Foss

And in a post about racism, too! Smooth. ;) I'd consider tokenism to be more offensive than blatent racism. Theres nothing wrong with minorities working together, providing those minorities don't expect to be working only with each other, and aren't stopping people from other groups from working with them. Thats wrong, but it happens. As I see it, a factor in the problem is that minorities have their own little 'countries' within our cities. Most major cities have a Chinatown or a Greek or Muslim or whatever area. The problem there is that they aren't required to interact with the culture of the country they are in. If anything, these communities help to segregate minorities further. If we go to their countries, we are expected to abide by their laws and fit in with their way of life, no matter our culture. We are expected to fit in with their culture. If they come to ours, we make exceptions to allow for their culture. We throw them a bone, because we like to be labled 'tolerant' and 'accepting of all cultures' when sometimes its just not practical. This will probably come across as a racist rant but thats not how its intended. All that said, theres a good chance its a typical TT beatup making it appear worse/completely different than it really is. I contest the word 'reverse' in your post. It doesn't matter who racist comments or actions are directed towards, it is still racist. Agreed.

lol, imagine if they onle expected that on Valentines Day! Meh, it's a Sunday.... I'll just walk around the house in my Birthday suit. Hope you left the curtains shut. I could possibly have given my neighbours a fright this morning from a similar activity.

Just had this emailed to me. Its club relevent, too! There was bad news for God this week as the well-known deity was forced to recall thousands of examples of His popular Human Being after reports that the model could be prone to unexpected attacks of unbelievable stupidity. Initial reports of blithering idiocy emerged from the United States last year but these were thought to be isolated incidents caused by people who are so thick that if a floor mat was touching their accelerator pedal would prefer to scream ‘Aaaaaaargh’ until they drove into a river rather than simply moving the mat backwards with their foot. However, it now seems the monumental stupidity is more widespread and may cause some Human Beings to decide that the best course of action in the event of being in a car with a throttle that won’t release is to telephone someone rather than to, for example, put the car into neutral and bring it to a halt using the brakes as normal. The Pope, who runs parts of the administration from Rome, is expected to make a full statement shortly. In the meantime, the Archbishop of Canterbury, a senior manager at God’s UK operation, has told reporters that there are almost certainly Human Beings here in Britain that will need to be examined for signs of being so thick that they probably shouldn’t have a driving license in the first place. “It’s too early to say how this might affect people in the UK,” Mr. Canterbury is quoted as saying. “But we have every reason to believe that there are some Human Beings that may be so stupid that if the throttle in their car became stuck, they would never think simply to depress the clutch* and coast to a halt”. As God seeks to clarify the extent of the stupidity problem and establish how many Human Beings will need to be recalled, theologians have been assessing just what has caused the problem of quite extraordinarily thick behaviour in the first place. “I suspect the problem lies in the rather clever engineering God has given the Human Being,” noted Dr Peter Cockandbull of St Gobain College, Oxford. “The modern Human Being is actually remarkably durable and reliable, capable of lasting well over 80 years, but among its clever systems is something called Cognitive Reasoning. Normally this works very well, but over time Human Beings get used to being spoon fed blindingly obvious information such as those signs on motorways that say ‘fog’, and eventually they can just give up trying to have any discernment or ability to think rationally. Basically, the Human Being becomes a stupid moron. * (Clutch) An Anglican doctrinal tradition long rejected by most Episcopalians and Anglicans in North America, along with co-religionists, who adhere to the doctrine of Automatism.

What you must have witnessed is a really bad driver then or an old V8 from a while back. Well the photo he posted looks like a WK Statesman, so I'm putting my money on a really, really bad driver.

They do look good! Sod you all, now I'm temped to get some! Mustn't......spend.......money.......

Blashphemy!! :o I suppose it depends what you want out of the car. The TRD is much more unique and exclusive, and if you want the improved performance, then that is the way to go. The ZR6 is a powerful, smooth handling car, but it won't feel as good as the TRD. I used to think my mothers ACV36R 4cyl Camry Sportivo was powerful when I had a Lancer, but after driving my ZR6 it feels slow and sluggish. On the other hand, is the improvements/exclusivity of the TRD worth the extra you'll be slugged for insurance, maintenance, etc? Also, TRDs are as rare as rockinghorse sh*t. Surely there wouldn't be too many people in a real hurry to sell?

You seem to know your stuff. Maybe you're the culprit! :P

Took her into my local dealership to have the rear bumper looked at/repaired. Brackets been plastic welded back on where they were breaking off. Not made any difference whatsoever to the overall problem (which doesn't appear to be fixable short of a bit of custom fabrication/modification), but its the peace of mind that they aren't gonna break off completely now. Also questioned them about the clear coat starting to peal on the front bumper. Upon closer inspection, it appears to have been resprayed at some point to cover stone chips, and its a second-rate job. Now I've gotta bloody chase that up.

Sh!t, that was quick! Keen to see how they turn out.

Yeah, clay before you start rubbing creams and polishes on your car. Otherwise you're just rubbing the grit into your paint, and you'll just end up with more swirls and scratches in your finish.

Yeah but I see VF-X's point. If you're buying a $45,000 car, it damn well ought to be better than only just on the pass side of the acceptable quality requirements! If blokes I know can put bigger wheels and low profile tires on a sub-$18,000 crappy Lancer Coupe and have no issues, then no quality issues should arise from something as a wheel and suspension upgrade on a $45,000 Aurion!

I kinda got a bit lost there. The picture I get is that you were out of the country, and left your friend with your car. He let his sisters boyfriend drive it, and the boyfriend didn't pay his parking. The boyfriend is on a 1yr licence suspension, and so you are trying to avoid giving his name as the driver as he is unlicenced? I'm not an expert in these matters but I imagine you will have to wear the fine, mate. Pretty sure the car is in your name, its your fine to pay, unless the driver at the time stands up and admits they were driving.

Cheers Matt. I'm tempted to move it to hole B just for experiments sake. The fact the brackets are half broken off is a bit of a worry, though. Did you notice any breakage on any you looked at?

When I first looked at my Aurion at the dealership back in September, I noticed that the rear inner guards didn't fit properly, and there was a gap between the them and the bumper. I spoke with the sales fella about it and we came to the conclusion that being carpet they had probably shrunk over time, and they replaced them before I picked up the car. Well the new ones were a better fit but still not quite perfect, and the problem has returned over the few months since they were replaced. Upon even closer inspection I've noticed that its probably not the inner guard thats the problem. It appears to be that the bumper is flared/bowed outward slightly behind the wheel. I threw it up on jackstands to have a look under, and from what I discovered, I don't think its fitted right. Pardon the crude diagram. Its the best I knock up here at work, with the picture in my mind of what how its mounted. At the moment, the bumper is bolted to hole A of the metal bracket. Hole A is the hole closest to the outside of the car. I think that this is putting pressure on the bottom of the bumper and causing it to bow. The plastic bracket is also breaking off where its attached to the bumper, I think as a result of this stress on the bracket. Its the same on both sides of the car. I think its meant to be bolted to hole B instead, but has been fitted wrong. If it was bolted to hole B, it would pull the bottom of the bumper in, likely taking the bow out and taking the stress off the breaking bracket. Does anybody know whether it is fitted incorrectly? I would fix it myself and test, but I'm not willing to touch it as I consider it a warranty issue if its not fitted right, and expect the bumper repaired/replaced with regard to the breaking brackets.

Nice work mate. Looks freakin pimp! Those rims are insane! Your speedo must be out a mile? Not sure I'm feelin' the roof though. Each to their own I guess, but personally, the matte finish doesn't do it for me. I reckon gloss would look cool though.

I'VE FOUND A KNOB!!! Ok, perhaps thats a little over enthusiastic, but I didn't expect to find one so perfect for my project as this one! Phidgets Encoder Will mount this in my custom fascia and it will be my volume control for my laptop. The push-button function will hopefully be able to be used for mute. Once mounted, I'll just pull the plastic knob bit off my stock unit and poke it onto the Phidgets for a nice, stock(ish) look. At the moment I'm struggling with a few snags I've hit with my design. I want to mount some LEDs in my fascia and run the wires from the activity lights on the laptop, but I'm buggered if I know how to mount them flush with the front of the fascia. And I'm thinking they may be too bright direct anyway, so I'm trying to figure out a way of putting something frosted flush with the fascia front and mounting the LEDs behind that. Any ideas? The other snag is a similar problem with the power button. I want to mount my power button in the fascia as well, and rewire it from the laptop to the dash, but I'm not sure how I'm gonna mount it yet. I want to put a blue LED ring around the power button too that comes on when the headlights are on. I'm thinking I should find an old PC case with a button like this and just rip out the entire assembly and somehow mount that. Thoughts?

Cheers guys. Yeah damn right the boot needs a vac. The whole interior needs vacing, dusting, and I need to figure out a way to polish out the fine scratches that the previous owner left in the paint on the centre console. I'm hoping a bit of hardcore cut'n'polishing will do the trick, but I'm not putting too much faith in it. So am I! Bloody bills have set back the ordering of my touchscreen for a few weeks. Well that and the fact that I'm not willing to commit to buying a screen thats not double-din until I get the fascia into my local auto paint supplier and get them to match up a color for me. I'm not about to hack up the Toyota fascia or the fascia of a $200+ touchscreen and moulding them together without having a near perfect color match of the paint finish to spray my customised fascia with. Who would have thought we'd get days like this in Tassie?! Its been like it for the best part of the last month or two. If you'd have told me 5 years ago that we'd be getting summers like this down here, I'd have told you to pull the other one!

Not so much a recall as a warranty question, but does anybody know if warranty covers your paint finish? While detailing on the weekend, I noticed about an inch and a half by half inch patch of clear coat has peeled away.

I can't vouch for any of them really. The iPhone is a truly awful peice of technology, and the other 2 I haven't used. But I personally hate all all-touch-screen phones. You can't go past having real buttons. Personally I have a Palm Treo 750, which, apart from its woeful 1.3mp camera, is a great phone. Its internal memory isn't much, but its expandable with miniSD cards, and can support either 16 or 32gb as a maximum. I think the Treo Pro has a better camera.

There was a tyre in that photo?

I knew I missed something!!

Well, I spent about 5 hours detailing the exterior of my car today, so I figured while its nice and sunny I'd give my lady some camera-lovin'. Then I felt it was appropriate to start up a 'members ride' topic. See my sig. for current and planned mods. And the gear in the boot (nowhere near finished!)...

And there's something slightly worrying about the fact that this here addicts support group does more to convince us to continue the habit!

External detail. Wash with TW20 Truck Wash, Diluted (Brilliant, hardcore stuff. Wouldn't use regularly, but once every 3 months doesn't seem to hurt). Chamois dry Meguiars Quick Detail and half a clay bar *move into garage* Meguiars Professional Swirl Remover 2.0, applied with 10" orbital buffer Meguiars Deep Crystal Polish Meguiars Deep Crystal Carnauba Wax *allow wax to dry* *move out of garage* Buff windows with dry Shamwow cloth (yeah, so my nan got suckered in by those ads and bought some, but bloody hell they are awesome for car detailing!) Windex headlights, fogs, blinkers, mirrors, tailights, and number plate covers Australian Export Tyre Shine ($2 a can from Chickenfeed, works a treat) Kitten Cream Cut and Polish No.2 wiper arms, and all black plastics More pics in members rides soon

*stands in the circle* Hi everybody, my name's Chris, and I'm an addict.