Introducing My Auris!

[27901591]

What do you guys think of this bumper, would it go well with the standard Motorsport body kit??

[Speed_Chaser]

There's no added buttons around the handbrake, only the cig lighter cover and iDevice connector.

One of the buttons on the left of the steering wheel is the one which I use to control my footwell and door handle lights, the other one is for my throttle controller.

Personally I'm not a fan of the body kits, but that rear bumper looks pretty nice. But I suppose it's a bit more massive than the standard Toyota kit, so might look like an overkill!

[Speed_Chaser]

Received some goodies today which were custom made for my car. Going to install them as I get my car serviced. Need to do it soon as my heatshield is coming off. The backside is allready off and is lying on the exhaust piping. It also makes nice vibration and sound at certain revs :D

[27901591]

quick question, does the 2010-2012 rear bumper fit the 2008?

[Speed_Chaser]

Sure it does, but the fit won't be 100%. See the pics for details:

[Uncle Buck]

Speed-chaser - a very worthwhile upgrade there. I normally use HEL hoses but they don't offer a kit for the Auris. I presume that's why you had the Goodridge's made up ? Makes a great difference to pedal feel & gives a much more direct response.

[P34RC3]

+1 braided hoses are amazing full stop. ;)

[Speed_Chaser]

Yes there wasn't any companies making a kit for Auris, so I contacted guys at Goodridge and they promised to make a set for Auris if I'd send the original hoses to them. The day I will confirm that they fit allright, you'll be all able to order them from Goodridge!

I don't have any experience with the braided hoses yet, so I'm very curious to test this set out and see how the car feels with them installed.

[Chris_munday]

After looking at your pictures on the first post in this topic I decided to go ahead and get a de-badge. I also got both the front and rear toyota logo badges sprayed black (Black car). I would just like to say thank you for posting those pictures and inspiring me to do it because my car looks completely different. Its amazing how it changed the look! It now has a more cleaner, crisper, sporty look. Well chuffed!

I'm now enquiring about HID conversion kits. I'm getting dipped beam first, then full beam and then considering getting fogs done. What is your opinion on getting all three? I was also wondering how you go about making the reverse light brighter?

Cheers dude!

Chris.

[Speed_Chaser]

You're welcome. Small things can make big difference sometimes :)

As for the HIDs, you may face some troubles after fitting them in high beams, as they take some time to reach their full brightness after being off. So there will be lag after turning them on. It will be also difficult to blink to someone if you ever need to. For the foggies I didn't really need the HIDs as I'm not using them to see better, but mostly to be seen. So I went for the LED option and am more than happy now. If you really need them and going to use while foggy, yellow kit is your best bet!

I am very happy with my setup and do recommend it for you. Of course your needs may be different than mine, but here's some of my thoughts: My low beams are 6000K so they don't stand out but look good and are bright. My foggies are great for what I use them. And I use blue bulbs from MTEC as high beams. They match the rest of the lights very well and do suit my needs as I don't use them too often. But when I use them I find them to be as good as the stock bulbs were.

As for reverse, just buy some bright LED bulb with multiple LEDs, preferably SMD. They will split the light all over nicely and not make the light output look like a dot. This is how it should look:

At first I had a bulbs like below and it made the light look like a dot because all the LEDs were facing "forward" and not to the sides:

If you want it to be super bright for extremely dark driveways then I would suggest you to go for a HID kit.

Stock:

HID:

Good luck Chris!

[Chris_munday]

Thanks very much for your informative reply. After consideration I have remembered a friend nearly crashed because his full beams didn't light up properly when they were cold, so I think I am going to go on your advice and just get the low beams done. Just a few more questions, if I may.

- What filament/H number e.g H7, H11 should I use? I phoned Steven Eagell Toyota in Radlett, St Albans and they didn't have a clue! HA HA! Someone on here said the low beams and fogs were H11's but I just wanted to be certain before I spend the money.

- I'm now considering SMD bulbs in white for the sidelights just to give me that little bit of extra brightness and for the cool look. Do you think that is a good idea?

- Also I'm struggling to find bulbs like the ones you showed me for the reverse light on eBay, is there a specific website you can recommend? because I also want to make sure they fit my car.

Thanks again for your help, I really appreciate it!

[Speed_Chaser]

Sure mate, always glad to help, or at least to try ;)

Yep you've got the correct information, lows and foggies are both H11. High beams are HB3 which is same as 9005. Lol at Toyota guys, just wondering how come they don't know such things. If they're not the parts department guys then they really might not know. But at least they coul've had checked by asking someone who knows better...

Yes you should certainly go for LED sidelights to really set it off. I suggest using 1.5W bulbs with lens. Just search for "T10 1.5W with lens" or something like that. They are nice because of that lens which makes them look better than most other LEDs with ugly SMD chips visible. The lens also spreads the light nicely.

For the reverse you need Ba15s type. Had to double check this because I've changed every bulb's place in my car so I'm totally confused where each type belongs originally :D

When you'll be buying all of your bulbs and bits, please make sure not to buy the cheapest ones. I ordered a set of sidelights from my local store and then ordered another set for some other project from China via eBay later on. The price was ridiculous but I noticed they were way dimmer compared to the ones sold by local guy. I've also bought a set of just ordinary H7 bulbs for another car, the cheapest I could find. Both bulbs had the same issue even they were packed separately, the light pattern was incorrect, they were blinding oncoming traffic and one of the connectors started to melt. Luckily I did suspect this and noticed the issue before it was too late. So it's not only the price of production that makes some products cheaper or more expensive... There are other reasons too why some products are cheaper than the others. It's not always like this and surely you can find some good and cheap things. But it's good to understand that there is bigger possibility of return and exchange rumba, not to mention the risk of frying your connectors or even the whole car!

[Speed_Chaser]

So, today the car got serviced. The wait was pretty long so I was thrilled to get my brake lines installed and heatshield fixed. When I went to get my car back I heard some bad news :( They tried to tighten my handbrake but it was stuck (typical fault they said) so need new brake shoe now in order to make the handbrake adjustable. Has anyone had this problem with their car?

Also, while struggling with the handbrake adjustment, the mechanic probably managed to break the speed sensor. He said he didn't notice that happening, but Toyota did not argue and said they will get me a replacement for free. Probably it broke down before the service and I just got lucky... But anyways, need to take my car again in for them to sort these things.

On top of this, the brake lines from Goodridge did not fit! Something probably went wrong while they were copying/manufacturing the lines, as the shape of connectors was different compared to stock ones (convex/concave shape at the end of connectors). Hope that guys will get this problem sorted and I'll get new lines before the next service.

[Uncle Buck]

That's a pain dude - hope they fix these issues for you ! I'm very surprised that Goodridge got this wrong :o

[Chris_munday]

Thanks dude you are a legend!!

[Speed_Chaser]

No problem Chris! :)

Yeah I hope too everything will be fine with the car. At the moment Goodridge guys are trying to find the original lines which I sent them as prototypes. After they will (hopefully) find them they will make some comparsions to see what went wrong.

Now for some happier news. Today I finally installed another light in my trunk. I got the idea originally from northernlite. You can find the information he gave regarding this mod here and his pics here.

When I started doing mine I realized that I wanted to make this mod in a bit different way because I try to avoid permanent mods as much as possible. This is why I didn't want to use glue to attach the light. And what if I'll have to remove it to change the bulb or for some other reason? So I cut a hole just for the base to pass through. Now my light pops in just as the original one and stays there without a problem. It can also be easily removed. Only downside is that it's sticking out a little. But does it really matter? Because it's facing downwards and is very hard to notice, especially if you don't know about it. It is possible to minimize it's visibility even more by applying some paint or tape on sides so that the light wouldn't shine through to the sides. You will see what I'm talking about by looking at the pics I took.

General view

Closer look

And a close-up. Just testing with some electrical tape on the sides...

[27901591]

Any pics of the rear bumper diffuser (decal) prefferably on a black SR??

http://au.toyotaownersclub.com/forums/topic/17190-08-corolla-levin-zrfor-sale/page-8

Costs £55ish from toyota.

want to see one on a black auris before i buy it.

[Speed_Chaser]

Guess it won't be really noticeable on a black one. And why spend your money on such thing when you can buy some tape for less than a tenner and just cut it to shape. Plus you'll be able to choose the colour you think would look best!

[Speed_Chaser]

Guys, do you reckon it'd look cool if I'd colour code my rear wiper? Surely it'd look different but I'm not really sure if it would stand out too much, especially on a slightly tinted window... I'll need to paint some of my parts so need to consider if I'd like to get something else painted at the same time.

[Chris_munday]

Guys, do you reckon it'd look cool if I'd colour code my rear wiper? Surely it'd look different but I'm not really sure if it would stand out too much, especially on a slightly tinted window... I'll need to paint some of my parts so need to consider if I'd like to get something else painted at the same time.

Good job on the boot light mate! As for color coding the rear wiper its merely a personal choice but I think that may work on a silver car. I'm not that knowledgeable with mods as my auris is pretty much the first car I've decided to tweak the look. If it looks taccy then you can always spray it back to black?

[Speed_Chaser]

Cheers for the compliment and suggestion Chris! However I took some of my parts to the painter guy but did not include the wiper. I thought it would be overkill on my car because I try to keep as stealth and clean as possible when it comes to mods.

It would be probably best to just get rid of the wiper and it would be pretty easy too, but I decided not to do it neither because it's so handy to wipe the window with it sometimes :)

[Speed_Chaser]

Let's continue guys! The news are that Goodridge has some problem. I will hopefully know more tomorrow but for now the replacement hoses are late. They promised them to be here at the beginning of last week and I still haven't received them, so they're more than a week late now. Also guys aren't responding to my e-mails very often so I don't know what's going on.

The problem is that I will have to take my car to MOT soon and as Toyota guys damaged my brakes last time they promised to get them fixed as soon as they'll get replacement parts and I will have my new lines for them to install during the same visit. So my options are get the lines ASAP, visit Toyota two times, or get brake lines before the service and get everything done and fixed before MOT. Need to wait and see.

I remember I wrote about paint job. So it's been all done now, will update the results when I'll get the bits installed and photographed. I wanted to get my mudflaps painted in the first place as they looked awful, but decided to get some other things painted at the same time.

What I also did is added second set of parkers to the front. Had them before but they were not bright enough. Then I used amber ones and now I went again for whites.


General view:


Parkers and low beams at night:


Looks rather nice to me. The extra parkers make the car more visible and also fill the lamps with light very nicely.

Another new thing is that I smoked my rear lights. In certain lightning they look a bit dark, but while direct sunlight hits them it's hard to notice the tint film on them. I used Oracal 8300 and 074 colour. Here's how it came out:

In the shade right after the installation, didn't even have time to wash the car:


...Testing my new foam lance...


And here are the tints on a clean car in sunlight. Cannot really tell if there's film or no, that's exactly what I was after:




Nice sky too:


That's all for now. BTW found some old pics, stock VS mine comparsion...

[Speed_Chaser]

Today I finally got the new brake lines fitted after some more problems. They were supposed to be installed yesterday but the mechanic just "forgot" to do it.... Today I went to collect the car and they told me it was washed, probably to compensate their mistake. I was quite upset after hearing they didn't wash it by hand and didn't even ask me beforehand if I wanted them to scratch it with their automatical brushes... Oh well.

So the lines are finally in, the bill was huge, but the difference is minimal. I would say that it's definitely not worth it. If I wouldn't know that they're changed I wouldn't notice anything. Don't know if it's the lines or just me, but that's just how I feel... What a pity :(

[Uncle Buck]

Something very odd going on there mate - every car I've ever put braided steel brakelines onto has felt much more resposive & positive after

[Speed_Chaser]

Tried reading about the benefits but they aren't really noticeable. What COULD be wrong?

Car has been waxed and some more bits installed. Here's couple of friendly shots with Volvo S80. It's a rather nice car, full leather interior and light coloured wooden panels, not the usual dark wood. The engine is T6 with Bi-turbo and 282 horsepower accompanied by auto gearbox with tiptronic. It's a great sleeper but so soft and wobbly... You can see my colour coded Mitsubishi style roof diffuser in these pics. I tested how it'd look and didn't like -> allready removed.






Installed custom painted black hazard switch. It is a great alternative to the one sold online for more than 50 euros excluding postage which costs almost as much as the product...



New pedal pads by TRD. Much better than the MOMO, smaller brake pedal which prevents from hitting both pedals at the same time even when wearing larger winter shoes. Also much more rubber which prevents the foot from slipping on metal. They also look much better I reckon.