DJKOR

Firstly, if you want to test out the ABS and VSC, take it somewhere where you can do hard turns and whatnot without fear of hitting anything or anyone. I took mine down to the local parking lot and tested out the ABS and VSC. This was the first car that I have ever tested ABS on and it was certainly quite a lot to get it there on dry road. The VSC is an interesting one when you experience it doing it job. You really need to test it out on some 'safe road' before pushing your limits elsewhere. It's the weirdest feeling when the VSC kicks in. It's like the car is floating on a guided track. Every so often when taking certain turns (like ones that I drive through often), I like to push the car that little bit harder when the road is clear. In those cases, if you push it a little too much you can usually feel when the VSC kicks in to keep everything on track. At that point you know when it's time to back off. Usually, so long as you don't do anything stupid crazy, the VSC kicking in will give you a good indication when you are pushing it just that little bit too much, and gives you enough time to ease off and not get into a mess.

Are you referring to this piece of design excellence: If so, I don't think anyone has yet eh. I'm thinking, it probably wouldn't be worth all the effort unless you have a complete system done for it (eg. dual pipes to the rear).

And here was the first person to do something unique to their Aurion exhaust: http://au.toyotaownersclub.com/forums/inde...st&p=220896 Please wait a few seconds for Video to Load!

As apg39 said, try lifting the centre trim (the section that I'm lifting in the photo attached) as that would be a good place to start.

In my opinion, having a more aggressive stance with the car shows that it means business. Just look at that Viper in my last post. It's like: "I'm gonna eat you". LOL. Having too much of a 'cheesy grin' at the front makes the car look weak. That's just my opinion anyways. A good example of the cheesy grin, you can't go past this:

Definitely do not black out the grill (with the exception of the two bits in the centre at the top that you were telling me about). Blacking it out makes the car look like it is grinning, especially with the lower one. It's hard to explain, but the way I see it when blacked out looks fun not aggressive. Like if I were to look at the following photo, I can see the car 'grinning' as well (but with more aggression):

Looking great. That looks sweet as. Nothing beats a bit of custom work.

LOL. Finally got around to watching this. Was this really an advertisement? That's crazy.

Thought I would chime in nice and early. I will definitely be at the loop tomorrow night. Won't have the Aurion, but at least I will still be there... even if I wont be driving a Toyota.

Okay, I just got a call from AAMI. They told me that my car has now been sent to a repairer not too far from their assessment centre; which is quite close to TAFE as well. They said the quote was for $2007.34 and that they estimate it to be completed by Wednesday October 22. They emailed me an itemised quote which it looks like everything necessary has been covered. Now it's just the long wait till I get it back. Two weeks is so much torture.

Once you go over about 60 - 70 klms/ hr , having the windows down WILL affect your fuel economy due to extra wind drag and it is actually more economical to run your air conditioner at that sort of speed. ...Unless you want everyone to be listening to the music you're playing in your car. Hence why I mentioned it to explain the conditions around my fuel consumption. I've been driving like that since I got the car (and even while I had my Camry), so that isn't really a good explanation for my gradual increase in fuel consumption. I an well award of the effects of drag and that at higher speed, the A/C would be more efficient. I just can't help it though. A large majority of the time I prefer fresh wind through the window rather than from the A/C vents.

Well, I dropped it into AAMI's assessment centre this morning. They were really focussed on making the entire procedure as smooth as possible for me. When I arrived, one of the lady's there gave me an envelope which detailed everything I need to know as well as a voucher for Yellow Cabs to get me where I need to go (trip ended up costing $39.80) and a contact so I can get a taxi back when it is ready. After that, the guy there doing all the assessment took note of the damage and explained briefly what will happen, then he said they will call within the next 24 hours to advise me which repairer my car has been taken to and roughly when it will be ready for collection. My taxi just arrived as he finished going over it, and then I was out of there. I was pretty much in and out of that place in 5-10 minutes. Yeh, I pointed that out. The rim isn't scratched on the main surface of it, that stuff rubbed off. The outer part of the rim though had been partially ground off (like curb rash, but more coverage... I'm sure I didn't do that prior) and he said that they should be able to polish that no worries. I mentioned that even though it can drive fine, it would probably be best if they check that out as well. Since it was a side impact, he said they will do an alignment and all the safety checks as standard to make sure it is definitely fine.

So on that topic of the seat belt reminder, if you really need to turn it off, you will need to go to a Toyota Service Department. It can only be disabled by using the intelligent tester. The seat belt switch forms part of the airbag system so so messing around with it would not be advised. I had a look at it and unfortunately it is not a matter of just shorting out two wires. I guess if you are that serious about disabling it, you would be bothered enough to go to Toyota.

While this thread is still running, I thought I may post up something I have just realised. Remember some time ago I blocked of my lower resonator, swapped the vacuum hoses, and replaced my upper resonator (attached photo)? Well, after this morning I removed my replacement pipe and put the old upper resonator back in and restored the vacuum hoses to the way they are meant to be. Then I needed to drive to TAFE and whatnot, and I really realised just how much louder the intake was with that simple upper resonator replacement. Putting the stock resonator back in, everything was so silent. But this is not what surprised me the most. With the stock upper resonator back in place, everything may have been really quiet, but I actually noticed an INCREASE in my low end torque, such as off the line acceleration. Maybe the stock intake isn't so bad after all. But now it is a tough decision because the extra noise I had before was definitely nice. This was based purely on how it felt though. It really is hard to determine this kind of stuff. It can't be a placebo effect because I did something completely against what I was doing in the first place.

Yeah. Here's hoping for the best. I have removed the electric cutout and attached the blanking plate in its place and bolted that on. Hopefully then since it is behind the cat and resonator, and is well sealed, they shouldn't let it stand in the way. I guess we'll see.

Thanks guys for the all the words. I just got a call from AAMI (I lodged my claim this morning) and they said that I will need to drop my car off over at their assessment centre in Fairfield at 7:20am so they can check it out. They said I will only need to be there for about 10-15 minutes after which they will taxi me to drop me home (I didn't add the rental car extra to my insurance). However, I think I will be able to get away with using my sister's car in the meantime though. Just a little bit inconvenient, that's all. They said that they will then give me a call within 24 hours to let me know where they will send the car for repair and when it is complete, they will send a taxi to pick me up so I can collect my car. From what I'm guessing, they will choose a repairer so that they can get the repair done as efficiently as possible with minimal delay. I'm not too concerned about selecting my own repairer, I just want it all fixed. It's such a shame though that the damage extended onto the rear quarter panel where the crease in the body are (if that's what it's called), since that means it's going to be a little interesting to panel beat. The door is a simple fix though since if they were willing, they just need to change it. Interestingly, with the size of the impact, if she hit the car just 10cm more to the front, I would think only the door would have sustained damage. Oh well. After sitting (sleeping) here at TAFE for a few hours or so, I think I've started to relax on the situation now. What's done is done. I think the only thing that is really getting up my nerves right now is that I will be without my car for however long it will take to repair, and I just don't feel right without it.

Well you definitely won't be seeing it this Thursday.

Well I'm quite p*ssed off to say the least right now. Make that two Wildfire Sportivo's Soloman. I'm just going to type this here since I will probably need to write up something for the insurance so I may as well get it done now. So I was driving down Oldfield Road in the NW direction as shown in the following photo: Being a downhill stretch, I had my brakes applied to maintain a 50km/h speed limit. There was a car waiting at the T-intersection there as most cars do when they are waiting for you to pass. Just as I read the first corner (right about where the upper Oldfield Rd label is on the photo) I lifted my foot off the brake immediately placed it above the accelerator getting ready to go up the hill ahead. Now once the nose of my car was in the same plane as where her car was, I could see her car start to move with my peripherals. I would say the distance between the nose of her car and the side of mine would have been around 1.5 metres. By that point, in time once her car was in motion, there weren't too many options I could take. 1) I could stay at the same speed and swerve right, 2) I could put my foot down and swerve to the right, 3) I could put my foot down and continue straight, 4) I could brake and swerve to the right. Subconsciously in my head, my response was no to do anything involving accelerating. I guess in the back of my mind, it knew that I would probably trip the traction control and all power would get cut within those precious seconds. The option that my mind went with was a combination of 1 and 4. Problem here exists, in that I'm only steering my front away from the problem. Now I'm not expert driver, but personally I am pretty sure that once the ball started roling in this scenario, if she didn't stop, some part of my car would get hit regardless. Needless to say, I now ended up with this: Now when we both came to a stop, the woman in the other car seemed to know everything required to sort the insurance out. She was like telling me everything she needed from me and she had written out all her details for me. She even had a car with her insurance details on it and she told me that it looks to be about $3000 worth of damage (though I reckon it will be more). Her knowledge on the subject kind of concerned me. I though I will also mention my thoughts of the handling of the car during this event. As I swerved hard to the right, the tires were squealing but the car was controllable. Once she hit my car it kind of straightened it up for a moment, but due to my hard swerve, I was already steering to the left for correction and to avoid going off the road. This sent my car into a little bit of a fishtail all the while I could feel my ABS pulsing through the brake pedal (I was only applying moderate pressure) and the tires were squealing all over the road. Needless to say, despite all the noise and whatnot, the car felt like it was trying to correct everything and everything was staying on the road. If this were a car without stability control, I'm sure it would have been much more difficult to keep to the road. On a side note, I think the system has had such a workout that now the 'Check VSC System' warning is showing. Well that's my venting for the meantime. Now I will sit back here at home, and wait till tomorrow in which I need to take it in for it's inspection at 7:20am. AAMI were very helpful with lodging my claim over the phone and they said they will sort it all out for me. It's just a) I can't stand to see my beautiful car in this condition, b.) I can't stand being without it while it gets repaired, and c) It will never ever ever be the same again. Why did this have to happen? If I left the gym just that little bit later, none of this would have occurred. Grrr. And in case you may ask, this is what happened to hers. I guess it would have been worse and she could have had less plastic on the front: And to add fun to the excitement, my old man happened to be on his way to work right after we were off to the side exchanging details. I wonder just how worked up he was as he was approaching my car.

Okay everyone. After a lot of discussion on fuel consumption. I have decided to start a thread where you can post your close-to-life figures of your average fuel consumption. I'm sure many of us are a bit skeptical as to whether the trip computer on the Aurion provides a half decent average fuel consumption figure. So for those that want to track their average fuel consumption, start collecting your petrol receipts and post your results here. The more receipts you collect, the more accurate average figure you can obtain. For those that need to know how to calculate the average litres per 100km, you simply divide the total litres used, by the total distance travelled, then multiply it by 100 [ (litres/km)x100 ]. I have attached a spreadsheet of my calculations if you want to have a look. I try to make my calculation as accurate as possible, so when I record my final odometer reading, it would have been after travelling 70-90km after my fuel gauge says empty and my 'Cruising Range' on the dash says 0km. Doing a calculation shortly after the cruising range says 0km shouldn't throw your calculations off by much however. Excel spreadsheet (Aurion.xls) of fuel consumption calculations. So here are my calculations so far: - At 4010km, my total fuel used was 417.14L and my average fuel consumption was 10.4L/100km - At 8385km, my total fuel used was 907.83L and my average fuel consumption was 10.8L/100km - At 12781km, my total fuel used was 1420.46L and my average fuel consumption was 11.1L/100km - At 15716km, by total fuel used was 1772.86L and my average fuel consumption was 11.28L/100km My fuel consumption appears to be getting higher and higher. The thing is, the places that I go and conditions I drive in haven't really changed much. I do see myself putting my foot down more often, so that may be the major contributing factor to all this extra fuel consumption. Though, looking at my trends, I have been using ULP 91 more and more in the periods where my average consumption increases (bad student budgeting), though I'm not too sure how much of a difference that can make. But I guess the purpose of this was to get an average figure since conditions will always change. I will also add as well that about 80% of the time I have been driving this car, it has only been just me in it. I drive almost always with both front windows down fully, putting them to about half way when on the highway. The air conditioner is used only once a week (well so far until summer hits) just to keep everything in order. The oil I am running is Fuchs Titan GTO 10W30 fully synthetic.

Hehehehe. It looks like 10X better in person. You won't be disappointed.

Not too sure about the Dunlop ones that they supply. I've heard stories about car manufacturers providing tires with new cars that don't last too long, and when you replace them for the same brand and type, they last twice the distance. I doubt this is an occurrence anymore though. My Sportivo has the Michelin Energy MXV8 on it and I'm pretty sure it is what was on it when it left the dealer. So far that car has gone 40,831km and is only now starting to show a reduction in traction and grip. I would recommend these tires as a good all rounder. As for the Yokohama, if you were to ask my opinion, I would say no. Personally, I have found the softer compound of Yoko's to wear out much faster than other tires. That is from my experience though. On a side note, I'm going to get some Adrenalin Potenza RE001 for my next change.

get someone else to drive your car and you sit in the passenger seat... it feels a LOT faster when you're not driving it.. ROFL!!! That was directed to TRD Aurion Owner. That was some ride Elgin; wasn't it. I don't know about you, but from my perspective in the back seat, that was some intense driving. Hehehehe. Even if it didn't do anything for the performance, if I had the TRD I would pay to have my intake changed just to get more 'whirr' out of the s/c.

Well I was thinking of where to post this, but keeping in line with it's origins, I will post here. So I just got my new grill. A big thank you to BONDIE for helping out with that. I got home, had dinner, then installed it. Took me no more than 10 minutes from the moment of popping the bonnet to the time I closed it. On thing that I have realised while looking at the photos is that it is much different in person. When I'm standing in front of the car looking at it, it looks sweet as, but in the photos it doesn't quite look right. I think it's because it's hard to capture the depth on it in a photo. That said though; I absolutely love it. Here are a couple of quick snaps within limited lighting and space. This Thursday I'll be doing a wash and wax as per usual and I'll take some better photos as well as video for my cutout. As well, I really need to do something about that horn:

The seat belt sensor uses a hall effect IC (electronic magnetic sensor). Unplugging it will make it go open circuit and the car will see the seatbelt as unplugged. I'm thinking that it my be possible to trick it by shorting the sensor, but there is the possibility that the circuit was designed to prevent that. I'll play when I get home.

if there was a way to perminately turn this off it'd be in! only because i live in the country and have an 800m drive way, its INFURIATING seat belt on and off to undo a gate!!!! You said you work at a Toyota dealership right? Do you have a service department there? If so, have a chat to them to see if they can plug their intelligent tester into your Aurion. Then you can permanently disable it. On a side note, I'll play around with mine when I get home to see if I can come up with the DIY solution.