tornichoe

Did my first oil change after switching to the fumoto valve. It was quick and easy. No spills, no mess; cranked the engine till the oil temp showed 90F. shut it off. jacked up the front passenger side, slid the pan under and turned the valve open and got out of there in about 5 minutes. Checked back after 5 min and it looked like it had already drained off. Went under to turn the valve close, but saw it still dripping drop by drop. Left it to drain for an hour or so while I was in work meetings. Checked again and the drops were much slower. Closed it up, oiled the new filter and filled 'er back up with the 5QT jug of Castrol 0W20 full syn. When I transferred the old oil from the collection pan back into the 5qt jug, it only filled up to a little over 4qts. I did that last oil change and put in 5qts; Is it possible that it didn't fully drain? Checked the dip stick and its sitting just a tad bit below the top level dot. Can't imagine that it burned off a full quart. Anyone else see something similar after switching to the fumoto valve? Should I have left it to drain for longer? Didn't think the extra 20 drops that would have dripped in another hour would have made a difference...

In another 2-3 years my car will be 7 years old and probably have 100k+ miles. I'll be out of getting free map updates and will probably care less if I can't see the screen for lets say 50% of the time.

I think its a combination of things; the type of display, angle at which it sits and not being recessed. Don't know if may be the materials used to form the grid are burning other upper layers when hit with direct light that then you see the pattern. A phone screen is really no comparison. How often have you left your phone in direct sunlight with temps going above 100F? These things really take a beating in that sense. Having it recessed into the dash would have helped a bit, but then you are farther away from it when you need to touch. I've always liked the rotating dial style used in Acura's and Audi's over touch screens. Less things to go wrong, and a much better user experience.

I got the one on my legacy replaced today. No crazy grid lines; but if you look really close you can see that they are there. I got my car used, so I do not know if they were nice in the beginning and got worse over time. Had to pay the $100 deductible for my extended warranty plan. Hope these replacements hold up better. The unit they put in has a yellow sticker on the back side that said factory refurbished unit.

Dry heat is great when it's in the low 90s. Once it's between 105 and 115, it really doesn't matter. You won't feel a thing coz you'll be almost dead!

Lots of ice cream

That is pretty strange. Mine won't even open when I press the button and the shifter is not in P.

I'm a little split on this one. On one side I feel bad for the guy that had his cables and pipes chewed up by rodents. On the other side you have all these crazy "green" people that push for regulations to limit/eliminate the use of plastics in automobiles. You have companies that innovate and come out with plant based alternatives. Then you have people sue the company because their "plant" got eaten by a rodent! It should really be the city/town that needs to get sued for allowing said rodents to flourish. May be this needs a whole new thread! Don't want to derail this thread from the grid lines on the HU.

I made my appointment for Friday. Do you mind taking a higher resolution pic in daylight, so I can take that along in case they start with the "thats normal" BS.

Do you have pics of the replaced HU? Or anyone else that got the replacement. I'm going to take the OB in as its still under warranty, but I want to go fully equipped when I take the Legacy as I'll have to get them to work with the extended plan and I have $100 deductible on that. Also, How do the map updates work when you replace the HU? I have the 3 yr map update plan. Do you just keep your old SD card and use it in the new unit? I know they had a whole convoluted process to resolve update issues between all the companies involved. I don't remember if there was anything that tied the SD card to the HU.

I meant apexi

Or you could just use them blinkers since we pour so much blinker fluid anyway :-p Back to OP, If you signal before you get close to the lane markings, it won't fight you.

Just got my oil analysis results from Blackstone Everything looks good and Its been consistent for the 15k miles I've had the car. I'll be doing ~9000 mile oil changes which typically puts me at once a year.

On the '15-'17 you could just take the bulbs out. Not sure if the 18s are setup differently. On your fast blinking, Check that yours rears didn't blow out at the same time that you were doing all this.

Finally got around to installing the EcoHitch from Torklift Central. Great customer service and quality product. I got the hitch in about a week after ordering; excellent packaging and arrived intact! It even included the installation instructions with pictures in color. Install was fairly straight forward other than me not having the right tools before getting started. I did have to take the rear wheels off to be able to get to the push clip and a couple of the screws holding the mud flaps. And while I had them off, I visually checked the pads and rinsed it all off with brake cleaner. And once I started pulling the bumper out, those stones along with a bunch of smaller ones fell off. You'll be amazed at all the crap that gets in there. And once I started getting the nuts holding the absorber off, I found that I needed a socket extender to be able to go through. I was able to get the bottom two out, but couldn't get to the inside one on the top; and the 1/4" torque wrench started slipping after I got to the rusted part of the bolt. Ended up driving down to a body shop and they helped get the remaining nuts off and tightening everything back after putting the hitch in. Marked out the portion to cut on the bumper. The instructions say 5 1/4 wide and 4 3/4 deep, but I've read elsewhere that a smaller one would do. Started with 4" x 4" and it fit good. I had to push the bottom portion a little to get the clips on either side of the hitch in. May be 4 1/4" deep would have been better, but I didn't want to take it out again. Really happy with the final outcome. I think its pretty hidden and if you have a darker color car, you may not even see it. I plan on leaving the bike rack permanently attached, so the hidden part is not a factor. Would certainly recommend this to anyone that's thinking of adding a hitch!

Good that I already got my OB switched over from Luke

May be this is what you are after :-p https://www.mbusa.com/mercedes/vehicles/model/class-C/model-C63W Had this for a couple of days as a rental and was pretty impressed by how well it switches between Comfort and Sport+ modes with the flick of a button. Changes everything from suspension, engine timing, gear shifts, exhaust tune and throttle response.

That's really interesting information. Thanks for sharing. Never would have imagined that the EPB is "smart". I could see where the temp adjustments are needed. The motor is probably set to cut off when just the right pressure is detected when initially applied and needing an adjustment once the brake components cool off. Guess such a thing was not needed in the non electronic versions as folks would have over yanked anyway and that they had the drum for the parking brake.

Don't mean to be an ass, but in your post #320 and 327 you said that the suspension wasn't touched... I guess you tried to say that the suspension wasn't touched since you installed new suspension components and lowered. Either way, I don't think you'll get much from the dealer in terms of warranty as you are running non-OE suspension components. The only way they would really be responsible is if you have the alignment sheet after they did the job and that was out of spec. Even then they would argue that you had non-OE components and they did the best they could. Personally, I would not go to a dealer to do these things once you mod things. Its way easier to deal with a tire shop. And they probably see a lot more of the after market stuff than the dealer. My comment from a few pages back still holds. Try to get a printout of what the alignment specs currently are. If something is off there (and it most likely will be), see what is out of spec and try to hunt down why that happened. If its just the nut job at the dealer that didn't know what s/he was doing and set things incorrect, you are probably out of luck.

Damn! that's a long time. Thought they were usually faster than that. Guess it's longer because of the commercial insurance.

Thanks for sharing his contact. I spoke to him last week. Going to switch our OB via him. Have a note written down to call him tomorrow. Just waiting for the credit card statement to flip over.

After digging up details on what we have on the OB, We have a plan with Zurich for 5/65 from when we purchased. Close match to a 7/70 subaru gold plus plan. We had a $100 ded unless we went to the dealer that sold us the plan, but they are willing to switch that out to a 0 ded nation wide at no cost. If I switch now to the subaru plan that Luke quoted, I'd be close to even after the cancellation fees and the % of plan unused that comes back. Any thoughts on reasons to switch to the subaru one over the zurich plan we have? I had zurich with a ducati I had in the past. But never used it for anything and just transferred when I sold the bike. So not much experience dealing with them.

Not by a whole lot. I think the difference was about 10 bucks a tire. Good to hear. I used to have the Hankook ipike on my previous car, and those were amazing. I would plough through snow and corner like I was glued down. The thread pattern was great at just throwing snow/slush outward through the huge channels. But those in the 215 or 225 were almost $150 a piece vs the conti with the rebate came close to a $100. This will be my first experience with conti and I've seen good reviews, so we'll see how I like them. I had a bad experience with bridgestone once and would never pay to get that brand. I'm sure they are great tires, just not for me.

Thanks! The wheels balanced good. They ended up removing the long factory weights that were on there. I don't have the sensors, so it would have offset where the weights were needed.

I got myself a winter set up, wheels and tires. The whole thing came to about $800. Now I just gotta wait for the snow! Decided to go with the conti winter contact si 215/60R17 to reduce the bulge that the 225 gets on the 7.5 rim and a little extra side wall.