Horse Pop

Update: Car drives fine with a SMF. Less heavy drivetrain, less friction-drive-ey. Getting bolts was a pain in the arse.

Funnily enough, everyone in work gives me grief for mine. I put a straw hat on the parcel shelf to complete the effect.

Unfortunately you still see lots of cars driving around with crap aftermarket HID kits so I guess they aren't failing people en masse yet despite the likes of this: http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20120606172804/http://assets.dft.gov.uk/publications/dft-information-sheets/aftermarket-hid-headlamps.pdf and this: http://www.theaa.com/motoring_advice/car-servicing-repair/mot-changes-2012.html It's a bit of confusion to be fair. I don't think most of the aftermarket stuff is road legal anyway, not being emarked but they don't necessarily fail stuff on those grounds.

We had someone asking for one at work so I had a look. Long story short, could not find one from K&N, Pipercross, HKS, or indeed Green. Saw a few on Ebay but they didn't look great tbh. I genuinely wouldn't bother removing the factory airbox. The design of it looks pretty good already. If you look where it's drawing air from that's about right. I think you'd probably lose some low-end going to a big cone filter-ey thing vs that.

This morning, driving in to work, my car momentarily paused the CD in the stereo and beeped twice. Short beeps. I guess from stereo if playback paused / was muted for them? What is? That thing where it finds you traffic alerts?

Reading what it does, the sudden raise in fuel economy makes sense. Keep watching and it drops back to normal, exactly the same as taking my foot up a bit. :outforcount:

A guy in work just bought a 135. Looks like a really nice car. Lots of tuning bits too for it if that's your thing.

You're welcome! Had me going when I bought mine. I had to get the mechanic from the dealership to show me how because like you, the way I had it described to me, it was push to engage. Never driven anything else with the same system either.

Confused me as well to begin with. It's NOT push to engage. You just move it sharply to the left past where the gate for 1st/2nd is. If you move it slowly you'll feel pressure but if you flick it quickly, it just goes past that point. You don't even have to be rough with it. Just "flick".

Interesting. So it's the same as having a lighter right foot? :D

I'd be fascinated to know what it does. Push it on the dual carriageway and the MPG gauge goes up by 5-10.

Sorry to hear about idiots damaging your car!

I believe the noise rating is external drive-past noise. Yes, that is totally useless. Similarly the wet rating is straight line stopping distance and the fuel gains for an A rated economy tyre are miniscule. Personally I'm running Yokohama Bluearth AE-50s on mine : http://www.tyrereviews.co.uk/Tyre/Yokohama/BluEarth-AE50.htm Not bad so far. Only done about 2000 miles on them. Pleasantly grippy in the wet and a tad softer than the Pirelli's it came with which actually improved it a bit down b-roads.

An MOT shouldn't involve them breaking anything. The stuff that's gone is all consumables (e.g. stuff you'd expect to wear out and need replacing at intervals) so while I know some garages do like to bull**** you on tyre tread or brake condition if you haven't done those bits recently then it doesn't necessarily indicate they're messing you about (reminds me, mine is probably due some new discs and pads). You could get prices on your tyres so you have some idea what they should be charging you in advance. You don't have to get the same garage as is MOTing your car to deal with those faults either. Neither of them are MOT fails.

Anyone tried ANY SMF with the standard clutch?