Introducing My Auris!

[Speed_Chaser]

Cheers for your opinion Paul. But I will say one thing allready. Nothing will be left as it is :D I am planning to also paint the insides of the headlights in car's colour or black too so it wouln't even match that well with anything.

I found some pics of a car with black badges. On the front' doesn't look good to me. So probably going to do it silver on silver or silver on black

[Uncle Buck]

Fair enough mate :) I therefore vote for silver on black ....

[Speed_Chaser]

Colour coded chrome parts of the front headlights. Not a big difference compared to how it was before. Think I'm going to paint them using some darker colour. What do you think?

[Uncle Buck]

Don't see much point to them really - sorry !

[Speed_Chaser]

Yeah I thought it would be nice as I'd be able to get rid of the chrome but that's the only positive thing about it. Will get to work and by the weekend both should look more like the left one on the last picture. I'll post back as soon as it's done and everything's installed.

[Speed_Chaser]

It was time to proceed and aim for that cleaner, more simple look with less chrome. What's been done:

Colour-coded front and rear badges, rear chrome strip removed, black headlight mod.

In case someone's interested, I removed the steering wheel Badge in order to paint it and can show the pins under the Badge. In order to remove the Badge you need to pry it with flat head screwdriver and cut the pins using sharp knife. When placing the badge back it can be attached by adding small amount of glue to the points where the pins are. Remember to cover the area around the badge with some tape in order not to damage it. Also remove the horn fuse to not to scare yourself while working on it :D

[mad midge]

How did you do your headlights as really want to do mine

Thanks

[Speed_Chaser]

It's not so difficult if you understand what you're doing and figure out the best way to do it. You will have to remove the glass which is attached to the base using seal. Then you will be able to remove the chrome part and paint it (preferably mask the inside of the blinker). Then remove the old seal and insert new one.

It is hard to open up the lights as the seal is very hard. While warming it up it's easy to start melting the plastic on the base. Also the lights are very big so you will need to pry quite a lot. I wasted a lot of time as I was too careful with the first light. Second one was much quicker and I did not mess up too much. The painting is easy as you can take the paintable part off without the need to mask too much as high beam reflector stays, for low beams you have projectors... Inserting new seal is not difficult but you need to do it right using correct seal in order to prevent condensation.

You will need at least:

-heat gun to warm up the seal and to soften it when removing it before adding the new one. Also use it to warm the new one when it's in place to make the glass stick to it better.

-flat head screwdriver or whatever you'll find most useful to pry the glass.

-paint and surface preparation tools or a professional painter. Pay attention that the material being painted is chrome and needs to be sanded/scratched in order to make the paint stick better.

-clamps to improve the contact between glass and base after adding new seal. Make sure to cover the glass with cloth in order to not to scratch it with the clamps.

-seal (3M window seal) which is not in tube but it has to be long and sticky all around:

There are many DIY guides about how to do this mod and the basics are always the same. Here are couple of Auris headlight shots so that you will understand what you should be aiming to achieve:

There is also other way of doing the mod. You can leave the rings around blinker and low beam hole unpainted. Also the bent part above the high beam hole can be left unpainted for different look. Many new cars which have black headlights have also some chrome bits in there. To do this you will have to mask some more and be careful not to pull the paint off while removing the tapes.

I chose the "all-black" option, but here's a picture of rings left with chrome:

[mad midge]

That's great. Thanks a lot for the right up

[Speed_Chaser]

No problem, best of luck. Just get to it and start the project. It takes some time but is well worth every minute spent :) You could make a proper DIY guide aswell as I'm not so good at it and did not take step by step pics...

[Speed_Chaser]

Just pics of the current look.

[Speed_Chaser]

Steering wheel Badge and some rear fitment pics:

[Speed_Chaser]

Some new pics to share with you guys.

My coilovers and stabibars doing their job as you can see:

Starting to love speedbumps more and more :D


Here you can see the rear fitment very well. No excess space in there.


Hand wash only!


Some stickers under the bonnet


My new Hertz HDP-5 under the front passenger seat. Now it's easier to transport stuff when backseats are folded as there is no amplifier attached.

Footwells on:


Footwells off. Logo surrounding matches the footwells lol.


And a comparsion pic with another, stock Auris.

[Speed_Chaser]

Getting ready for the winter season. Moving more and more towards the GoodYear camp as I quite like my Asymmetric 2's which I use in the summer. Let's see how well will these UltraGrip Ice 2's please me during the harsh winter conditions.



As you can see moving from 16" to 17" size, which means there's more to update before fitting them to my car ;) Stay tuned!


Just baked:

[Uncle Buck]

Will be interesting to hear how those tyres perform, as I have been using the Assym 2's over Summer & now have Kleber Quadraxers on.

The pic comparing your modded Auris to the stock one is like night & day. What a difference !

[Speed_Chaser]

Yeah the stock looks like a bubble :D Will update as I'll get a chance to test them. Not cold enough and still waiting for some missing bits. They are arriving little by little though, here's what I just got:

[Speed_Chaser]

These showed up today. Happy days :)

[Speed_Chaser]

Difference in weight is minimal when comparing normal lug nuts I'm using and Muteki ones. Weight reduction wasn't the reason to buy them anyway.

More news, just got 4 of these boxes. Just need to open and install.

[Uncle Buck]

Are you going to take them out of the box then chap ? :p

[Speed_Chaser]

Will take them out only for the install in order to maintain the good condition :P Still summer weather here as it's +3C so no need to change the wheels yet, but I can show what's inside the box allready. With specs of course ;)

Enkei RPF1, front 17x8 ET35 (7kg), rear 17x8,5 ET30 (7,5kg).

I can say at this stage that all rims look identical to me. Same lip width and center hole has put on same depth rear and front. As for the fitment, that one we'll find out only after they're installed.

[Speed_Chaser]

So installed these week ago. Before the installation weather was nice and dryish, next day after the install it started to snow and there's even more snow now (approx. 10cm). So it's total winter, but car's been washed and will be not used for some time now so cannot really test the wheels.

Offset:

On the front the nuts are "longer" than on the rear. Going to install some 5mm spacers maybe to fix that and bring the rears more out aswell.

This is how everything looked after I got the car washed. Perfect timing!

Spacers ordered and they're TPI. Going to use them on the front during the summer to make offset 35 as it causes no problems. During winter probably on the rear.

[Speed_Chaser]

Ordered something interesting, a wide angle mirror...

Which is not just a mirror... It is DOD RX8W mirror with integrated display and it can be used as a dash cam

In case someone's interested, I ordered it from official DOD distributor in Lithuania. Spent a lot of time searching for shops where it's available as it's still quite new product. In that shop the price was cheapest and customer service just great. They even offered me free shipping :)

Now waiting for my new mirror dash cam and will be hardwiring it after it's arrival. Stay tuned for real pics and first impressions! If someone has good suggestions on how to route the power wire to the mirror I will be glad to hear suggestions/see instructions.

Credits for help on understanding the camera basics go to Darksta. Cheers for answering all my stupid questions mate! :D

[tavy]

You have a permanent plus very near to the mirror; under front overhead lamp.

[Speed_Chaser]

Yes I know Tavey, but I want the ignition plus, just like cigarette lighter. Decided not to use parking mode and motion detection, at least for now. I have read that these functions are mostly useless as they cannot detect small things like someone opening door and hitting your car. Also there is a possibility that the plate/person won't be caught on tape.

[Speed_Chaser]

So anyone knows how to remove the A-pillar panel?