brewkp4

1.) I am driving my car from North Carolina to Colorado in a few weeks. I have made this trip a couple times now and each time I find that I have accumulated a few chips on my hood. I understand that this is pretty much inevitable. I do not have a clear bra (although I totally regret that decision). About a year ago on this forum I recall seeing some pictures of someone's new IS with a temporary bra (it looked like a blue film that could be easily pulled off) that they used until they installed their clear bra. I was wondering if anyone had any information about this (i.e. what it is called, where I could get it, would it be worth it, and if it would be easy to get on and off). I tried to search for the topic but since I do not know what it is called I couldn't find it.

2.) I took my car to get serviced today and got an IS250 loaner. It did not have the ML stereo system but I did notice that the sound quality seemed much much better than in my IS250. I was wondering if there could be something different with my stereo that would make such a difference. I have tried to change my settings on my stereo but never could get it to sound that good. Mainly I cannot get my system to have decent sound quality when I have the volume in the high "30's" range. I just wanted to check and see if this is a common thing, or maybe I am just doing something wrong. I do not know much about stereo systems so I am sure there probably is a short somewhere between the stereo controls and the driver's seat, so any help and suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks.

3.) Just out of curiosity, when I took my car in to get serviced he told me that they could not rotate my tires because he said that the tires in the rear were wider than the ones in the front and it would therefore rub the rear fender (or something along those lines). I have an AWD and thought that since the AWD doesn’t have a staggered set up this wouldn’t be a case. He asked someone else and they said the same thing. Am I wrong?

ULTiMaX99

iTrader: (5)

the blue stuff on the nose of the car is actually blue painter's tape. i guess it's a good temporary alternative to a clear bra?

as far as i know you can rotate the tires on the awd models. all 4 tires are the same size no? you shoulda showed the service guy the numbers on the sidewall of the tires were all the same...

jsquared

i think you should be able to get your tires rotated... AWD has to have same sizes which can be rotated. i think you should ask again.

as for the speakers, a lot of people seem to be having speaker problems, including myself, and it seems like a lot of hassle to figure out what the problem is exactly, so its up to you if you want them to do trial/error to figure out whats wrong. im getting a system put in tomorrow and i'm hoping that'll solve my issues. (the bass in my car produces much more vibrations than the first 4-5 months of having my car) i'm hoping that'll work because they replaced my rear speakers already with no luck.

as for the temp. bra, i'm not sure exactly what that is, but maybe you can just get a nose mask for the long ride? won't exactly look too nice, but maybe it'll save you the chips, etc.

or just leave it at the dealer and have them install a clear-bra and check your speakers and rotate tires which should take a while, and then use the loaner car for your trip!

good luck with everything!

brewkp4

Thanks for the reply. I honestly dont care how my car would look on the trip because I am just driving across country; it is a permenant move so I couldn't use the loaner although that would be nice. I think when I go back to Colorado I am going to take my car in to get the stereo looked at. I don't see why my buddy with the exact same car can have the volume at 50 and it still sound crisp and on my car anything above 38 (give or take 2 depending on the cd used) it sounds like crap.

I actually called my dealership in Colorado to ask about the AWD and tire rotation question and they said that I should be able to rotate them. So I called the service department in NC to ask if they would just look at the tires and see if they could rotate them and after giving me serious attitude they said they would. I went and picked up my car they said they didn't do it because they couldn't and the guy began to draw me a picture of why not and followed the drawling with an explanation that they rotated the tires on an IS once and that it rubbed when they tried to pull up the car and that is how they know. I didn't say anything but figured they/he was just generalizing that since the RWD cannot have the tires rotated the AWD cannot have them rotated. I also figured they made this generalization because they don't see any AWDs in North Carolina because they aren't too popular. I pretty much just gave up because I figured he would have gotten even more upset that a 21 year was trying to "tell him how to do his job." I wasn't trying to tell him how to do his job, I just wanted him to check just in case (I could be wrong and I am ok with that, but he wouldn't even go look and check). Now I want to check just to see what the truth is for future reference, but I don't know how to read the numbers and what they mean . Could someone help me out?

ULTiMaX99

iTrader: (5)

you don't really need to know what the numbers means... if all the numbers are the same, then they are all the same size.

brewkp4

Yeah I figured as much....I am just curious for future refrence because I am sure at one point in my life it would be good to know.

javyLSU

iTrader: (21)

Here's a good description from a GMGoodwrench site:



Javier

benzo555

iTrader: (11)

You can pick up the Duplicolor temporary bra. You spray it on and wash it off (more like pressure wash it off) when you're done. Im sure you can find it locally at auto parts store.

brewkp4

Hey thanks for the information javylsu.....not knowing if I was right or not about the tire situation was really bothering me so i went out to my car (in the rain) and tried to figure out the tire size but it was too dark to tell. Then I remembered that it says the tire size and tire pressure info on a sticker on driver's side door well. I looked and both the front and rear tire sizes are exactly the same. It just upsets me because after I just asked the service guy to take a look when I was speaking with him on the phone he still did not do it or found out he was wrong and lied to me about it when I came to pick up my car.

Benzo thanks for the idea on the duplicolor temporary bra I will check it out.

BounceNY

iTrader: (9)

On my first 5k serivce they had no problems rotating the tires, since they're all the same.