Steven

Great outcome mate. It will be better if they lay charges, but all Toyota needs to do is claim a paperwork error. It will be highly unlikely that SPER will obtain a warrant and investigate it fully, which is a shame but in the end probably the best use of tax payers money. As for the deal principle not caring to hear your complaints, go higher. Head office if you must. If you've got an upcoming service, then you could probably haggle a free one considering the **** they've put you through.

mate she's come out real clean, they did top work! Gotta love that lifetime warranty too

two things 1) I recently bought a fiberglass front grill for my ZR6 from carmate - it required considerable work and reglassing to order to strengthen it (cracked due to too think fiberglass), reshaping to fit, and endless hours smoothing it to get rid of all the pock marks and deeps. I'm not saying anything about the quality of their fiberglass kits, I'm just simply sharing my experience. 2) Although I don't have a TRD, I would prefer only TRD Aurions run around with that style front bar. The ZR6 is not a TRD - I liken it to people putting HSV bodykits on their standard V6 Commodores. There are plenty of body customising options for the Aurions around without needing to copy the TRD. I recommend looking around for one of the lip kits made for the Aurion. There are a variety of them out there and it's a very neat way to customise your car and making it unique to boot. Good luck!

Mate that sucks, however there might still be a chance of finding out the mongrel that did it. Let me know where in the city (by pm if you're not comfortable posting it here) you parked - I know the damage isn't great but people who do this are real scum and the effort should be made to ensure they are discouraged for this sort of behavior.

awww we miss you too. as well as everyone else who's been missing lately!!! Come on it's not that cold (especially compared to Sydney)

Excellent point, I don't want to have to sift through all the car pictures just to find the good stuff :P

I wholly support this new endeavor :D

doesn't look like I'm getting wheels anymore, just a new set of treads after tax time. Figured out how to update the gps loading screen. Here's the loader I've made up.

Few things, mostly stereo related. Installed an aftermarket Satnav and all that goes with it - which means RCAs to the boot amplifiers, installed the reverse camera and ran a coaxial cable to the boot for the eventual DTV antenna (the one you get with the satnav isn't really usefull). Also popped open the Satnav as I was interested in there internals (and was considering changing the panel illumination color from white to blue). It's actually pretty well made, from my limited experience in these things I couldn't really find anything obviously cheap about it. Unfortunately changing the color of the LEDs would require a fair bit of extra disassembling including desoldering so that idea was quickly dropped - however whilst I was in there I added a rear connector for USB connections! Tomorrow it's off to Jaycar to pick up some pieces to have myself a center console "Aux" box for connecting RCAs, 3.5mm or USB - Ipod will stay in the glovebox. Now if only I could change the darned loading screen for the IGO v8 nav software I'd be set. more pics to come

Hell of a long day, just found out I'll be a little late to the meet but still hopefully before 9pm.

I'll be out as per usual

Nah, my claims manager is Patrick. That would have been pretty damn funny though. My repairer is 'Domroy Prestige Autobody' over in Moorooka. It doesn't surprise me that they are just repairing it since the damage is rather small. As for the repair bill, the quote they sent me came to a total of $1615. That said $585 of that is used up on the grill alone :o least she's on the mend now. Are we going to see any Mazda-ness on thursday night?

yes that is very much a case of Do as I say, not as I do - many police vehicles have the fog lights activated by default. However none of the road rules under any of the Transport Operations (road use management) act and any of it's regulations apply to Police in the course of an official duty. It was deemed that the use of fog lights was required as police required more light for the additionally expected awareness of their surroundings than the average driver. Ie for patrolling rather than for driving.

Why are your lights exactly the same as legislation? To assume they are, they must: Be white, be housed in a projector that project the lights in the proper manner as opposed to the short/wide design of the foglight reflector (ie just changing your bulb isn't going to do this), be positioned appropriately on the vehicle, and only operate in conjunction with your headlights only. By the way, QLD legislation clearly states the fog lights can be either white or yellow, so I don't know where you got your information from stating they are only yellow. See below. In other words, provided the positioning of the reflector on the front of the car is okay, you can quite easily convert your fog lamps into driving lights by replacing the whole projector housing and bulb arrangement, and making the required wiring changes so they only work when they're supposed to. Did you do this? Transport Operations (Road Use Management—Vehicle Standards and Safety) Regulation 1999 Page 96 Reprint 5C effective 1 December 2009 Division 12 Fog lights 89 Front fog lights (1) A pair of front fog lights may be fitted to a motor vehicle with 4 or more wheels. (2) A pair of front fog lights, or a single front fog light, may be fitted to a motorbike or motortrike. (3) A pair of front fog lights fitted to a motor vehicle with 4 or more wheels must have the centre of each light not over 400mm from the nearer side of the vehicle unless the centres of the lights are at least 600mm apart. (4) If the top of the front fog light is higher than the top of any low-beam headlight on the vehicle, the centre of the fog light must not be higher than the centre of the low-beam headlight. (5) A front fog light must— (a) when on— (i) project white or yellow light in front of the vehicle; and (ii) be a low-beam light; and (B) be able to be operated independently of any headlight; and © be fitted so the light from it does not reflect off the vehicle into the driver’s eyes.

obviously people have no idea of the difference between driving lights or fog lights, and getting their panties in a pinch. interesting reads (1 second on google) http://www.vicroads.vic.gov.au/Home/SafetyAndRules/SaferVehicles/VehicleDesignStandardsAndAccessories/FogAndDrivingLights.htm http://www.mynrma.com.au/cps/rde/xchg/mynrma/hs.xsl/how_to_use_your_lights.htm read it, learn it, apply it. Sorry but those lights on the bottom of your bumper are fog lights, not driving lights.

Actually all you've done is make a poor QLD transport girl's (who's probably only getting paid peanuts) life difficult. How very manly of you. I'm sure those law-makers are shivering in their boots. The end argument is that the lights on the Aurion's are referred to as "fog lights" in the car's manual, which is exactly what they are and the first thing the police prosecutor would throw at you if you contested it in court. Furthermore the fine is only $40 in QLD and no points, so as far as infringements go it's a very lenient one aimed at just giving you a "slap on the wrist" and "now you know, don't do it again" impression. If you want to argue it by the color of the light itself, go right on ahead and take it to court and see how you go. OR conversely, you could just not drive with them on unless you need to. You decide what is easier.

when we did 51DER's car, we actually wired them up to come on full with the brake lights, but still light up about halfway with the parkers. Personally I reckon this way looks the best, however it you need to wire in a resistor and diode to accomplish this unless the LED strip already supports it (I've installed 2 different types so far.)

Traffic cops generally don't take the time to write neatly. For them it's all about writing as many tickets as possible. Going from his rego number, he's probably either a Senior Constable or Sergeant. In traffic, these guys are harsh and offer very little in the way of flexibility. However they don't decide the penalty or the rules, I think of traffic cops simply as a reaction to someone's action. They're strict, but they are also just doing their job. A few questions - how long was the safety certificate expired for? Were you aware of it, and if so, had you taken any action towards getting it renewed? If you were to contest it, you could probably get it waived on compassionate grounds in front of a Magistrate if the circumstances were in your favor (ie expired only within a few days, hard time booking into to mechanic to get renewed etc). Let us know how you get on.

I should be getting my new Satnav sometime early this week. I'll check out any fan on the unit once I do. Although they're now considerably higher quality then they were previously, I still believe the manufacturers would be cutting costs where-ever they can.

Filled the tank up with E10 the other night by accident because it was late and I didn't read the pump properly. So far no complaints. There really isn't anything wrong with E10 in new model vehicles, all that scare a fair years back was just the usual fear reaction you get when anything new is introduced. That being said, I normally prefer 95-premium but filling up on a friday evening even just the E10 made me baulk at the prices.

They arn't blue they are white IRL, that is just the crap camera I had on hand. ohhh LOL zzz wow today... ahh a marked police car drove behind me tonight with my blue number plate led's... and i thought i was going to get pulled over when he just over took me D= ... maybe it wasnt his job to care about my blue lights? LOL 90% of all cops wouldn't really care about something like that. The other 10% will book you for anything and everything.

I can't imagine the fan being especially complicated, personally I would rip the old fan out and replace it but that's just me :P

You can use red lights on the rear of the vehicle

LOL at that last one. Seriously WTF.

btw you could bring it to the meet tonight and show us in person :)