The Car Thread

[Number45]

As much as I want the car as soon as possible, I'm a very patient man. I like the anticipation.

I've yet to have a new car (This is my fifth now I think) that I've actually had to wait until the official delivery date for. Hopefully it'll be closer to the beginning of July than the end - and on a more positive note, while I continue with my current finance (As the current agreement runs out in mid-June) every day/week I pay after that will bring down the monthly cost of the car anyway.

[mr_fantazmo]

I got my new car last month (well new to me, it's an 05 plate), it's a far cry from the 1L Toyota Yaris i used to drive.
My first proper sports car

[Number45]

I watched a repeat of Fifth Gear last night and Tiff was taking that (Or the R26 F1 version anyway) around their track and fairly gushing about it. I know my Clio (07 plate) is amazing fun to drive and I'm sure that will be as well.

[charlesr]

Ohlins are doing road car suspension. Or to be more precise, road/track suspension.

Their technology allows it work well in both scenarios, soaking up low speed bumps as well as high speed. Only for 07 Imprezas onwards though

[Number45]

http://i.autoblog.com/2010/04/21/ken-blocks-gymkhana-fiesta-revealed/

[Richard.John]

Had a scary, heart in the mouth moment today that has put me off driving. Was turning right at an intersection and a rather silly young lady decided that she would make a dash for it, across the ped crossing. God, I nearly hit her, but I thank the former for giving me mighty reflexes. Unfortunately, in this country (Japan) the driver is 100% criminally responsible regardless of the stupidity shown by the person who thinks that running in front of a moving car is a wise life decision. I think Yakumo will know where I am coming from.

[NW2013]

Saw my first Golf R today, white, 3 door with black wheels. It looked lovely I though but might be too subtle for some and is way, way, way too expensive.

[randombs]

Does anyone use those Dice iPod thingies for their car? I'm thinking of putting one inside my BMW (520i E39 late 2000). Looks like I'd be needing to run the wire from the dash area (where the iPod would be sitting) to the boot (where the CD changer is that the ipod thingy actually replaces). That way, if it gets too annoying using the radio buttons to navigate the iPod, I could just use the iPod itself to choose music.

Installation looks pretty straightforward, although I'll probably end up keeping the iPod itself in the boot instead of doing the car-length wiring and just set my playlists up to avoid needing to do any drastic music changes while driving (bar the usual track skipping) in case it turns out to be too fiddly in use.

You can get the groovy ash tray iPod dock but I doubt I'd get one of those, as I don't like the idea of having the iPod standing upright with nothing to keep it secure but the dock connector itself. Not with my driving skills, anyway.

[CMcK]

I have a similar device in my car and have left the iPod in the front boot where the CD changer used to be. I did think about running the dock cable into the passenger area so I could operate the iPod inside the car but after running it as it is for a while I am quite happy with it.
6 playlists with up to 99 tracks each is quite adequate. Or leave playlist 6 free and set your iPod to shuffle, it's easy enough to skip a track from the headunit.
That dock shown in the picture above looks like it may be in the road while trying to operate some of the cars controls which is never a good idea.

[randombs]

Yeah, it seems like the kind of thing that would look cool but only to be used while the car is parked (which probably makes it pretty useless). One of Dice's official partners does not recommend it at all stating that, in a collision, the iPod would just become a projectile.

I'll probably go your route and see how I feel. I suppose there's nothing stopping me running the cable through the car at a later date if I find myself itching for different music while on the go.

I'm reading about how picky the newer Dice system is, like how you have to wait 20 seconds before changing modes, etc etc, so I might do a bit more reading up on it. If it turns out that's just something to deal with, I'll probably just have the iPod up front where I can use it to control the music and then the system would simply be an audio passthrough (albeit a pretty expensive one...)

[charlesr]

Can you get headunits that play music on DVD? Ideally FLAC. I'd be quite happy with 20 or so CD quality albums on a disc, without the hassle of a box somewhere else in the car. My 192 MP3s sound dreadful in the car, so currently I just have a wallet full of CDs (burnt so it doesn't matter if they get trashed).

[Yakumo]

I don't know why you don't get a high end MP3 compatible stereo. I have a Carrozzeria (Pioneer's Japanese brand name for car electronics) Dolby Digital system in my car which has a standard 3mm input port on the front for connecting things such as MP3 players or pretty much anything really. I use the port for connecting my DVD / Navi system to the cars audio for some kick ass sound during movies. The actual player can handle normal CD as you'd expect but also MP3 up to 360kbps at 48mhz which nobody could distinguish from the real deal Redbook audio of an audio CD. You can even load a DVD disc full of audio and use that in the system although you can't play DVD movies on it. That's what the navi is for

Anyway, today I saw something I've never seen before. We all know about the big car players in Japan such as Nissan, Subaru, Toyota, Honda, Mitsubishi and even the likes of Daihatsu (who are just Toyota). You may even know of the ****ty company known as Autozam who Mazda bought out. Their little crappy 3 cylinder cars can be seen everywhere in Japan. But have you ever heard or seen a Mitsuoka car? I have known about them for a long time but never saw anything produced by them in the flesh. That is until today.



This is the Viewt. Most of Mitsuoka's cars have this old retro styling. You can check out all of their models on the UK site. Yes, that's right, a UK site! http://www.mitsuoka.co.uk/

Yakumo

[charlesr]

All my music is in Flac or 192mp3, but the latter is starting to become pretty much redundant now that memory sizes are so huge. Once 32Gig sdhc micro cards come out, I guess I'll get one of those and a sansa clip and a usb capable head unit.

[Yakumo]

I have a load of FLAC tracks too but I convert them to high end MP3 for ease of use over many platforms. The FLAC files are then stored away on a 1TB harddrive. FLAC is a really nice format but not too practical at the moment other than using it on a PC.

I just bought one of those All Kit Ver.2 units (1750yen) for connecting my iPhone 3Gs to the car. Well a handy item to have. Hands Free calls, wireless audio transmitter to your cars stereo via FM, USB charger and iPhone / iPod charger. Check out the YouTube vid. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkukphQxPiA

[Yakumo]

I think Yakumo will know where I am coming from.

I sure do. The law in Japan is retarded as with many things here. I nearly ran over a teenager that ran right out in front of me a few months back. I was only doing 20km/h on a 30km/h road so I wasn't even going fast. thank God I saw her and just managed to stop. The **** thing is that she was 100% in the wrong but because of the retarded law in this country I would have been the one in trouble. Bull **** doesn't come close to the laws they have in Japan as far as drivers go. Maybe it's because most of the population are **** drivers