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Everything posted by Aashenfox
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2008 HR - 6 months into the journey of ownership
Aashenfox replied to Az-Z's topic in Member Build Projects
Lovely car, needs spacers (25 rear, 20 front) and just a little drop (15 to 20mm, Tein should do the trick!). -
Barum 3HM are worth considering, I've had them on the Type R and now the Z, they are a subsidiary of Continental, it is said that the rubber of the Barums, is the same as the sportcontact5 Continental tyre. I don't know if it's true, but it's a good tire. They're quite soft and I do very few miles, so I'm not making any comments about their durability as I wouldn't know, but their performance is excellent.
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Gorilla glass or whatever will never compare to the sapphire crystal glass of premium watch brands, which is all but bulletproof. These watches are no more durable than your phone screen, I believe, which is why I mentioned in the review that my main fear is wrecking it one day. I'm very careful with my phones and tablets and such, always have been, keep them in like-new condition, but my TAG has taken some hits I'm sure the S3 wouldn't survive, so I can't help thinking it's just a matter of time. Maybe I can focus enough to be more careful over the long term, I guess we'll see. Still, it's curious that you couldn't just take it to samsung and get it repaired, I don't blame you for being pi**ed about that, I will be if it happens to me. I wish I could give you a more meaningful comparison to the S2 but I never owned one.
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No, you didn't miss anything, the laughing would have been from those in the know, because Tizen has a woefully poor selection of apps currently. Many many things are claimed to be coming, including major fitness apps, but right now it's pretty dire. Thankfully the biggest areas are covered adequately, but there are gaps. Hopefully Samsung will fill them soon and it would be nice to see something that makes you go 'wow, that's innovative and clever use of the tech', such as the app that lets you use your phone as a remote camera viewed from your watch that Dan referred to, that's pretty trick, more like that please! Thanks and you're most welcome, glad to share.
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I also had MPSS all around, and never managed to spin the wheels (awd lest we forget), amazing car with those tyres, just could NOT upset it, but therein lies the rub, what fun is it to drive a car that never gets upset? Transformed the car, those tyres, no question about it, and it's not like it had crap on before, they were sportcontact5. I deliberately put a budget tyre on the Zed (albeit a good one, Barum) as I'll be staying stock power for a long time and still want some arse out action (oo-er, no deliberate misunderstandings please). MPSS would have killed all my fun (or so I imagine).
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By the way, fitness guys, I keep reading good things about this app. It can run on the watch and work fully with or without the parent phone. Pear for Samsung is available from the Gear Store. https://pearsports.com/ Edit: In fact, this page about sums up the truly worthwhile watch apps right now...aimed more at the yanks, but some good picks there. https://www.wareable...ar-s3-apps-3223
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Yeh, it's a tough one. My 335xi was like driving on a wave of silk being propelled by a tsunami, but it was 4wd, 400hp, safe as houses, heavy, had great big fat tyres on it and raped all-comers with its effortless grip and acceleration (0-62 4.7 secs), made a lot of Audis feel very small. BUT, as you say, the Z is a more exhilarating drive, its rwd for starters so it wants to play, it's less refined, more interior noise, more engine noise, more aggressive in every way. I love them both, but if you asked me to choose again, I'd take the Z and the change for a few mods rather than the 335, but that's not because its a better car, it most certainly ISN'T, hence my recommendation to others, but it fits better what I want out of a car (a bit of craziness).
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If I had 14 grand for a car, it would indeed be something N54 powered (not N55). What an amazing engine that is, mine (e92 335xi) was nicked. You can add horsepower at 10 quid each (i.e. a grand in bolt ons will net you another 100hp).
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And a palm leaf has always been an adequate cover of genitalia, but we still invented clothes despite the palm leaf being faster to don in the morning, time saving isn't everything. You can also save more weight off your car by going on a diet than fitting carbon body pieces (in response to your analogy of wearing slip on shoes to save time) but what's convenient or more desirable for arbitrary reasons (such as liking laced shoes or being fat) wins through, even when it's only a little more convenient, and for me quite simply this a lot more convenient in many ways. That generation 5, 6, 7 you're after is now here, this is it, they aren't going to change a lot fundamentally for a while, there's no technology they need that hasn't now been shoehorned in (including total network autonomy as you required yourself), more than adequate battery life, GPS, WiFi, loudspeaker, microphone, 4gb storage, a full app ecosystem, albeit limited, it's NUTS what they've fitted into this thing. We're going to be limited by battery technology for a while now. Seems like you want to tell us they're not worth it, while I'm here to tell you that honestly mate, they are. Not for everyone, but for advanced mobile communications and smartphone users, they certainly help in a more than insignificant way, as well as keeping decent time. The S3 makes that transition from experimental to finished, really. I have a phone, I wear a watch, both of these things I'm going to do anyway, where is the disadvantage in integrating the two (apart from the wallet being 350 quid lighter of course)?
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It is useful for reading any messages that may not warrant a reply without getting the phone out, and that is a time saver, if it is a real crap message, like a group message in a viber chat that wasn't even for you, for example. Oh, and another nice part about that, is that it clears the notification on the phone as well. But even as a brand new user, I already use; the fitness app, for which the watch is by FAR the best way to count steps as you don't take it off throughout the day, it counts every movement you make, I use it as a watch, I use it as a timer, simple calculator and stopwatch (so nice to have those back on my wrist after no digital watch for over 25 years, like being 12 again! I don't have to go looking for where I put my phone down when I want to time an egg, etc. that's a REAL time saver), I answer the phone, when it's inconvenient to get it out (like when it's freezing and I'm wearing a long coat done up tight with scarves and my phone is in my jeans pocket), but as I stated above, I mostly use it as a music player controller when I'm out and about, that is a real convenience, not to have to get my phone out to change playlist, or leave my phone in one place and walk around the house with the bluetooth phones on, sure, some things aren't any faster on the watch than the phone, but I guess it depends how you unlock your phone, not everyone has fingerprints, so they have a pin or a pattern, if you have those, the watch is a massive time saver for simply viewing notifications, plus that rotating bezel is so natural and fast to use that some operations are really quick to do. I think it's more about convenience though. I definitely look at my phone at least 1/5th as much as I did before I got the watch. Like I said, hard to imagine life without it already, probably not a good thing. Also, as long as having your phone with you everywhere is needed (which it is, by everyone, except hermits), then needing to have your phone with you will never be a handicap to anything. Having said that, your request has already been granted, there is a 4G/LTE version of this very watch, you can use it 100% as an independent phone, it needs a sim and everything. edit: Oh and if samsung pay takes off, that'll be sweet, paying for my MaccyDs with my watch
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Still very much a gimmick for sure, just a toy, but the genuine improvements to QoL are starting to come through (it took, what, at least 5 generations to reach something resembling useful), while the drawbacks are slowly being negated. Just what the human race needs, something to make us even more lazy!! Definitely not for everyone, and certainly not needed, but when you have one, it's hard to go back to not having one. I guess that says a lot on its own.
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:lol: Just reminded me I need to get another copy of Delirious from somewhere, thanks!
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Hey everyone, after contributing a little to the watch thread, I promised that I would review my Gear S3 that Santa brought me for Chrimble, so here it is... Bottom line or TL;DR: If you are a gadget nut and enjoy a nice timepiece, this could be the smartwatch for you. It has some great conveniences as well as a couple of annoying foibles, however, thankfully, at last, battery life is not one of them. I have got 4 days out of a single full charge without using any battery saving utilities, either built-in or aftermarket. I'm using the smartwatch with a Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge smartphone, Samsung's current flagship smartphone. The watch is compatible with any Android phone, but you get some extra integration features if used with a Samsung phone (though most of these can also be installed separately on non-sammy phones). iPhone support is coming soon. image linked from cnn Design and aesthetics... There are two versions of the Galaxy Gear S3, the Classic and the Frontier. As their names suggest, one is much more classic looking, and the other is more chunky and 'action man' style. They are actually the same size, though the Frontier is slightly chunkier. It's a big watch, any way you look at it. I can't see women wearing even the classic, it's just too big to be elegant, but obviously, some girls have a sporty style that would suit the watch just fine, but as a rule, this is too big for the girlies, it looks utterly ridiculous on my wife's wrist (she is quite small to be fair). Both versions are very good looking pieces. Samsung kept it very simple with the design, the metal body mimics any Swiss stainless case and is also made of stainless steel. Other reviews had stated this made the watch heavy (it's certainly heavier than the S2 which I did not own), but compared to my Tag Heuer Aquaracer automatic its a flimsy lightweight, less than half the weight of a premium watch. There are two buttons on the right side of the watch, the upper is the Back button and the lower is the Home/Apps button. The reverse of the watch features the obvious heart rate monitor and is otherwise as you would expect. The bracelet on the Frontier is a rugged rubber band with double strap retainers. I don't like it very much, but it does its job extremely well, it's really solid yet flexible. In fact, that brings me to the best thing about the looks. How they've managed to make the watch feel so well polished. There is nothing on the watch that feels or looks cheap, nothing at all. Everything feels like it could be used on the interior of an Aston Martin, the rubber is rubbery but not tacky, strong yet flexible, the plastic is soft touch yet very rigid feeling, the black steel case feels like steel, it's a very impressive overall effect. I can't think of anything I would change to make the look and feel/fit and finish better, it's as good as anyone could reasonably expect (and don't forget that comes from someone who's been wearing a TAG for 13 years). I'll be swapping the rubber strap for some nice ceramic links at some point soon (one of the big bonuses of the design, it can take any standard 22mm watch strap, so you have literally endless choices from ebay or your local jeweller). Overall though, it's a great looking thing, everyone who's seen it has been impressed without even seeing the display. image linked from wareable.com Day to day usage... While this may seem obtuse to some of you, no doubt it will seem the most relevant thing to others... It tells the time. It's a watch. It's for you to look at when you want to know the time, anything else is just icing. My 2 grand TAG Heuer didn't do anything else AT ALL, so why should this thing that cost 1/6th as much need to do anything else? So, as a watch how is it? It's perfect. Naturally, the obvious advantage of a digital watch face is the ability to customise it and make it look like whatever you want, I've already been through about 8 different watch faces since Christmas, including the obligatory Santa and Rudolph face that provided many laughs. I've finally settled on the Smokitall face as my current day to day face, though I am also very partial to the Pip Boy face (Fallout 4 watch face, it has many nods to the game). So here is the first of the nice conveniences... Extra information right on your watch face without pressing any buttons. All the watch faces (except Santa and Rudolph) that I have used so far include the following additional info beyond telling the time, without pressing any buttons... My heart rate last time it was read (updates every couple of minutes I think), how many steps I have taken today (I never used to care about fitness apps UNTIL I got this watch), how many calories I've burned today, the battery status of the watch, the battery status of my phone, the day in English and the date. Those are just the basics, watch face designers have some really cool tools for adding crazy amounts of detailed info to the watch face, such as someone else's steps displayed next to your own so you can compete, the alarm time and almost anything else you can think of. They are also 'active', in other words, touching the date or day will open the Planner/Calendar app, touching the step counter will open the S Health app, touching the chronograph (on the watch faces that have one) starts a stopwatch, touching the battery life takes you to the battery management app, it's all so intuitive and clever. You can take calls on it. Mine is NOT the LTE/4G version, it does not take a sim, so I cannot take network calls without my phone being in range (20m bluetooth), but the convenience this offers is PRICELESS and despite the thing that most people will feel like an idiot talking to their watch in public with everyone around you able to hear your conversation from both sides (the speaker is loud and clear, even in a busy park with kids playing), when you find yourself in a position where its a pain in the arse to get your phone out, you will be so, SO happy that you don't have to. Even if you are wearing thick gloves, when a call comes in, you can flick the bezel anti clockwise to reject and clockwise to accept a call. Even if you just want to tell someone you can't talk right now, it's just awesome. I've used it when driving as well, it's handy for that (I have no bluetooth for the phone in the car currently, may not bother now!), again just flick the bezel, and start talking 'can't talk, driving, chat later, byeeeee', you don't need to bring the watch anywhere near your face to be heard and even in my Zed (loud) the speaker is again loud and clear. You'll never miss another notification. On the one hand this is great, cos you literally will never miss another notification, on the other hand (no pun intended), on busier days, I have found that my wrist vibrates rather a lot. Especially when my wife and her sister in law get chatting in a group on viber, it's like wearing a dildo on my wrist, I have to mute the group temporarily. You'll never forget your phone somewhere again...the watch vibrates as soon as it can no longer detect its parent phone and a visible notification that it is in standalone mode appears overlaid on the watch face. In the same vein, the watch can be used to locate the phone and vice versa, the watch has its own fully featured independent GPS and Wifi hardware. Satisfyingly, if it loses connection with the parent phone, but is still in range of a wifi that the PHONE knows, it will automatically connect you to it without making you enter a password, the watch permanently syncs the phone's wifi network database. The rotating bezel is every bit as satisfying to use as you have probably heard. It has exactly the right amount of tactile feedback and is wonderfully clicky, yet somehow also smooth and quality-feeling, it's exactly as you would want it. Turning the bezel (or swiping on the watch face left and right) clockwise and counter clockwise immediately switches widget. The watch face is also a widget, but naturally is the 'home screen' or home widget. Notifications appear on the anti clockwise side of the watch face (this is a misleading statement and difficult to explain, I'll get a pic up for this a bit later, but think of each widget (including the watch face) as a page on your mobile phone, so imagine that you swipe right to see your notifications on their own page) and are cleared by swiping up with a finger. You can reply to many notifications on the watch, either using an on screen keyboard, S-Voice dictation (dodgy, if I'm honest), or a method that involves drawing each letter on the screen with a gesture. So to get a D out you simply draw the shape of a D on the screen and hope for the best. You can also program an almost infinite number of canned responses to save on typing. Turning clockwise on the default layout takes you through all the standard app widgets, you can remove them and/or add more at will. They behave just like phone widgets, displaying a certain amount of info from an app, and open the app when clicked. The first after the clock face is the weather widget, exactly what you expect, current weather conditions at your location. Clicking opens the weather app for more detail. Next is the quick contacts widget, you can register contacts here and very quickly call or message people right from the watch. Next is the events/reminders widget. You can quickly create a reminder or an event that is automatically synced to the phone calendar and set alarms or other actions to complete when the time comes. Next is the day planner, any events that you have today will be displayed on this widget (manageable on the calendar app on the phone). Next is the energy monitor, tells you how many calories you've burned so far today, I haven't played with this to be honest, but it has a whole app behind it, you can register when you drink coffee, water, and all kinds of other crazy stuff for the fitness freak. Then there's the S Health widget that shows how many steps you've taken. The app behind this (Samsung S Health, can be used on any smartphone, download it) is very mature and well featured, you can track almost any aspect of your fitness. The sensors also cannot apparently be fooled, they are really clever. I tried pretending to walk by swinging my arms in a natural way, didn't register. I then also noticed that my giant strides (I'm tall and a yomper) register about 1.7 steps in the app, which is great! It means the app understands that my steps are equivalent to more than the average step. I have really had my mind blown by how clever these sensors are. They also understand when you run, walk or use stairs and even keep track of how many floors you ascended or descended. Using the lift registers nothing! I was never asked my height or weight or any other statistic. After S-Health are the Navi widgets, Altimeter and barometer, again I haven't played with these, but apparently you can do your own weather forecasting using it, as well as locate elevation and gps coords. Next is Samsungs news briefing widget, which is frankly, total dog sh1t. It's geared for Americans, the sections are arbitrary and the stories almost random. Go to bbc.com instead. Lastly, my favorite of all and the thing I use the most (after telling the time and changing watch faces lol). It's a music player widget! Basically, you can store music on the watch if you want (it has 4GB storage), and bind a bluetooth headset to the watch and listen directly, or you can do the more sensible thing and keep your music on your phone, use a proper set of headphones, and still control the music from the watch. This is great. Not needing to get your phone out of your pocket for music controls for the epic win. There's a little button on the widget, control the music on the phone or on the watch, it toggles. Bloody perfect. Of course there's a plethora of built in apps, timers, stopwatches, calculator, all the apps that live behind the widgets as already mentioned (press the home button to get an 'app drawer' type view of all installed apps), and a load more in the Samsung store, though the most heard complaint about the Gear ecosystem (lack of apps and developer support for Tizen) is absolutely valid. It is difficult to find something that you want to install, however, I have to say I haven't yet thought of an app which would be a 'must-have' for a smartwatch, that doesn't exist already, so I guess maybe it's a little spoiled to have this as a complaint? We are just so used to Google Play and millions of apps, I suppose. A quick mention of Tizen then...this is the watch's operating system, like Android or iOS, it's a Samsung developed platform and it's called Tizen. It is an outstanding piece of software, however, it has the one big disadvantage, that it is only used on Samsung devices (so far). It's a highly mature system now and already Samsung has announced the first Tizen (as opposed to Android) phones coming out this year. Knowing Samsung it will be better technically, but won't have the same support as Android or iOS, or even Windows Phones, so we shall see... It plays a lot like a cross between iOS and Android taking the best from both. The choice to use Tizen takes nothing away from the watch, since Android Wear (Google's Wearable Operating System) is bloody awful, so we should all be glad they didn't go for that. image linked from digitaltrends.com The technical stuff... The display is a 360p (360x360 pixel) round display. This gives a PPI of 278, which compared to my phone is a little over half the resolution. I expected that this would be telling on a watch face with small numbers and high detail, and the truth is that it is, but only when you really look for the issues close up, in general usage it is a really impressively smooth display, nobody who has seen it at 12 inches distance or greater has said that it could have a higher resolution, quite the contrary, many have asked how they make the watch faces look so real. They are impressive, some contain faux 3d elements to make them appear 3d. It's a trick of course, but it works really well, the second hand on some of the faces really feels and looks like it's floating above the rest of the display and reflections seem to react correctly based on the movement of your wrist. Sorry to say it again, but...very clever. The display is outstanding, no negatives here, very bright, even in intense sunlight. Despite the low (comparatively, let's face it, it's still a very high res screen!) res, it's clear that this little screen has every technology trick in the book up it's vibrant AMOLED sleeve. The battery is incredible, I'm not going to wax lyrical, there's no need. Suffice it to say that after a few charges (seems to get notably stronger after the first 10 charges or so), you will get 3 days of normal use, 4 days of light use out of a single charge. As I sit here now, I took it off its cradle 5 and a half hours ago, and its on 95%. I could not be more impressed with the battery and I'm so glad because this is the clincher for me. I would never have got a smartwatch that needed charging every day like my phone. I had said that once they reach 3 days plus, I'll try them out. The result is that I finally had to organise my chargers and stuff next to my bed since I now have so many devices that need charging. So I now have a little charging station for everything including the watch. Ironically, that means it does get charged every day, but it's nice to know that if I get stoned and pass out on the sofa one day, it won't be a problem, at all, not even close. Interestingly, if you do happen to sleep when wearing the watch (or you're one of those people that wears a watch in bed anyway), as soon as you wake up you get a sleep report! It tells you how long you were in light sleep, deep sleep, the efficiency of the sleep, what times you were restless, again those sensors are just amazing. I didn't even know it did that until I slept on the sofa one day by accident, apparently it was a good night's sleep. The charging cradle is really clever as well (sorry), and is another one of those important little things that makes the whole package more viable. It's a wireless charger with a strong magnetic cradle. Basically, you drop the watch onto the cradle, it's held in landscape position with the straps out to the side (you can tuck them in behind or even do them up behind the watch if you want) and even orients the screen to landscape as soon as it's placed in the dock, there's nothing to click, nothing to open, you just drop it on the cradle and it starts charging, you pick it up and it stops, best charger ever. The power...I haven't asked it to do anything demanding yet (such as 3d games, there are a few, though I don't really know why I would want to play games on a 42mm device when I have an S7 Edge in my pocket), but what I have asked it to do has not only been smooth, but absolutely flawless. It hasn't crashed once, ever. It hasn't got stuck for even a millisecond, ever. It hasn't rebooted on its own or any of that other crap that Android devices tend to do, between the hardware and the software, there's some excellent magic going on, that allows you to just not think about performance, it just will never come up, everything is camera flash instant. linked from samsung.com (sorry about size, nice pic though, eh? ) Conclusion... It's very clever. So, the 2 biggest issues for me... 1) The price. While I feel it is just about worth 350 quid, it's still a lot for a gadget. And... 2) Durability... If this lasts 14 years like my TAG, I'll sh1t bricks. I'm constantly scared of smacking it into a wall or something, as I frequently did with my TAG, man that thing took some HUGE hits over the years and never skipped a beat. I have ONCE hit the Gear S3 hard enough on a wall to get paint transfer, I nearly pooed myself, the bezel got these white scratches on it, and I was sure I'd stripped off the paint or something and was looking at white plastic underneath. Thankfully, I was totally wrong, the white was from the wall and came off with a fingernail leaving no permanent mark. Whew, so far so good, however, it doesn't fill me with confidence and I'm sure I'll one day be back here telling you all how it met a grizzly end that the TAG would have survived, laughed at and asked to do again. I can't really think of much else worth saying at the moment, if you feel I missed some aspect of it, let me know what an idiot I am and I will similarly enlighten you with the information you need. Overall I'm extremely happy with it (thrilled, even, it's just what I expected and hoped for), I feel the internet reviews are quite harsh (seems to be getting 3.5 out of 5 as an average across the net). For me, it has definitely represented a small increase in convenience and quality of life, not least of all changing the watch face every day is something I just love, everything else, as I said at the start of this, is just icing, some of it very tasty. I will be retiring my Aquaracer, it will only come out for very formal events from now on. I may even sell it. I'll post up some pics later to spice up this wall of text, but I'm at work now, pain in the ass, photobucket blocked, etc.
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A poorly balanced burger with way too much meat to bread ratio. I hate that kind of burger. The Stinger (hey at least they didn't call it Growler ) is a great looking car, a step in the right direction, looks better than any lexus sedan in the last few years, it's probably better quality than Opel/Ford, and cheaper than BMW, wins all around really. They have made one slight f'up though, with the engine size, nobody in europe is going to buy it, over 3 litres has some crazy tax in many euro countries. Shoulda gone with 3.0, BMW did that for a reason. Bet it's really quick though, and I bet it'll be a solid drifter.
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I would have posted that I don't make any allowances for weather, I use the car when I want, but then today (last night) it snowed enough (2 inches settled, a lot for Athens) that I could not risk trying to get it up the driveway this morning. The garage ramp is 1 in 5 incline with a wall at the bottom and a right angle turn into the garage, so if I start slipping at the top, I'm sliding back into a wall, not worth the risk. Nobody has road salt here, why would we, it snows twice a decade, so in general it's quite hilarious on the roads, Greeks are just never prepared for it. Also, the last time it snowed here (years ago), I foolishly tried to take the S2000 to work, an old one with no traction control, that went well. Not. I didn't hit anything, but I did have to tell a person who idiotically walked out into the street in front of me while I was going downhill on ice, to MOVE YOUR ASS YOU MORON!! I was just sliding towards them and they were just looking at me, waving my arms frantically, eventually the idiot realised and got out of the way just in time.
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I want to say it doesn't make any difference what wheel you've got, but that would be a bold statement. I'm sure the connections will be 100% the ssame, plug and play. This video should help, and please, don't pay someone to do it, or at least if you do, make it your mate Dave and give him 20 quid, don't go to nissan. The only thing to worry about with this job is handling the explosive airbag (WITH CARE, after disconnecting the negative battery terminal!!). I did this on a mini cooper S recently with no trouble at all, and I don't like getting my hands dirty. Treat the airbag like a carton of eggs and you'll be fine.
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This is something I want to bring up to attention that it isn't true. One have to remember that a suspension is only going to perform as well as it's setting. The best suspension in the world with the incorrect setting / setup will still perform poorly. Just because a suspension is expensive, it doesn't make it any better if the suspension setting was wrong to begin with. Spending £3000 for some race suspension and putting it on a road car, will yield poorer performance than a £700 suspension that were designed for road use to begin with. Many have fallen into the idea that expensive must be better, and you get what you pay for. And while sometime it is true, the idea that more expensive must be better, or that all equal price item must equally perform similar is incorrect. Especially in the suspension world, because it cost the exact same amount to build a damper with the incorrect specification vs building a damper with the correct specification. OBJECTION: Jerrick Fair comment, I'm well aware of this, and stand by what I wrote for the layman. Again, let's not get bogged down in deep technicalities, you all know the price range and even specific products to which I am referring (BC, HSD, D2, some others). Of course I'm not suggesting that if a set of 200 quid coilovers was sold for 700 quid that somehow they would magically suddenly be good, as Mr Rabbit is trying to suggest. And of course ANY suspension is only as good as the person who set it up. Both of those go without saying, hence I did not say them.
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Not familiar with the basics of free market economics either. Oh well. /shrug.
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I wasn't actually giving advice, you're the one doing that, badly, imo, though ironically, the right advice is probably in there somewhere , you're just having trouble presenting it. I'm not into comparing penises, suffice it to say I don't need your help with car geometry, though you may be more knowledgeable than I, thanks anyway. You haven't even mentioned the two worst things about lowering on coilovers, roll center and droop, but whatever... I don't fundamentally disagree with anything you are saying, more with the way you are presenting your information, and it's typical of people like you (highly knowledgeable, spent a long time reading, perfecting, and I respect that), the fact is though, that level of technical know-how is simply not needed for people such as the frequenters of this forum, in fact the pedantic (adjective, not jibe) way in which you are dissecting what other people have written without good reason, makes you come across combative and does muddy the waters. All people need to know is that if you are looking for a good street coilover, anything over 700 quid will be decent, but KW V3s or Ohlins if you have money and want to do the occasional track day will serve you better and with a wider and more accurate adjustment range, but then if you're doing that, then you might as well stiffen up a lot and do a corner balanced setup, then if you're doing that, it won't be ideal on the road any more...you might as well have two cars. There you go, I just gave all the info that anyone needed and without technobabble or getting up anyone's nose. Bottom line is that for anyone's street use and even the occasional track day, Meisters, KWs, HSDs, BC, all are more than any mere mortal will ever require to set their car up for a nice middle ground between track and road use. So, you think my analogy of chocolate cake needed to have anything to do with suspension, and wasn't actually about your attitude? And there I was hoping that your geometry comprehension would be matched by your reading comprehension.
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The airbag/horn is 99% going to be the 'clock spring', so called because its a laterally coiled spring (think snail shell, like a watch winding spring) inside the steering wheel hub, that provides the connection of the horn and airbag to the rest of the car. In most cases when both the airbag light comes on and the horn doesn't work, it's this. I have no doubt that jon@emperor or zmanalex can help you out with this part. I've not done it on a Zed but on most cars it's an easy DIY, just whip off the wheel, swap the part, reconnect everything and done. For the underseat lighting, no clue I'm afraid.