bluecarbonfiber

^ funny how the car bills work huh?? or my other fave line is.. i wanna drive it but when something goes wrong you have to figure it out and fix it and it all has to be done soon cause i still wanna drive it.. but when you do get around to fixing it you get the complaint of why havent you been spending time with me? i thought this was our weekend together.. blah blah blah crap.. (there is no happiness) happiness comes in spurts of moments.. and thats it

Mr Marco

I know what you mean. We've been together so long that I can't remember how many years it has been. If it wasn't for a labor day anniversary, I would get the month wrong too. The fact that I get stuck with the bill is related to her being the bread winner in the family. It is an underlying issue at our house as a sat on the couch for a year doing nothing while I was unemployed.
EDiT: I meant getting drunk while I was unemployed.

clee109

That's just women... My favorite is we have to make all the money, but if we have to work late one day out of the month we get the "we never spend any time together" speech

bluecarbonfiber

Played the Dead space 2 demo again last night.. wow what a fun level.. first time i played it scared the be-jesus out of me in one part.. not a good game for middle of the night.. =)

Rapture

Yeah I loved the first Dead Space. The second one seems pretty good. I'll have to wait for reviews before I decide to get it, though. The demo was cool, just didn't really do as much for me as I thought it was going to.

bluecarbonfiber

did you play it on the PS3 or the xbox? i know when i played it on the ps3 there is a part i beleive after the 3rd door you open where these necromorphs are in the walls and they show up sceaming then they go away.. i was playing the game in stereo when it showed up i jumped alittle..

kinda like that video that goes around where you watch it and everything is all normal then all of a sudden something pops on the screen screaming.. (same effect) haha

Mr Marco

Anybody know who this is? BestBuy Tanasbourne, this afternoon. Note the rusted expanded steel mesh behind the cut grill. This is the reason why I didn't want to go that route.

bluecarbonfiber

^ i think they are copying me =) cept i would of blacked out the chrome trim


Marco they make a special paint that is kinda rubbery that takes more of the weather abuse.. i have it on my grill and its TONSSSSSSSSS better.. havent repainted it since that time so its been over a year or so.. if i left the other paint that was on there then it would of looked like that picture

clee109

someone on the 2G TSX forums did their grill with a rubbery paint like what they put on the handles of screw drivers for a non-slip grip. Cool thing is they said if they want to revert to the OEM look it just peels off.

bluecarbonfiber

^ the stuff is great!

Mr Marco

Plasticoat? That's a good idea. I need to do something when the 2012 MMYC comes out. They are putting a MDX style shield grille on the front, however it will not fit my car because they are changing the bumper too.

Rapture

I played it on the PS3 as well That part was pretty cool. Apparently the protagonist is going insane, so hopefully there will be a lot of those kinds of hallucinations in the game.

bluecarbonfiber

the screaming kids towards the end are kinda annoying too.. cant wait to get the full edition though i expect it to be way better then the first specially since its multi player

Rapture

I just hope it has the same creepy atmosphere. The first one kind of reminded me of the first Silent Hill. That game used to scare me to death. I remember literally being too scared to go into the 2nd floor basement of the hospital.

Yeah I'm sure the multiplayer would be cool what with the kinesis and all

Rapture

Ugh, I think my ballast in my CL is messing up. It seems it went off while I was driving home Friday night. I flipped the lights off, then back on, then they both came back on.... so I dunno. Honestly I don't know too much about HIDs, so I'm not even sure if it IS the ballast... let alone wtf the ballast is.

Mr Marco

HID's use reactive ballast like a fluorescent bulb or a neon sign. Regular resistors would lose power on a bulb above 2 watts. By using reactance with an inductor the losses, which are still significant, in the ballast can be balanced by limiting the amount of power that the lamp draws. The voltage that produces the spike is interrupted and the lamp’s power use is regulated by the inducer (The flash you see when you turn on the headlights). Because of the current being shifted out of phase with the voltage, it produces a poor power factor.

In HID ballasts, a capacitor is paired with the inductor to correct the power factor. Here is where you may be experiencing your problem. There were a bunch of poorly made (Chinese) capacitors that hit the market right around the same time your ballast was made. They recalled a bunch of computers back then (Dell, HP, & Mac). If you could open that ballast you could easily spot the bad capacitor by the popped top. They have a vent that looks like a Mercedes emblem that splits into three pieces when the go. Do a search, maybe you’ll get lucky and find a recall on your HID’s. After all, it is a safety issue.

sT04Louis

iTrader: (5)

Should i get back into the TL game?

http://portland.craigslist.org/mlt/cto/2152205610.html

clee109

only if you ditch that screwed on lip, poorly painted wheels and awful LED fog things lol

Mr Marco

I especially like the guy in the first photograph. Reminds me of the guys at the Ukrainian chop shop across from my dealers house.

Rapture

Thanks! And it doesn't look like there was any recall on these. The 2nd Gen CL forums are full of people talking about how much they hate the ballast in their cars.

What's worse is that my extended warranty says it doesn't cover "headlight assemblies"

bluecarbonfiber

that thing is a mess..

minkl81

iTrader: (2)

I've been drooling over this one

'04 33,824 miles only
Little under $15k shipped to Oregon

bluecarbonfiber

^ is that carbon grey? or is it that green color? its hard to tell.. looks good minus tan leather.. who ever thought that tan is better should be slapped in the face.. tan should be asked for and black should be standard

SmileyOr

Ouch!

Ouch!

Ouch!

Stop with the slapping already!

I'd much rather have tan leather than black or any other color. A red car may look good with black, but most colors look better with tan to me

CBP here with the two tone and carbon fibre "look" interior. I admit, it looks good, but I'd still rather have the tan.

So, tan me hide when I'm dead Fred . . .and make it a tan color

bluecarbonfiber

^ hahaha.. the light tan in the RDX is ok i just dont like the dark tan.. and if the accents were black instead of tan too i might consider it alittle more but too much of that yellow tan hurts my eye balls..

BTW shouldnt you be making a delivery to my house today.. my UPS tracking number says its out for delivery slacker =)

Mr Marco

Wow, what? going to read mine tonight!

Mr Marco

The tan with the RDX CBP looks strange. That is why we picked the black int. I had a slightly different tan with my SHO that looked really good with the Black Satin Clear-coat. Also noticed that the BRP (Basque Red Pearl) is different on the RDX vs TL. Not sure why....

bluecarbonfiber

^ agreed.. the newer ones have this lighter tan w/dark tan accent and if the dark was black it would be great but instead it looks ugly.. i think the earlier RDXs had 3 interior color options if i remember correctly now its just the 2

ABP1TSX

I believe i saw that first Tl this past summer at blue lake. It was a younger Russian guy, he drove up behind my car as i was packing up and revved a couple times with those leds on bumping his techno. Then peeled off. Pretty freaking gay.

Mr Marco

^No shit! Now that is a lol!:communist

Rapture

Really debating whether or not I want to do this myself or take it to a dealer. I can't seem to enjoy my car for more than a few months without a new problem. At least not lately. I remember for almost 2 years after I bought the car I was problem-free.

How much does replacing a ballast cost at the dealer? Anyone know?

clee109

I like that dark reddish leather that BMW is using, like dakota or something? awesome.

minkl81

iTrader: (2)

its rare dark green color on that tl. i don't like tan interior too but i like it with this tl's exterior color.


my friend has a 2g CL ('03) too with ballast issue. new oem ballast was way too expensive so he bought used ones from ebay. worked great for few months and it went bad again.

now he's running a ballast from aftermarket hid conversion kit. something like this one



one hole need to be drilled and resilled on the headlight for d2s/d2r wire to be hooked up to the ballast. other than that its straight forward plug and play. speed concept sells that conversion wire and ballast and they did the install too. no problem so far. cheap alternative for bitchy oem ballast.

Rapture

Yeah I'm looking at DIYs on the forums. People say it's an easy job, but I dunno about having to wait however long to get the HID or ballast or entire conversion kit sent to me. Kinda annoying since you kinda need to buy the whole thing before it goes out, since I can't really drive through the rain or dark with only one working headlight. I mean I can still see the road, but I just don't want to get pulled over.

Right now I'm just unsure about doing it myself or seeing if my extended warranty might cover it.

Rapture

You know I figured since it's just an issue with a headlight, I might give a local mechanic a try. They seem to get decent reviews on Google, and they say they do mostly work on imports. I figured since it's just a headlight, they couldn't really do a WHOLE lot of bad if they messed up, eh?

clee109

usually those HID kits ship stupid fast. Most likely Speed Concept might even have some in stock because of the popularity of conversion kids.

Give em a call, if they don't have it they can overnight it for you

minkl81

iTrader: (2)

Speed concept have them in stock and can do one headlight in 30min or less. Give them a call. My friend just did one side and left other half with oem ballast.

bluecarbonfiber

Any one interested in a pair of Bose Noise cancellation headphones? im asking a 100 for them on ebay they go for 120+ used.. be easier to sell local then post on ebay to sell and ship.. let me know otherwise ill be posting them up on Sunday.

Mr Marco

Had posted a response to your question but it looks like it was deleted. Eh-um, I hope that a certain Mod is not cutting and pasting my shit again. If so, "_______ slaps Joanime's cinnamon third nipple." I'm sick of his shit. He'll even edit his stuff in the past to make it look like he wasn't the prick he is.
Sorry for the rant, it looks like you got the information you needed anyhow.

Rapture

Ehh, Speed Concept is pretty far out for me. I'm in Oregon City, just a mile or two away from Canby. I hate borrowing other people's cars, so this is kind of urgent to me, at least. I wanna get it done as soon as possible with little headache or run-around. I figured I'd just get it done locally, then buy a new set of HIDs off hidextra and hopefully before my ballasts go again I'll just swap 'em myself.

Not to mention it looks like Speed Concept is an hour drive from where I live (one way)