EM1 (SiR) Wheels Back On

My goodness! I haven't updated this blog in a while.

Well, if you read my last post in January, you probably guessed that I've been a little bit pre-occupied with the new addition to the family. And to be honest, I've also been driving the Sienna a lot more than the Fit lately because it's just much easier to haul the baby and paraphernalia around.

In fact, there's a thread on Fitfreak.net that talks about how the front seats have to be moved almost all the way forward in order to fit a rear facing child seat in the back.

Anyways, I finally managed to put back on my EM1(SiR) wheels today. I miss these wheels on the Fit. The offset is just so much nicer and much more flush to the fenders. They've also got brand new Yokohama S.Drive tires I bought along with my General Altimax Artic winter tires back in November. Once I give these tires a good run, I'll post my review here.

Oops... baby needs a bath again... Gotta go.

Baby On Board

Remember me buying the Toyota Sienna minivan? Remember why I bought the minivan? Well, the reason has finally arrived early this month. (you think I wasn't updating this blog often enough before? you just wait. =P)

He's lucky he's so cute. Otherwise I would not put up with his multiple late night feedings, diaper changes, constant need for attention, and... I don't remember anymore. In fact, I don't really remember anything before the baby anymore. ;-)

Other than the necessities, I haven't splurged on the baby until now. I know I payed WAY TOO MUCH for a piece of vinyl sticker, but I couldn't help it.

Boxing Week Battle Scar

I didn't go out to brave the crowd for Boxing Day shopping. Partly because there wasn't any really good deals to be had, and also, I didn't really need anything at this point.

But then, I did eventually find a couple of items I wanted. Since the sales usually last the whole week now, I decided to head out and pick up a couple of items; a Blu-Ray, and a printer.

Maybe I shouldn't have. Because I came home with a new door ding, well, more like a gash on my front passenger side door. Very high up, so must be a van or SUV. But it's a nasty one. Looks like they hit my door, and didn't stop right away and kept pushing for another 3/4 of an inch. Nasty! Maybe it wasn't worth going out for the sales after all.

On the upside, I manage to sell my stock Dunlop 14" tires I mentioned in my previous post rather quickly. Of course, pricing them low helps.

Oil Change #13 (66997km) + Winter Tires Mounted

A Lot going on these days, and I was again a little late getting my oil and filter changed. But got it done today with the standard 5W20 and Honda oil filter.

The tires I ordered from JC Whitney I mentioned in my last post took a while, but they had finally arrived. I'm happy to say that it was as stated in their website; no additional taxes, duties, or brokerage fees were applied. I had them mounted on Tuesday when I had some free time, and will now list the stock Dunlop SP31 tires cheap as I will no longer need them with these dedicated snow tires on my 14" steelies.

New Real Snow Tires

If you've been following my blog, you'll know I've gotten by with all season tires for the past 4 years. (wow, I've had this little Fit for just over 4 years now!) The first two years were with the stock Dunlops 14" on factory steelies. Then 2 years ago I only had the worn Kumhos that came with my used EM1 rims. That was also the year wih the huge snow dump, so I the Fit was pretty much parked. Last year, I managed to find a set of stock 14" wheel/tire combo to replace the ones I traded, and at least I could drive in light snow.

However, with the light weight of the Honda Fit, it's really not a great winter car, and to really be useful in the white stuff, you want proper winter tires. I mentioned in a previous post that I bought a Toyota Sienna in anticipation of my growing family. Well, this also means I need to make my vehicles ready for winter since my wife is due in early January. Luckily, The Sienna came with a spare set of winter tires. But the Fit still needed help.

While looking around online, I found JC Whitney. I already knew of the company because I had lived in the States when I was younger, and would request some of their mail order catelogs even though I was still too young to own a vehicle. However, I never thought of purchasing from them here because normally shipping anything from the US to Canada, especially larger items, are prohibitively expensive. However, it would seem from their page here that they only add $11.99 to your order to ship to Canada. This, along with their regular shipping charge, supposedly covers for all taxes, duty, and brokerage fees. I was skeptical, but other canadians have ordered and said that it was legit. and as long as the tires are 16" and under, this works.

So I decided to place an order for a set of General Altimax Artic in the stock 175/65/14 size. And since I'm now getting dedicated winter tires, I decided to also order a new set of summer tires in the form of Yokohama S.Drive in 195/55/15 size to replace the factory Michelins I got last year for the EM1 rims. It would seem that the one tire that had some camber wear was because there was a nail in the tire, and the seller must have driven with it flat or low for a while. The last time my car was up on a hoist, I noticed that tire, which luckily I placed in the rear, is now starting to show a couple of bubbles on the inner side wall; a sign or sidewall failure. So that tire is no longer safe. The price for the two set of tires was much better than what I could have gotten locally. So I'm just waiting for these to come in so I can mount them on the Fit.

In the meantime, I went in today and put the winter tires that came with the Sienna on the van. I didn't pay much attention to them when I bought the car. but as it turns out, they are also General Altimax Artic tires. Same ones I had ordered for my Fit. A copy of the Gislaved Nordfrost 3 tires from Sweden, the General Altimax Artic (both under the Continental umbrella) had fantastic reviews and are a good value. I feel better that the van, and soon the Fit will have proper winter tires on this season. With pregnant wife now, and kid later. I think it's money worth spending.

LED Gauge Lights for the Bike

My buddy decided to change his car dome lights to white LEDs. However, within the batch he ordered, there were some that were a bit too 'blue' for his liking. So I took his 'leftovers' and put them behind the gauges of my bike. So I guess this qualifies as the first mod for my bike.

These are nice T-10 wedge base bulbs with 4 SMDs on each bulb. Very wide angle and very bright. Yes these had a noticeable tinge of blue, but They're still mostly white. So the redline on the tach and temp gauge is not washed out by blue and is still clearly distinguishable. The before and after photos are taken with a point and shoot, but the ISO, exposure and shutter speed settings were set the same. You can tell by the matching ambient lighting in front of the bike as well as the glare off the warning lights in both photos. So the photos are an accurate representation of the LEDs brightness.



The results are great. Many cheaper LED bulbs are either too dim or the angle is too narrow. These SMDs doesn't have either of the problem. I followed the simple directions here for the install. And it took very little time. I don't ride at night too often, and the riding season is almost over for me. But I still enjoy the results.

Oil Change #12 (61651km) + Brake Job

A tad late on the oil change again. Plus with the moving and heavy use, the oil was a bit dirtier this time. Well, late for my standards, not the factory recommended, which is a lot later.

Standard affair again with the 5W20 oil and Honda oil filter. But I noticed a slow leak at the driver side front tire and found a nail in it a couple of days ago. So I just kept the nail in 'til today and plugged it while the car was up on the hoist.

I also asked my mechanic to check on the brakes since I can feel some grinding under heavy braking. Upon a quick visual inspection without removing the wheels, they looked ok. However, once the wheels were removed, he quickly realized that while the outside pads still had plenty of material, the inside pads were completely gone!! He said he's had another Fit that did the same, and also a Infiniti G35 coupe that also wore out the inside pads much faster than the outside. So keep an eye out on your inside pads.

Anyways, he put in new Nissin pads, the same stuff the factory uses. We noticed that the rotors were a bit grooved and also slightly wrapped, so he also machined the front rotors at the same time.

Jazz Packing

My friend posted this on my Facebook wall. It's apparently part of the new campaign for the Honda Jazz in Australia. I thought it was pretty funny.



And here's the other ads from the same campaign:

My Swagger Wagon

That's right! I bought a minivan!!!

We found out last month before we left for our trip that my wife is expecting. Since I was considering looking for a second car anyways, now the minivan became a consideration.

I know, I don't NEED a minivan for one kid. But the thing is, no matter how much stuff you can throw into the Fit, it is still is a sub-compact. With a child seat in the back, there's really only room for one more adult back there. Now say we want to take the kid out with the in-laws, with whom we are very close. With the Fit, we'd either have to pick only one in-law to take with us, or they'd have to drive a 2nd vehicle.

There are other advantages to a minivan, such as the ability for my wife to stop the car, hop to the rear 3rd row inside the tinted windows, and breastfeed the baby whenever it needs to be fed. Or having enough room inside to easily change a diaper.

So minivan it is. I don't see the point of an SUV (some do have 3rd row seating). And most Fit owners would agree that the ability for a vehicle to maximize usable space vs the space it occupies is very important. And in this respect, a minivan will ALWAYS have an SUV beat. Plus, one of my biggest loves for minivans: sliding rear doors!! Huge openings you can stand directly in front of no matter if there's another car parked next to you. I don't understand why more people can't see the usefulness of minivans and sliding doors. But I expect they'll come around again, just like the return of mini hatchbacks like the Fit.

Anyways, since I'm expecting to keep the minivan for a while, I was basically looking for a lower KM, late model Honda Odyssey or Toyota Sienna. I came across this 2005 Sienna LE and went to check it out. The van had light to heavy scratches on every panel, and the rear cargo area was well used. However, it was indeed low KMs (just over 50,000km), and well priced, and came with hitch, bike rack, and a set of spare winter tires. I was happy enough with the condition considering the price, so I picked it up.

This thing just absolutely dwarfs the Fit. So far I really like it. It cruises at a much lower rpm on the highway than the Fit, is very comfortable inside (I still have a few small issues with the Fit's driving position), and the 3.3L V6 and 5-speed auto is nice.

Of course I can't leave any vehicle alone. I've already added a GROM USB interface that allows MP3 playback from a USB flashdrive via the stock radio's CD changer interface. I'm also debating parking sensors or rear view camera. and maybe another set of wheels for the van as well. It will probably be something similar to the Fit, with an OEM+ style upgrade (i.e. wheels from another Toyota/Lexus vehicle). We'll see.

Popular Mechanics Compares Fit to Ducati

I've had this article bookmarked for a while. It's obviously a tongue-in-cheek type of comparison since these two vehicles can never substitute for one another, and therefore not in competition what so ever. But the basic premise of this article is to see which vehicle is better suited for the current down economy with rising fuel prices, yet still provides the enthusiast owner with the most fun ownership experience, for under $20,000. Being both a rider and a Fit owner, I thought it was pretty funny.

Here's the article: Two Wheels or Four? Ducati Bike vs. Honda Fit