Steven

Hell of a legacy to leave... You're a bad influence too might I add dammit you got me thinking!

I'm saving myself for Friday night unfortunately, there is much drinking to be done. Heck I might even leave the house!

Yeah you just need to wire it in parallel to the gear lever "sequential" shifter. The result is that I can sequential shift using either the steering paddles or the gear knob now.

I've caved to peer pressure and wrapped the buttons in CF - glad I did too, the standard wheel is very bland and this adds a bit more character to it. It's finally all bolted in and finished - sorta, the standard IS250 airbag leaves a bit of a gap on each side and this one isn't sitting centered properly, but mostly this is how it now looks.

Stole the badge off the stock airbag and used some CF wrap as a background to install it on the new wheel. In person it actually looks pretty look, it's just typical of how this wrap never shows up well in photos. Now I need to decide whether to wrap the controls as per the other attached photo. Opinions?

I'm not having a good day with deliveries. The steering wheel badge finally arrived, the chrome is very low quality and covered in marks (looks like they chromed over a human hair in one spot!), and it's also too small to use. Also just heard Toyota don't sell the Steering wheel badge separately from the airbag, going to try to stop in there tomorrow and see if they have any other badges close to the right size.

another little mod that didn't work out - some of you may have seen the camry chrome side mirrors on ebay, about $50 a pair and they come with pretty sleek LED indicators too. Bought a pair with the idea of color coding them to the car, just because I wanted the indicators. Bad news - they look almost EXACTLY the same as the Aurion mirrors in regards to mounting clips etc, however something about the top of the Aurion mirror is just slightly bigger which means the chrome mirrors don't fit. Normally I'd just modify my mirror housing to get it to fit, however the LEDs in the chrome mirror are extremely weak and in my opinion wouldn't pass muster if an insurance claim were ever made. So let my mistake be a lesson for you all!

will be possibly my last day off before Christmas peeps so unfortunately for you I'll be having some "me" time.

I've got my roster now until the end of the first week of January, if everyone is still interested in this maybe we can start sorting times/dates?

I'm no expert either, but my theory is that due to the close proximity (and factory bracing) of the strut tower to the firewall, I think there's a chance the firewall transferred some of the impact to the RHS of the car, which manifested itself as a stuck driver's door. If that's happened then there would be significant body damage all over the front end, and as modern car body's are sort of integrated with the chassis in a way only an engineer could explain, I'd be wondering whether the car could be repaired at all regardless of cost. As DJKOR said though, it did a good job protecting you and that's the most important thing. Let us know how the insurance works out.

Yep. This is my preferred method as well. Grab it at the 3 and 6 o'clock position and start rocking it back and forward on each side pulling back with a little force. It should give way rather quickly. Except when I do it, I opt to go with no bolt. I like to take the chance you crazy man. BTW don't you mean the 12 and 6 o'clock positions?

That is normal for most cars, the steering wheel is a tight fit over the shaft spline so are often difficult to remove even after the bolt is off. You can get a special steering wheel puller from most automotive stores, however my preferred method is to put the nut back on just a bit (to stop the steering wheel when it finally comes off) and pull the steering wheel off towards you, jiggling it as you do - I've found this works in 9 outta 10 cases.

Hey guys as some of you may know I've upgraded the steering wheel in my Aurion to a Lexus one, so now I have my factory Wheel and airbag available for sale. As you can see it comes complete with Airbag, steering wheel controls and cruise control stalk - Everything you need to upgrade your 4-spoke Steering wheel to the more sporty version. At this stage I'm seeking to sell the Wheel and Airbag together as they really are a package item, looking for offers around $300 at this stage. Pickup is fine (Brisbane Northside) also willing to post Australia wide however no idea of the cost - to give an idea international postage of a steering wheel is about $70 so it's definitely going to be cheaper than that.

Got the replacement steering wheel today and got it semi-installed in the car - just waiting on my replacement Toyota badges for the steering wheel, which sadly is looking rather bland without any shiny emblems. In reality it looks so standard that, especially now the Lexus badge has been removed, you'd be hard pressed thinking the car didn't come that way standard. Forgive the shoddy pictures, garage was very dark at the time. Once I get everything reinstalled and finished I'll give her a clean and take some proper pics.

I don't get that at all, however mine doesn't have it either :s

Dynamat is a sound deadening material - it works by adding weight to a panel to reduce panel resonance. This helps to prevent speakers from rattling panels, and as the sound energy isn't being absorbed as much by the panels it equals more sound. The best way to sound proof is generally through a "muffling" effect by using a thick mass that will not transfer sound easily. It's why a lot of cars have that thick underlay under the carpets. This material can be bought from most trimming supply shops and I've always had good success when used in addition to Dynamat. The road noise you are getting from your tyres is amongst the hardest to eliminate. Car manufacturers invest in a great deal of R&D to tackle this and many of their solutions aren't easily retrofitted (things like suspension design, large custom-molded foam inserts, thicker firewalls etc). You have spent $80 per tyre which is actually very cheap and, although dependent on what size rubber you run, is likely to be a large source of your problem. As others have stated, you're best bet would be to spend a decent amount of cash getting good quality tyres with a softer compound. Hard wearing long life tyres generally offer lower traction and also are pretty noisy, and are also pretty cheap. There is more to selecting a tyre than what brand you choose.

It is likely the bulb that lights this area has blown. You need to remove the center console cover to access it, then the bulb is easy to access (pops out from the rear end of the selector housing) I don't have time at the moment to explain how to remove the console at the moment, but try doing a search as it has been mentioned here several times.

The camry console mounted garage door opener retails for over $500, and being american there is a strong chance it wont accept your australian remotes frequency. I dont like to tell people how not to spend their hard earned, but seriously this mod aint worth it

I'm definitely interested however as I'm just about to start my new job (where they don't give a damn if it's a public holiday or not) then I can't say yay or nay until I get my work roster etc

sorry I had to bail last minute last time guys - A good friend of mine was leaving for New Zealand for a while and wanted to have a catchup before he went. I'm keen for tonight though

My 2 cents here is that if you believe you are not in the wrong, then do not be afraid to inform the intercepting Officer of it - it's perfectly fine to do so as long as you remain courteous and professional. A blatant outright lie is not recommended, but in situations where you have an honest belief that you are not in the wrong then you are actually doing yourself a dis-service by not voicing it. Reason being if it does go to court, and you bring up this fantastic reason/explanation that would work in your favor the first thing both the prosecutor and the magistrate will want to know is why you didn't inform the issuing officer of this before he wrote the ticket. Although you have a right to silence, in a situation where a Police Officer presents a very comprehensive and accurate brief of evidence to justify writing a ticket and you've just turned up with completely new information that if presented previously may have avoided the whole court process altogether, the magistrate will not look upon you favorably. If however you do present your reasons to the ticketing officer and he writes you a ticket anyway, at least later on down the track you look a look better in court and might even be able to request costs be awarded in your favor. This is all just from my direct experience with these matters.

no idea at this stage, depends what work is doing on Friday - I'll be seeing you all on Friday anyhow so more to talk about I guess

A few things. Changed the color of the new steering wheel controls to blue to match the rest of the dash (no pics, will come later). Also installed my auto-dimming rear vision mirror, looks OEM I reckon. It's all fun and games with the steering wheel though - twas badly warped so I've had to send it back to the good ol' USA for a replacement. Naturally they refuse to send me the new one until they're recieved the twisted one so I'm still without a wheel. Real shame because the Airbag did arrive the other day, and I've already got to work on it removing the Lexus emblem, grinding away the plastic and adding a patch of vinyl to the center so be the background of the new Toyota emblem when it arrives. Picture shows the Lexus emblem with the "L" removed on the modified airbag to give a bit of an idea of how I've changed it.

I got us a booking for 12 at the bar and grill at the normanby hotel at 7pm. Hope this suits everyone as pickings are slim at this late notice

Big problem guys, place has been fully booked out lunch and dinner for that day. Does anyone have any alternate venues or ideas for dinner?