no warmer weather in sight yet... and daylight savings is suppose to start in like 2wks... geez.


i got a folding bike the other day which is cool. i know i could've gotten a roof rack to put a full sized hibrid to carry around, but the parking structure's height limit at some of those parking lots i go too are kinda low and wasn'ts sure if my bike would clear.


so decided to get the folding bike and carry it in the trunk. no issue even with the rear seats upright.

 

Hey there, nice progress so far. I see that your previous setup included 17" Enkei T-Forks and Swift Springs, I'm considering this exact setup. Do you have any pictures of what it looked like? thanks

 

k-man, yah i have like 2 picts in my albums page. check them out.
i still run them in the summer time. they look great on this car imo.

member VANCT use to run them a while back. that's where i got the idea.

 

finally starting to see higher temps now into the 30F's by latter part of the week.
cant wait to wash my Fit's. will definitely wash the engine bays too.


has been a brutal winter...

 

wife went out of her way and washed the 09 today at a manned car wash. woot!

its suppose to get up to 35-36F on saturday, so i *might* be able to wash my '12 on my driveway. depends how much sun we get... last time when i washed my car at 35F, i was sliding all over the place due to black ice. lol my griot's wash bucket's casters turned into ice skates.

 

wanted to wash my '12 today but decided to wait a couple more days as temps are going to be like mid 50's tomorrow and roads will be wet from the melting snow. rain expected tuesday so it will be a salty mess again in no time from kick up.

might wash after work maybe thurs or friday.

 

as expected, the roads are all wet today and salt water kicked up all over the car so im glad i didnt waste my time yesterday washing. thinking about doing some dusting up on the interior though... really want to wash the aries floor mats soon... i noticed that the label came off partially the other day. probably from the melted snow that froze over night pushing up on the label x60+ days of that.

 

still no sign of 60F in my area... however i have a lot of car related projects to do this spring, so i am going to start listing out wat i need to do and the order i will do it. starting with washing my '12 engine bay included. yikes... so much salt. saturday we're suppose to be around high of 40F, but snow by evening.

 

was about 40F today so took advantage of the temps and washed both GE's. the aries floor mat held up well, except for the emblem on the driver side. it's bent and appears it peeled off the mat. the thing is riveted on, so im going to need to either drill it out and remount it, or see if i could bend it back later on. but all the salt and grime washed off with some carshampoo and boar's hair brush. i applied a light coat of PrimaNero and it looked good as new.

also washed the engine bay and verified that the metal bits i applied a little bit of oil last Fall show no sign of rust. will let it dry completely and apply more oil next time.

 

crap, my ebrake on the '12 completely froze overnight from the wash i did yesterday... could not get it to release at all this am. 15F

i drove my 09 last night to fetch dinner, so no issue on that car. tomorrow am is still low 20F's so i probably wont be able to use my '12 to go to work.

 

forgot to mention... i found a nice 1" scrape near the bottom of the sidesill on the driver side from wat appears to be a snow shovel from the dumbarse contractors doing my driveway. paint is completely missing.. black plastic.


will touch it up when it gets warmer... the tolerance we must have for dumb people.

 

so got a chance to drive the 09 a little bit since my '12 ebrake was frozen solid.


nevermind the AT on the car, i dont like AT cars to begin with...but the 09's steering with the WS60 felt better than the DWS on my '12. yikes.. the '12 has a lighter steering wheel feel to turn the tires and the DWS makes it feel like a kid's toy car.


can't wait to take the DWS off and put my summer set on. RE760's im a big bridgestone fan and run S04's on my hobby cars.

 

so after this year's winter my conclusion about running continental DWS in winter is...


it's better than any all season tires ive tried in the winter. light snow traction is very good. but for serious winters like wat we had this year, i much prefer to have Blizzaks for winter, and summer tires for the warmer months.


that said, unless i get a set for an AWD car, i will probably not buy the DWS ever again for my daily driving needs especially not for winter. my setup would be Blizzaks for winter, RE760 or S04's for summer.

 

my GE's are dirty again.... rained pretty good. maybe i can pull out my hobby cars this weekend if enough salt is washed off the roads.


i went ahead and re-oiled all the metal bits and screw heads in the engine bay on my '12 yesterday since there is still salt on the ground. will wash the engine bay once more in a couple of weeks when i know no more road salt will be used...and then re oil again. my engine bay looks near new still after 2 winters.

 

only thing planned for my '12 this summer is oil change, air and cabin filter change, and wheel swap to summers.


'09 same thing, but will do the cooland drain/fill and add water to factory battery as needed.

 

did some driving over the weekend in my '12 to survey the roads where i usually take my hobby cars on the weekends. making sure there are no huge pot holes or bumps.


was a nice drive. road conditions were better than i thought so i was happy. hopefully this weekend i can start playing with my cars again.

got new intake and cabin filters for my GE's so going to install them soon. cant wait to get the summer wheelsets on my GE's.

 

picked up jugs of 0w20 and 5w20 for my GE's.

reconfirmed i hate walmart. but oh well, price was good.

 

added washer fluid to my GE's tonight. was near empty on my '09. will be swapping wiper refills as soon as it gets a tad warmer, and coat the glass with some rain-x.

i like how rain-x also cleans the grime/salt stains off.

 

woot, rain today and maybe tomorrow. temps on the rise. going to swap out the 09's snows to all seasons maybe tomorrow, and clear out my garage.


need space to work on my other car on Sat.

 

so my 09's now running the summer (stock wheels/tires) set. washed the snows and placed them back in storage till late Fall. worked on my other cars over the weekend and took them out for a nice stroll for the first time this season.


next up, im going to swap the '12 to summers, but im kinda on the fence if i want to paint them completely gunmetal or not. while the brushed spokes is cool, it's a tad too much bling for me. will wait till it's a tad warmer to make my decision since i need temps to be 65F+ anyway to paint in my garage.