saw a new kia sportage while commuting to work. the rear and sideview looked pretty decent for a suv (i actually liked the side profile of the car) and when i saw the front i LOL'ed. the hell's with that V shaped angular face and those ikky LED stripes?

those LED stripes (copycat off audi's ugly teary eye headlamps) is like the altezza euro-tailamp fad of the early 2000's. they are so overdone and cheezy. i hope this sausage fad goes away soon. it's embarrassing to look at. the angel/devil eyes on bimmers are pretty cool but that's about as far as it goes.

so it looks like tomorrow morning it's NOT snowing afterall (wtf again) so i might get to pull out my Z. hope i get to try out the snows in actual snow soon.

 

So yesterday night went shopping after supper to the local supermarket in my FItS. Was cold, rainy and my snow tires gripped pretty damn well. Much better than my summer tires.

Also had to remember that my speedo is no longer showing +5mph than actual speed cause the tire size is stock. With my summer tires 45 on the speedo was actually 40mph. Needed to keep reminding myself.

So today I did the cooking pretty much a day long for our dinner. . My wife seemed happy so that was good. while I waited for my stuff to cook I played some keys, programmed a new drum kit and pattern in my groovebox, and started building my big technics lego kit (remote controlled motored excavator).

Have a great thanksgiving!

 

hey ken, how's it going?

 

Hey shukes long time no see. . Im doing great, how are you doing? How's the married life?

Going to be pulling out the z in a little while. Kinda cold out today.....making sure my VDC is turned on. Hahaha.

 

Was a good drive in my Z. . Gassed her up again to ensure hibernation at any given day. Going to pull out my G tomorrow if weather keeps clear.

 

Looks like weather held up so going to pull out the G in a little bit. Its been a great weekend so far.

Next weekend weatherchannel is showing rain and snow so let's see how that goes.

 

Motored my G. Was a great drive. After QDing the car I moved all my detailing gear including the cart into my utility room. I don't want my products to freeze. Since they were moved from a 40F garage into my 70F home, I need to let the air out of them later on. Otherwise sometimes the stuff bleeds out.

Going to run some errands this pm in my GD.

Oh yah, while cleaning the basement I found the other tire dolly ... kids sandbox was on it.. no wonder I couldn't find it. Lol

 

So was talking to the wife about the black steelies on my GD while hitting the stores. She said we look like some poor asian family running some mom and pop store. hahaha. I said totally agree. . I don't really care about the look. Not going to impress anyone at local super markets and target anyway. Winter here is all about function.

 

with the current tire setup my GD's in-cabin road noise level is much lower and i can hear more of my engine. it's werd...like im confused if my car really sounded like this in the past. hahaha.

so in a week or so my GD is going to be 3yrs old. it's been problem free so far. only done basic maintenance. (oil change, air filter change, visual inspections, topped off coolant once. was a tad low, no leaks). i did notice that my transmission case was showing a slight bit of seepage at the seals when i did my last oil change so im monitoring that. no issue with shifting so im not too worried for now.

if my endura-techs falls apart after this winter season im going to to back to stock and run that for the rest of ownership. not that i think my coilovers are going to break, but never know with all this corrosive crap they put down on the roads.

 

temps falling down, precip in the forecast for sat... might sound werd, but hope it snows so that i can try these WS60's out.

saw the current A4wagon (Avant) this am... looks good. too bad it only comes in AT. would be perfect for me as my next dd if it was offered in 6MT.

speaking of sports wagons, the STI wagon's gone(?) and new STI is only offered in sedan(?)...the test drive measurements taken by Insideline was worse than the year old WRX and previous STI hatch. lol wth is subaruba doing? their braking is also pretty poor for a sports sedan. this day and age, sports cars need to brake under 110ft from 60mph repetitively. might be difficult to do with AWD, but that's only an excuse. use bigger calipers and rotors, higher capacity pads and fluids.

neway, back to my slow motion Fit. plenty of quickness in the winter time though.

 

No it can't snow! I need it to stay dry until I sell my car...don't want my coilovers to seize up

 

lol. hahahaha. you can coat it with thick oil or wrap the threads with duct/e-tape to prevent corrosion on the critical parts of the suspension.

 

i may have to!

 

yah, i had the notorius rusting tein's back in the days and i e-taped the main spring seat threads and they were pretty much in excellent condition even after 4yrs of use.

but then i didn't e-tape the threads at the very top (at the shaft) and that corroded... hahaha. but that was quickly cleaned with some metal polish and softer wire brush. no issue removing.

 

lol I hope J's racing made them to withstand some salt/snow

 

yah, i dont have experience with j's racing products but if you're worried just tape it up. KW's seem to hold up well in the salt because of its stainless shell. im not sure about the threads but i image they are also stainless.

it's still snow flurries here and got like white powder on the ground, not enough to consider it an accumulation. but im super glad i got snow tires on the Fit cause they are gripping pretty damn well. now people will see me as the SMART ONE and not the POOR ONE on the streets with the black steelies. hahaha.

going to pressure up the tires and place my G on Flatstoppers in the coming days. she's officially now in hibernation till next March. im going to try to motor my Z off and on on dry days. im not too worried about the Z corroding cause it's bascially stock.

 

not much car action today. just motored my GD to work. followed 2 losers (one middleaged ugly woman in a Focus, another middleaged fart in a commerical van) holding up traffic while they putted down both lanes side by side. anyway made it to work on-time.

need to stop by homedepot this week to pickup some xmas twisty blubs (green and red) for the exterior lighting on the garage. seems like it's some new fad in our community and i dont want to be left out. LOL

been looking around online stores to see wat to ask for xmas.... not sure yet. i think i want to get some new studio furniture for my music room.

 

woot. my droidx prompted me (weatherchannel) that there's going to be snow coming in tomorrow late afternoon and expected to accumulate into sat.

not sure..cant remember last time i was excited about snow. hahaha.
so sat morning instead of motoring my G, im booked to put her on flat stoppers. going to be in my music room pretty much all day.

 

hey got a new phone today. my buddy at work got a new curve so we traded. he wanted touchpanel, i didn't care cause i have a droid-x.

i wanted a nicer keypad since i type A LOT on my bb for work and the current curve imho has the nicest ergonomic keypad out of all the bb's out there including the flagship model. so far my favorite bb is still the original BOLD.

so we're expecting to get 3-5inches tonight. will see how SMART i look tomorrow when i finally motor my GD in snow with its ugly snow tire/wheel set. hahahaha.

 

snowed about 3+" over night and had a chance to try out the WS60's on my GD. the GE already had the same WS60 (different width) so i knew it was going to be kickarse.

well, thing delivered perfectly. my GD was driving in white coated snow like there was no snow. in the deep areas where the plows shoveled it felt like i caught a tire in a deeper puddle (slight tug) but no issue maintaining control. i was passing pos FF suv's and minivans, basically everyone it was too fking funny. lol

anyway, going to be motoring again this pm to pickup my kid. it's snowing all day so im expecting another 2" or so accumulation. im soooo glad i got this set.
stock size 195/55/15 bridgestone WS60's. talk to Alex over at tirerack.com

in other news, i placed my G and Z both on RaceRamp Flatstoppers this am, while rotating the tire clockwise about 1/3 turn and pumping air to 42psi. im going to turn the tires again once a month just to be on the safe side.

you can get them from here for your hobby cars:
Flat Stoppers - Race Ramps