreed to when the policy documents show up. Depends on who the underwriter is. That said I think Hastings is one of the many fronts for a single company that usually saturate a market comparison site. That being so, they're a bit shady - like how I had to call them to get information about the breakdown cover I purchased with the policy and they neglected to provide any further info on. I did quite well out of A-plan one year, but best quote this year was Direct Line. Basically it's a bit of a lottery, so I just try to avoid picking the scummiest options and get taken in by variation on compulsory excess.

I'd like to be proven wrong. I reckon the industry is in dire need of a crackdown. Half of them operate out of Gibraltar where regulations flimsy, protection rackets with repair shops, extortionate supply chain prices and so on. I think it's a product of the passive factors which tend to precede more incidents .e.g dodgy junctions, risky areas to park and so on, but it's unjust all the same.

I'd expect your insurance premium to go up £50-100 regardless of blame, but you shouldn't be liable for excess or anything of the sort. It looks like it hasn't snapped any of the mounts off as the bumper is still sitting flush. That's good from the perspective of the repairer. Official channels will source a new bumper, spray it to match your car, install the original parking sensors (possibly) and fit to the car. A bumper loses a lot of its safety properties after it has been stressed, so they will err toward replacement whether it needs it or not. I'd guess £700 or something, which may inflate rapidly depending on what the repair shop thinks they can get away with. The thing to check will be that the reversing sensors are behaving properly after the repair before you get too far from the garage.

It should be easy to spot you with those decals! I'm in a humdrum red one.

Is that just the crossover setting on the amp you've picked up? Maybe somebody tuned it for other purposes?

I believe it will be the door glass that will fall out first. And the rear view mirror will delaminate.

I did some DIY waxoyl application a few years back. Absolutely worth paying somebody else to do the job. The only thing they can't really protect are the hot parts, because the coating gets runny and drips off.

I suppose it only becomes an issue if you actually draw high output. Depending on the amp class, power consumption can be limited to what is needed to drive the speakers in the moment, in which case I would not expect to get anywhere near the specified maximum output. The Rockford t1500 is broadly a D type amplifier, which does not draw full power at all times. You need a big draw and a high amplitude signal to properly load up the supply, like NJay's sub making big wubs. Ballpark is something like 50% efficiency at low volumes, so with only (!) 100-200w of bass noise, you're pulling up to 400 watts off the alternator, or say ~28 amps. That's still in the broad remit of the normal fuses and alternator. If you really really really want a kilowatt of bass, then you're going to start tickling the specified 100 amp continuous draw on their website. At a guess, Lauren isn't totally deaf and isn't using the full capacity of the amp and it isn't one of the max-draw-all-the-time classes - lord knows I don't need all 40 watts of my home amplifier, but then I'm not waiting for the bass to drop. I'm making a lot of approximations here, so don't trust me, but it is physics. Behaviour can be predicted.

Was it a big miss, or just a little over the threshold?

If mine is creaking, I can't hear it over all the other rattles...

That's because the stock speakers are so poor. There's more room for improvement, but not bad for the outlay. Currently I'm bugged by standard headunit bluetooth being noticeably weaker than the CD/radio input. It's like they put an extra-shit DAC in just to punish you for using bluetooth. You have sidestepped this of course!

If you're easy on the brakes and aren't cooking them (or your bigger discs disperse heat better), then might as well stick with what is working for you. You don't want squealing brakes - it's annoying especially in the summer with the windows down. Personally I've seen yellowstuff lead to brownstuff as they crumbled under heavy abuse. They'd not be my first choice, but as I said, if it works for you then there's not a problem.

That's quite an impressive unit for the price, and looks good in place, at least until it is covered in fingerprints... I rather wish it had some physical buttons - touch screens are tricky at best when the car is moving. I'm not a fan of needing your phone set as a hotspot most of the time either, but a slick fit into the dashboard is a big plus. Thanks for your report @mattt !

Last car I drove could throw a code after a decat on long spells of closed loop driving. Now I think about it it was catalyst below efficiency. Too lean was indeed front side of the engine.

Too lean eh? Curious. Do you have one of the two cats removed?

I've got 4 primacies stacked in the shed with no rims. They're down to 4-5mm depending on where you measure, but I'd be happy to be rid of them for a trifling sum. The shed is a bit overfull now. You could even mention them in your will, as I suspect they'll still have tread left. FWIW you're not the first person to regret an excess traction.

What a lot of GT86s! Seems to be a good turnout.

Cripes! That's an awfully big field of drivers. We need a collective noun for a big bundle of GT86s now.

Sound pressure is exquisitely sensitive to measurement technique and distance. It's probably within error bars. It's not like the guy doing the measuring has a scaffold that helps him get exactly the same relative position on each car, or that each person correctly dials up the right revs on the same amount of throttle.

Grr. It pleases me to get my MOT done elsewhere later this week.

Sometimes this learning period can be smoothed out by letting the car idle for ten minutes or so from cold, but it isn't particularly sympathetic to lubrication. Look on the bright side, the RX8 was a pain in the arse after forgetting its trims. If you didn't let it learn idle, it would instantly stall as soon as out of gear once it was warm! The ECU needs to learn how to adjust fuelling across the temperature and rev range, because the default map doesn't know what climate you're in or how thick the oil is, or indeed how well the fuel pump is operating etc. There is also wiggle room in the sensors, so modern cars self-correct continuously where the old guys would be tuning their carbs.

I would expect the main effect of a carbon prop in this case would be weight reduction of the car as a whole, or just more strength in the transmission. It's a narrow cylinder, so the rotating inertia reduction is quite small, especially relative to the flywheel and the rear wheels. Ultralight wheels would be significantly more effective if you don't already have them. Glancing at the marketing material, I'd suggest the real advantage of such a propshaft is making it strong enough to handle big power.

It could also be air/water in the clutch line if your fluid is getting old.