must be a local holiday at tirerack today. lol no reply. everyone went home.

 

hope i get a response by tomorrow am... hahaha.

be funny i arrive with my rota's and tpms in hand and they tell me they dont have the tires so i end up buying the rpf1's with 205/45/17 dws anyway. i know for certain those are in-stock.

 

the drive home was nice... moved my rota's to the garage in prep for tomorrow.
ok, so i took a closer look at them near my car and perhaps they do look pretty good.

wat i like are the concavity and doesnt have the dumbarse 4x110 holes along with the 4x100 holes. looks like it was made for honda's.

i suppose i can use the empty boxes to ship the factory '12 wheels, huh?

 

GoodAM everyone. I'm at tirerack right now getting the dws mounted on my Rota's.

Kinda quiet here today. Until a few min ago, my car was the only one getting work done.

 

here's a lonely shot of my GE at TR. hahaha. soon after 5-6 cars rolled in. so yah,
i was in and out in like 35min. woot!



here's the boosts with dws. the tires are wide... im pretty sure it will rub even with the
-1.5 camber.. will see in a couple of weeks. hahahaha

there is absolutely ZERO mount marks. this is why driving a couple of hours to do
this is not an issue for me.



check out these black wheel weights they used! wow! perfectly hides behinds the
spokes. tirerack continues to surprise me with great stuff.

 

Those weights are cool! I want.

 

yah, it was definitely a nice surprise when i saw that.

 

not much GE action today as i spent a whole day with it yesterday. pulled it out of the way to pull out my G. i need to fix the rattle in the G's dash. with the cooler weather it's getting worse. i think it's the pnp harness for the doubledin hitting something inside. will wrap it with some felt if that is the root cause.

while checking the oil level on my '09 yesterday, i noticed the dealer WAAAY OVER FILLED it by as much as an inch above the top dot. wtf. you'd think they can do an oil change correctly. so it's like they poured in like 5qts vs 3.8qts. i have a hand pump extractor so i can syphon it out of the dip stick, but then that would mean i would have to clean my tools again afterwards which im not looking forward to do or have time for.

this is why i hate dealers.

 

Report that to the service manager ASAP. There is no excuse for an engine to be overfilled during a simple oil (and oil filter... if they changed it. The filter holds .2 qts alone) change. The express service techs have access to a database that gives them the EXACT specs for fluids for EVERY Honda model made.

In addition to that, are supposed to check the oil level AFTER filling, check starting for leaks, and raising the car for a visual leak check and to double check that the drain bolt is torqued to 31 ft~lbs and the filter is tightened to 8.7 ft~lbs (or after the oil filter's gasket touches the filter housing's lip turn the filter 3/4s of a turn more).

The reason being is to allow the oil to settle back down in the engine and to give you an accurate reading. If one of our L15As were filled with the 3.8 qts (oil & filter change) and someone checks the oil JUST after the engine is shut down during an oil change, it'll "appear" to be about half quart low... until they check again 5 seconds later, then its quarter low and so on.

 

hey hootie- yah, i checked this while the engine is completely cold. as you mentioned, i know too that the most accurate reading is after the oil has dripped back into the pan.

most times i dont even need to use a paper towel to wipe the oil off the dipstick to get my reading as the oil has settled in the pan. i did use a power towel on the '09 cause i couldn't believe wat i saw.

what sucks is my wife already put on like over 1k miles since the major service.

and one side of me is saying hope the car breaks down so i can get a new c-class sedan. it would be AT and she would be the primary driver, but i would use it from time to time on the weekends. i told my wife about is problem i found yesterday and commented wat do you say i get us a new c-class? <= i literally looked like this.

she said 'why? i dont care to drive a benz. im going to scratch i up anyway with the computers so just keep the fit.'

*facepalm*

 

so the 09's engine bay looks like a public toilet in a rural vacant unmanned visitors center. yuk. i usually clean the engine bay on my cars but this car i dont like too much (due to its AT) and just abandoned it all together.

it's waaay past my usual mist and wipe with MF towel cleaning... how does everyone clean such discusting engine bay? i am assuming to cover all electricals with a bag and tape, spray water at the engine bay, mist down with SimpleGreen at full power, scrub with an old toilet brush , then wash it down with a hose.

any other recommendations?

 

little OT but watched an old vid of a guy doing the doubledin install on a 03' G35C. reason being i did the install a few yrs ago and can't remember where all the screws and harnesses were.

looking at the vid i now think it may not be the pnp harness or the USB drive harness rattling. first of all, the origin of the rattle is different..and i know i was very careful not to place any of my harness near a bracket.

hummm... i think first plan of action is take everything out of the glove box and drive it around with the glove box open.

i will take the glove box out tonight and see if possibly the cabin air filter holder cover or the blower/actuator for air circuluation itself might be coming loose. it's definitely in the dash area near the passenger side center vent, but not quite the glove box area.

i also checked if my rear view mirror (including the wire cover for the homelink) was buzzing, but it's not.

 

Aw crap, that blows! What all was done to it during that service?

Well hey, at least she was being honest with you.

P.S. - Take a look at BMW 3 series if the wife wants a ride that caters more to luxury. Plenty of convenience options such as comfort access, ventilated seats, active steering (a must have by the way), active radar cruise control, blind spot detection, and more.

Steer clear of the Sport models (dead giveaway is the blackened window lining), the suspension and steering is noticeably stiffer, the lower profile run flat tires and larger wheels usually yield to bent wheels and tire sidewall bubbling (sadly they have wheel insurance for that )

OR... you could check out the 2013 Accord Touring... which has most of the stuff mentioned.

 

the 09' went through the major 30K? 40K? service since it was past 33K. it needed brake work and since i was busy with kids starting school, new projects at work, new car (my '12) i let the dealer do the work for me. at least the brakes feel good though...

ever since the spring-recall for the engine, the car's been making minor but audible clicking noise. it's been running functionally fine so i've not made a stink about it (less work for me. ha! ).

yah, im not a fan of the current bimmer's styling. the E90's were bad enough, and the current gen is even worse.

you're right about the accord. the only thing though is my wife and i both agree that accords are for people that have given up on life. hahaha. i dont want to buy just any car.

 

OT again, but some good news for me... i took my G out during lunch to first see if anything in my glove box was making the rattling noise. i took everything out and placed on my passenger seat, took it for a quick spin.

holy crap, no more rattling. (i need a dancing banana emoticon ). the culprit was the factory bose CD leather case that was in the upper glovebox. i completely forgot it was in there. it appears the zipper handle thing with this leather decorative thingie was making the noise tapping away at the floor of the glove compartment.

so, the first thing im going to do is when i get home, throw it out. LOL who the f- uses CD's these days anyway. hahaha. so happy i found the root cause.

and speaking of other old technologies that suck, a guy at work drives the prvious gen impreza. i saw a big 'potenza' on the sidewall so i took a quick look expecting it to be Re960's or something all season but sort of cool. i couldn't believe my eyes he was on RE92's. he has no f-king idea how brave he is to be driving on such pos tires. that tire is as bad as falken/nitto tires in cold wet weather. lol the only 'good' the RE92's are known for is they can be run super underinflated without shredding into pieces. liability was the only reason they were so popular back in the days as oem tires.

 

After my 09 got the LMS recall done, I've noticed the idling's been a little jumpy... When I'm in neutral I occasionally feel the rpm's go up & down, only by one or two hundred, but still it didn't do that before. Even though it slightly resembles the load when the AC kicks in, this happens with or without the AC being on (and/or fans kicking in).

 

huh... maybe you can get a ECU reflash? i donno, but mine was reflashed when i took the car in last month for service because the MPG meter was so off. i read that there was a tsb for it and had the reflash done.

it *might* fix your idle problem.

another thing i noticed after the recall was that the engine takes longer to turn over. like before it would start within like 2sec. now it takes more like 3-4 sec of cranking. yes i know it's still within spec, but just sayin'... i expect the car to be the same or better after service.

 

I've been fighting with my Honda service manager for a while trying to get the TSB done, they keep claiming it doesn't affect my car (even though it's for ALL 09's), then the last time I brought it in they told me I already had the updated software (I think they forgot mine is a MT w/ NAVI, and looked at the wrong softare versions)... weird since they were never able to do the TSB, and my mpg is still off by 10-20%. If they don't update it I'll see if a different dealership will as a good will, and if not there's always Honda Corporate.

I think you meant the idle re-learn procedure, where you disconnect the battery, and then start the car and let it run for 15+ minutes until the car re-learns the idling. Done it... several times as a matter of fact, and still same thing. I'm hoping it's nothing serious cause the mechanic who did the recall scratched up all the cowl trim pieces & broke quite a few clips... hopefully the spring is ok. I'm hoping they just didn't do the valve adjustment correctly, or maybe they damaged a coilpack??

I've also noticed it takes more cranks to start.

 

huh, that sucks. after the tsb reflash the car has been showing about the same mpg as what my '12 is showing. my wife keeps track of the milage after each fill and amount she fueled so we can tell exact mpg she's getting. it was litterally off by as much as 4-5mpg. before it was showing like 37-38mpg. after the reflash she' showing 32-33mpg. on my '12 i drive spiritedly and mostly surface roads, show 30-31mpg. expect yesterday i went on a road trip and tried to max mpg (until i got bored), so it's showing 36mpg.

i think the reflash includes latest idle map along with all other maps. re-learn on old map may not net the stability you are looking for.