DJKOR

Okay, so I got my car back and finally had the opportunity to fix up my grill. I used black mesh (1200mm x 280mm) which I picked up from Autobarn on special for $19.95. I cut it to size and put it in place. A picture tells a thousand words so I won't bother explaining it since you can see how it sits. I took this photo prior to tying it all down. It is now tied down and sits really tight: And here are some photos I took of the end result. I took some without the flash to show that you can see the definition of the front mesh, and I also used the flash so you can see the Moiré effect of the second mesh. And yes, I forgot the before photos, but with the flash on, you would pretty much see the big silver radiator behind. Now I just need to buy some more mesh and cover the bottom section... and fix that horn.

Second attempt. My computer crashed and I lost my whole post... So anyways, here is my (hopefully) last instalment in my car repair story. I was expecting a call today from AAMI to update me on the status of my Aurion. Sure enough, I get a missed call at 9am and the message on my voice mail says that the car is still on track for completion on Friday. I had already made plans with work so that I finish with sufficient time to pick my car up after work. I then continue on with my weekly Thursday tasks, then at about 11:45am I get another call from AAMI. This time she said that the repairers have contacted them and advised that it is ready ahead of schedule and will be ready to be picked up after 3pm today. SWEET!!! When 2:50pm came, I called Yellow Cabs and I was on my way. When I got there, I got a payment slip for the taxi, they handed me the keys and a repairer there gave me a run down on what they did to fix everything. All up, I was in and out of there within just 5 minutes. Was quite a simple turn-around. AAMI really took car of everything. When looking at the car, you wouldn't really be able to tell it was in an accident. The panel beating was done so well (considering there was a really sharp crease in the corner of the door sill), and the paint is blended in nicely. Overall, I'm highly satisfied with the way AAMI have handled everything and the overall quality of the repair. It may have taken an extra day from what was originally estimated, but they said right from the start that there is that possibility. Either way, today was my day off from everything, so it fit in nicely. Driving it home was interesting. As much as I really wanted it back, once I stepped inside and drove off, it felt really strange, and made me feel a little nervous driving it. That is slowly wearing off now as I get used to it all over again. I got home, fixed my grill, put my intake back to the way I had it, put the cutout back on, and put my subwoofer back. It is now back to normal again. Here are a couple of photos I took for the fun of it. The sun is setting so it was the best photos I could take. Ignore the white parts on the body of the car in the second photo. It was a combination of flash and dust from the panel beaters:

I use Fuchs Titan Super GTO 10W30. It is a fully synthetic and I pick it up for about $39.95 per 5L at Super Cheap. I can't really justify paying double the amount for Mobil 1.

I most likely will be making an appearance tonight. Edit: Is anyone going to be out tonight? I've got alternative plans offered, so if it seems like not many are going, I'm going to call it quits for this week. Edit 2: I'm not going to be heading out to the loop tonight. Other plans have won over.

I'm with you there buddy. I completely understand you. My solution is to go for a drive. When I'm behind the wheel, all my worries are left behind in the rear-view mirror. Helps to fill in the time in between social interaction. Not sure about you though; but just find something that when you do, you feel at peace with yourself. It really helps clear your mind when you just let your mind roam free for a bit. For me as well, I like to write a little diary when I can't clear my mind. I'm too lazy to write it, so I just post it in the form of a blog (which is a good representation of how boring my life is... you've been warned). But yeah; just find something that you enjoy most and can shift your focus elsewhere. And vent whenever necessary.

Yeah; sorry mate. As everyone has said, that was just their prototype that they were showing off before it was produced. I must say though, despite what everyone else thinks, I love the black/carbon roof and the five spoke wheels. The darker tinted headlights is a bonus as well. Overall, I love the styling of that prototype.

Are you guys saying that when you traction control kicks in, you get an audible signal as well? On mine, all I get is the flashing symbol on the dash cluster.

I was planning on doing a few things to my car (I'll let you use your imagination because I don't want to go into some specifics), but these mods will require me to change my alarm system. I am thinking of ways around it, but here are the main things that will happen if you install an aftermarket alarm. 1) You will lose the nice clean 'beep' that you hear when you lock and unlock. In my opinion, that is one thing I love about the stock system and why I am looking for alternatives. 2) Your stock immobiliser system will be lost, but a good aftermarket alarm will be able to restore this. 3) You lose functionality of ECU programmable features (eg. the feature that you can enable that holds your headlights on for a predetermined time). 4) You will need to integrate the door sensors into all doors. Most systems use a ground sensing wire. For normal cars, you just need to tap one door as they are all linked. On the Aurion however, all doors are sensed individually so you would need to connect to the grounding wire on each door. As well, a diodes needs to be used to separate each line. If the alarm can sense the positive door signal though, you could easily overcome this by connecting into the dome light, or even use a relay to overcome the 4-door issue. If you need more info on this, I can answer; just might be more information that one needs in the meantime. If you do get an aftermarket alarm, I would highly recommend a Viper. They are pretty good and shouldn't let you down. But if your mainly worried about the rims, just get a set of locking nuts for them. Should keep you safe in nearly all cases. As for having the whole car stolen, the stock immobiliser in the car is quite good. Unless they have your keys (or a tow truck), your car ain't going anywhere.

When in park, the transmission is in neutral. Revving the engine at that point isn't damaging. Extra wear may occur if you have a cold engine or if you keep it revved high for a long time (such as near/on redline). For the former, that would be something that would occur over time (ie. constantly doing it), but with newer engines, lightly revving it (and driving lightly) with a cold engine is still okay. For the latter, it's not quite as healthy and I think that may be to do with the fact that the engine is unloaded. Either way, in your case, I wouldn't worry about it.

Haha, I replied in another one of your threads where I thought it would be rather obvious it was me, but you must have missed it. What's going on these days? I'm working near your place, if you need an exhaust done on your car come and see me @ Exotic Exhausts. My bad. With the online world, it is quite easy to hide behind the nickname. I guess I passed it off as coincidence and therefore any hint that may have been in the post was overlooked. As for me, nothing has changed really. TAFE is still TAFE... probably worse than ever, LOL. As for Exotic Exhausts; I'm pretty sure that's where I got my Camry done. I have got some plans in mind for my Aurion; once I get the money, I should probably stop by and present my ideas and see if it can be done. This thread was quite a good idea actually. There are probably people floating around here that other members may have met in the past but wouldn't realise otherwise. Good work BONDEE. Plus I guess that keeps the boys happy as well after wondering what you and Nellie look like.

OMG Drew. I thought the nickname was a bit familiar. Didn't expect it to be you though. Fancy that.

I just got this strange feeling of Deja Vu. I have definitely seen this photo before.... and not as in person at the busway, but the actual photo. Hmmm. Edit: Memory refreshed.

What would be good is with these sellers that claim to have the TRD kit, is if they could post photos of the actual kit they are selling and not a stock photo of a TRD Aurion. Would be a bit more convincing then.

LOL. What's sad is that I can't even move like that...

I picked up a section of black aluminium mesh (1200mm x 280mm) from Autobarn for $19.95. I've attached a photo of it next to the old grill waiting till my car comes back home. It is the same as the mesh used on the grill. I plan to put it behind the grill but angled at 45 degrees. The effect of looking through the front mesh onto another piece of mesh but at the angle should be enough to create a distortion that blocks a majority of the radiator's 'shine'. That way the mesh on the front wont blend in too much and ruin the effect. If that fails, Termimesh painted black FTW.

Sweet. It certainly gives the car a different look. Especially when the Sportivo's appear to have a bigger presence on the road now. I've got the see-through issue solved. Just can't fix it until I get my car back.

I try and avoid photos as much as possible. I always turn out with the worst expression and in most cases, my eyes always look closed. As a result, most photos of me are when I'm plastered, and that ain't a pretty sight with those two previous factors. I had to do a bit of sifting, but this is all I could come up with for use in this thread. Just a photo that actually turned out half okay: And since I love my car so much: The rest of my photo life is on MySpace or Facebook, but it's not all that great.

LOL. Nellie and BONDEE seem to be a hot topic around here. I think you two need your own thread for general discussion.

My hosting server is not co-operating at the moment. I'm hoping to just upload the whole lot of it into an open directory for everyone to access. I'll probably do that overnight if I can get it to work. In the meantime, I have uploaded a ZIP folder with the kits available for the 'Camry' as sown on the DVD. http://rapidshare.com/files/155788717/Camry.zip

Working on it. The DVD keeps giving read errors (probably the format it was burned in) so I'm just extracting all the files now. Once that is done, I will work on uploading it to my webspace.

That would be about right. I had the option to get the rental car in the event of an accident, but didn't bother mainly because the is always a car spare that I can use at home. Doesn't bother me that I didn't take up the option. I'm not complaining though. I'm 21 years old, rating one, covered for $32,800 and my premium is $674 and that includes rating one protection. I could get a further 10% off by taking their skilled drivers course, but that is only held on the weekends, and I work every weekend. That's okay. Hehehehe. I think I have it all under control.

I have the aforementioned CD. I will take a quick squiz through it and look into the possibility of uploading some stuff. Edit: Oh dear. I thought it was a CD. Turns out it is a DVD with 3.89GB of data. This might be a while.

Thought I would post a quick update. Last Tuesday, AAMI gave me a call and said that the repairers advised that everything is on track for completion on Wednesday the 22nd and they will give me a call again on Tuesday the 21st to update me on everything. Sweet I though; then the countdown begun. Then today I get a call from AAMI again and they said that the repairers have advised that they need a couple more days to finish everything. They said that right now it has gone into the paint preparation stage and they expect it should be done by Friday. Grrrrr. I just want my car back. So looks like there is more waiting to be had then. I'm quite disappointed. I was looking forward to rocking up to the meet this Thursday in my Aurion again. On top of that, this is even more inconvenient because I have work on Friday, and had it have been Wednesday (or even Thursday), I could have easy gone to pick it up. Work isn't quite as flexible, so this is going to be a real PITA.

Yeah. Looking at the space under there, it seems like it would not be a simple muffler swap if you were to go for the oval design. I'm sure it could fit with some custom work, but you also run the chance of buying the mufflers only to find out it can't work out. Plus as well, my money is well beyond tight until I finish my course. Maybe then I will have everything completely changed around. Quite a disappointment that I am really picky and could never live with the canons. That's why I went with my cutout. A little messy, but it can't really be seen, so it's fine for me. As for the repairs, everything seems to be on track for Wednesday. I can't wait to get it back and finally enjoy my new grill. I got 5km of driving with my car after I installed it before the accident. Anyways, I will post my final wording on it all in the other thread after I pick my car up.