I just bought an RS4 grill, and need your input about the fog lights..

So, I just got a great deal on an RS4 grill, this one to be exact;


Now this is a super stylin brushed aluminum ring with semi-gloss/satin black mesh. It came with a filler plate thats for a front license plate (ughh), so I am going to be purchasing this all black filler plate;

Now where I need your help is what to do about the Fog light inlets. Basically the stock look is pretty cool, but it doesnt have any of that honeycomb RS4 style to it. There isn't a direct RS4 drop in kit, you have to buy the RS4 kit and then modify/glue it in to make it work (which is not that big of a deal to me to be honest).

So I really have 3 options;

1) I can leave it alone, and I think that would look decent. [simplest]
2) I can fit the Rs4 fog light surrounds in and remove the stock S4 inlets altogether [a bit of work]
3) I can do a combo of the 2, if I go this way I would most likely just buy some black metal mesh honeycomb and simply attachg it to the back of the inlet. [a bit of work]

Option #1 (Keep in mind I wont have that grill)
Option 2 (This is pretty much exactly what my car would look like)

Option #3 (I kind of like this one the best, its cheaper than Option 2, but probaly more work, need to source the mesh, paint it, cut it, and then somehow fit it in)

I just placed an order wth Motodyne...

What do you think?

The avant is registered, and.. my friends must have LOTS of free time!

The Avant is registered, and I am up at 1:15am posting this. Been working on my house loan application all night. This has been a very productive week for me. I have utterly demolished my massive stack of bills and TO-DOs that have been sitting on my desk at home. You see, I just bought a new car, and being that I am utterly in love with cars I can't help but spend all my time working on it, buying stuff for it, researching options for mods for it, dreaming about what to do with it (i.e. what track days to go to, what suspension to install, which brakes to buy, etc, eccetera, essetera.).

But, I feel like I am neglecting the REALLY important stuff (i.e. my future, a house, my savings, my 401k, my health insurance, my bills, selling my buddies truck he loaned me for 9 months, you get the drift) to daydream about my 4 Rings porn (that would be my Audi S4 Avant to you car noobs).

So, tomorow I will send in my loan application (which should be easy, but only if you have filed all your bills for the past 6 months instead of just piling them up in a nice tidy "to be dealt with later" stack), this week I will list my buddies truck, get the last 2 bits of bill crud done, then fill out some more paperwork to transfer an old 401k into a different plan, and finally call my real estate agent to start the process of finding a house.

I have mixed emotions about house shopping. One on the one hand I am excited to finally be in my own place again, with a garage, and room enough for all my belongings, but I am also dreading the dogged determination that one is required to have to REALLY find the right house for the right price and to make it happen. ugggghhhh....

Anyway, sorry for the life interlude. Oh one more thing. If you go and check out Le Supar Goobar's blog and you will see that he clearly has too much free time on his hands. just loko at those posts. informative, thoughtful, thought provoking, well written, and clearly something you actually WANT to read and in the case of his music post go and listen to each and every one of the youtube's he posts up. I wish I had that kind of time, I am thinking its time someone was given more house chores or something!

Ok, for real, back to the car. To make a long story short, one must get an out of state car smogged upon first entrance into CA without fail, no matter what the DMV website misleads you to believe. I just re-read it, and if I follow the links a different way I can see now that you DO need a smog. Well one thing I learned is that my 2006 Audi uses the CAN system for the OBD port, and that means the smog machine wont read through the OBD port, which is a pain in the ass, because it is DAMN hard to find any place else to clamp a reader to so you can grab the RPMs of the motor.

Long story short = I have the plate I want 4RINGS4 coming in 90 days, and my fees were just shy of $2k. Brutal, Oregon is looking more attractive, no?

On another car related note. I am bringing my car into Eurocode tuning (yes the place that dicked me around, will post about that later) on Monday, and have ordered the following parts;

• ECS Slotted Zinc Plated OEM 1 piece Rotors front and rear
• Porterfield R4S brake pads, front and rear
• Stainless lines
• JHM SHort Shifter
• AWE Exhaust (sitting in my living room looking sexy)
• Caliper rebuild / Seal kits for all 4 corners
• New Spring Retention Clips for front calipers
• 20 new shiny Lug Bolts

So, got the S4 back, and it now has a new Power Steering pump! :)

So the weird power steering noise turned out to be a pump. Which is a shaft driven job, and requires the subframe to be dropped. Sounds like a serious amount of work, is a total hassle, and woudl be damn expensive (dealership cost on parts is somehow $800+, which is unfathomable to me).

Suffice it to say, Audi paid for this one, and while they had my car for 3 days I had the joy of driving a rental Toyota Corolla LE. I can honestly say there is only ONE redeeming quality to this car. Its trunk is massive for a small car, but other than that it is a completely unenjoyable car to drive. I mean, really blaze'. Its not comfortable, the throttle and brakes are horrible, and its gearbox is about as crappy as a gearbox can be. I have to say, little econobox automatic civics dont feel this bad. I NEVER ever want to own one of these cars. Ever.

All the different cars I have driven on the track....

So I was thinking about all the different cars I have turned laps in on the track, here is what I can remember;

• 1999 BMW M Coupe (mine)
  
• 2002 BMW 330ci (mine)
• Mitsubishi Lancer Evo 8 (Will's)
• 2008 Mitubishi Lancer Evo X (P's)
• 2002 Subaru WRX (Andrews)
• Gen 1 White Miata (Kevin's)
• Gen 1 Brocolli and Licorice Miata (Andrews)
• White Monte Carlo (Mr. Hertz's)
• BMW 328i (Mr. Hertz's)
• 1987 Toyota Supra Turbo (Rave Boys)
• 2003? Scion XB (Duffs)
• 2004 Honda S2000 (a students)

The only 2 I have really spent a lot of time with though are the first 2, the M Coupe and the 330ci. Those are the 2 I would feel the most comfortable with on a track, though the M Coupe was a long time ago, and I was only just beginning my track addiction back then.

Got the S4 back from the dealership.

Some stuff fixed, a little bit not fixed, and now a new problem.

First off, I LOVE factory warranties, you can bring your car in every week and have all the little things fixed free of charge, its great! I need to look into an extended warranty, because I want to be able to do this for the life of the car if I can!

Almost all of my warranty items are little, but hey, if its free use the crap out of it I say!

So this time around here is what I had fixed;

• Milky chrome trim replaced with shiny perfect chrome trim. (This was a decent sized job, as all the windows had to come out of the doors, panels off, special side airbag seals replaced, etc.)
• creaking coming from underneath car (turns out it is the left front wheel bearing, and they said they couldnt hear it, hah!)
• Glove box lid replaced (the right hing was starting to break, replaced for free, solid!)

Now the things they couldn't / didn't fix.

• The 2nd gear stickyness when you are powershifting into 2nd from 3rd or 4th. Basically they say that is normal in all S4's, and that even if it wasn't it wouldn't be covered under warranty because it is just an adjustment issue. Whatever, no biggie, I want to get a short shift kit anyway!

NEW problems that just showed up.

• Something is awry with my power steering now. At very low speeds it goes from super soft to less soft, and makes a groaning noise. Its not horrible, and its not consistent, if I had to hazard a guess I would say the power steering belt is slipping. maybe its a tensioner, maybe its some grease on the belt, either way its going back to have them figure out the issue and fix it!
  

Thunderhill Track Day April 11th - Recap

So I flew up to the bay area and went to a Thunderhill track day on Saturday April 11th ran by Speedventures. It was really quite a fun day, SuperGoober, Timmy, and myself all drive, and the Acupuncturist and Duff came along for rides. Duff had never received rides before on the track, and I think he really enjoyed it.

SuperGoober drove his Evo X of course, Timmy drove the 87 cherry Supra, and I borrowed a car from a friend named Hurts (you figure it out). It was a rear drive 4 door sedan, not japanese and not american,and somewhat underpowered and under tired for its 3600 curb weight. Plus of course it was an automagick slushy gearbox, which basically meant the car was not nearly as fun as you would think it woudl be.

I actually only drive it for I think 3 sessions, and put some time in the Evo X (some VERY cautious and careful laps, no shennanigans this time, nothing more than 6/10ths this time around). I mean I hit the limiter maybe once or twice, and hammered it in the straights, but was very cautious with my braking and my turn entry speeds. I also turned some laps in the Duff's Scion XB "the box". I have to say, that car is a frickin hoot to drive on the track. Now it could definitely use another 50-100HP, but even with its 105-120HP it was more fun than the not japanese/not american 'borrowed' sedan. It had more handling than power, and the sedan had more power than handling, and it didnt have THAT much power (well twice as much as the box now that I think about it!).

Duff has done some work on the box, not a lot, but with our guidance has done what really makes sense. I believe his list of mods is comprised of the following;

• Exhaust work (maybe cat back, maybe just a muffler, either way it sounds decent.
• Axxiss Ultimate Brake Pads.
• ATE Super Blue Brake Fluid.
• Lowering Springs.
• Cold Air Intake?
• Lighter than stock wheels with some decent aggressive street tires on them.
  

The bottom line is that car was pretty damn flat, and handled really well, its shape/form would lead you to believe it is top heavy, but in fact it feels quite flat when driving it at the limit. I would love to get one, retrofit a 300HP v6 or v8 Lexus/toyota motor behind the front seats, convert it to rear drive, and then replace the rear drums with discs and just show up everybody at the track who thinks a 'box' cant be fast!

I really can't report anything more on the sedan, other than I need my own damn track car, I want something I can REALLY learn with. I want a car that's MINE and one I can learn inside and out, get a bunch of track days under my belt with it, and start exploiting the limits of capabilities. With 'borrowed' cars, from people named Hurts and Dohlar it's really hard, and even borrowing your buddies cars it tough. You really don't want to break your buddies cars and need to take it easy in them, especially the nonsense fast ones like the EVO X!

So back to the EVO X. The Goob turned his fastest lap ever at Thunderhill, a fairly impressive 2:16.100. Buttttttt, I keep telling him Lap Times don't mean very much, as was made clear by the fact that he said this was a HIGH DRAMA super dirty lap, and he beyind his comfort level. i.e. he was driving at probably 9/10ths and really having to be ultra focused on what he was doing. He and I talked about his 2:16 and my 2:16 (and my best time, a 2:16.391 was slightly slower than his best time of the day). What he said was "You went out and had a drama free 2:16 driving at 6/10ths and my lap of the same time was a mess and I was on the edge of control". That can be explained in 1 simple sentence;

"50+ track days vs. 7 track days"

I am by no means a pro, far from it, but I have done probaly 1750-2500 laps at thunderhill, and I feel like I know it decently well (I still feel like I need a few thousand more to REALLY REALLY know the track) whereas the Goob has only been there 3 times!

I think if I owned the EVO X that he has, and got to know the car, and pushed it I could probaly turn consistent 2:12's in it, and maybe get down into the 2:10's with some seriously hot (and at the egde) laps.

You can see the EVO's lap times here. Anything in the Blue Group is SuperGoober and anything in the Black Group is me, you can see I only turned 4 laps in the car, and was really self concious and nervous for the first 2 since last time I drove the car I frickin spun!

Here is a video of me turning my 2:16 lap. There was so much wind noise I just put a soundtrack over the top of it so you wouldnt go crazy watching it!

Here is one of SuperGoober's sessions with me passengering. Note: This is NOT when he turns his fastest lap, instead he is working on some good lines, consistent braking, and smooth driving. [NOTE: This is his whole session, is not edited, has horrible wind noise, and ultimately will be extremely boring to the average person!]

I have a choice to make about brakes.

So I have decided to do some upgraded brakes, this will be the first time I actually bother buying slotted and 2 piece rotors. I have always gone the route of stock rotors with better pads. Sometimes even switching rotors and pads in the front when I get to the track, and it has worked really well for me. But this time I figured what the hell I am going to go all out, and if not a big brake kit up front at least really nice 2 piece rotors, some stainless lines (which is a necessity), better pads (an intermediate pad in this case), and high performance fluid.

OPTION 1
I have the option of getting my hands on an ECS Stage 4 big brake kit. This consists of 6 piston monobloc Brembo manufactured Porsche Cayenne calipers, Special Stainless lines, Hawk HPS pads, and floating 2 piece rotors. The kit that I am potentially going to buy has red calipers (not as cool as Black ones if you ask me), and crossdrilled+slotted rotors (which is lame IMO, the slotted's look better to me). The retail on the kit is $1900+Shipping (which is probably $75 or so). I am able to buy these for $1080 shipped, but there is some question as to just exactly what condition they are in. I am awaiting pictures before I pull the trigger and sent the guy his money. Here is what the kits look like; linkypoo

Now if I go with these brakes I am also going to buy matching ECS rear floating rotors, which are about the most expensive rear brake disk you can buy for a B7 S4. They also cost $360 to get re-ringed, which doesn't include the shipping costs to send ECS your hat, and then to have ECS ship you back the entire rotor. You NEED to send it to them, as they will not allow you to replace it yourself (which makes sense given their design of the product). This is what they look like; das link

Here is a link to their definition of their True Float Technology. Which to me looks very cool as these are true floating rotors and not simply 2 piece rotors.

Now there is a concern with this setup. These were meant to be mounted on the FRONT of a caliper, and not the back. The pistons on these go from small to large in the rotation of the wheel, but ONLY when mounted on a Porsche, not when mounted on an Audi. Now engineers (such as my buddy PZ) tell you that it is important to have the smallest piston hit the pad first for proper and even pad wear, heat dissipation, and for maximum leverage against the rotor. These will be going largest to smallest, which is an engineering no-no. So the big question is;

Is this a significant problem, or a minor one? i.e. Will the brakes get 20% hotter, will the pistons be clamping with a 50%-30%-20% pressure on pistons 1-2-3 instead of 33%-33%-33%, will the pads wear unevenly, will they brake better or worse than a stock with the same model brake pad? If the answer is yes, it will be worse wearing, more heat producing, and will stop less then I had better stay away, but if the answer is the opposite I am pretty sure its a GREAT deal.

Option 1 Plusses;

• Great deal ($1080 vs. $1980)
• Looks pretty cool (HUGE Porsche brakes seldom look anything but cool!)
• Rotors are about the nicest ones you can buy
• Already comes with HPS pads (I hope, he knows they are Hawk's, but thats it)
  

Option 1 Minuses;

• Potentially in bad condition (I would be at least the 4th owner)
• I am not a big fan of the RED, or the cross drillled/slotted rotors.
• If I do this I feel like I NEED to buy the ECS rears to match as opposed to the JHMs (ECS happen to be the best quality 2 piece rotor there is)
• No idea if pad wear / heat will be better or worse, and if they will stop better or worse

OPTION 2
This is what I would call a Stage 2 upgrade. Stage 1 would be pads/lines/fluid with stock rotors. Stage 1.5 would be to have the calipers powdercoated, and this is the replacement of LINES, ROTORS, PADS, FLUID, and then the powdercoating of the calipers.

This is the cheapest proposition of all 3, but still higher end than anything I have done on any past cars. With this option I would be having all 4 calipers powder coated (or maybe just painted, and, probably silver), put 2 piece non-floating rotors on, replace the pads with the same Hawk HPS compound I would be using if I went with the porsche BBK option, add some ECS stainless lines, and then a fluid replacement.

JHM makes a beautiful 2 piece rotor that while not being floating is still an aluminum hat with a steel machined ring. They said that the re-ringing of the fronts would be about $300 or the rears $250. Which is substantially less than the ECS offering. I still really like the way these look, and MUST be better than running the stock rotors that are all 1 piece, all steel, and weigh 10 pounds more than these in the front.

Its not like the stock front calipers are small, far from it, they are just big, heavy, cast, 1 piston numbers, and if I had my way I would run the stock RS4 brakes which are 8 piston with floating 2 piece rotors stock! They are badass, and I simply can not find anyplace in the states that sells them.

Option 2 Plusses;

• Least expensive option, but still damn nice. Lines are cheaper, rotor rings are cheaper.
  
• Looks amazing, silver powder coated calipers with these cross drilled rotors would look GREAT!
• A known commodity, no question of whether or not the calipers brake well, wear well, overheat, etc.
  
• A good solid setup, no trickery, very stock, only parts upgraded are the non mechanical ones. Warranty would be affected the least.
• Can easilly sell the car with these parts on it and not worry about the "modded factor".

Option 2 Minuses;

• Not as trick as a 6 piston setup.
• Doesnt look as cool as huge monobloc 6 piston Porsche/Audi brakes.
• Potentialy doesnt stop as well as the 6 piston Porsche setup.
• Probably stops just about the same as a stock setup with HPS pads. Rotors for looks and heat dissipation on track, and stainless lines for pedal feel.
  

OPTION 3

Option 3 is very similar to option 1, the main difference being I might be able to get my hands on some Q7 Calipers for maybe $550 or $650. These are (supposedly) identical to the Cayenne calipers but are in a satin grey finish, and dont say Porsche all over them and advertise with huge shiny redness. These supposedly only have 100 miles on them (i.e. were on a Q7 for 100 miles before it received a big brake upgrade kit). With this kit I would be buying all the parts new (pads, rotors, lines) and could pick the style rotor I really like. You can see that it still costs less than even the cheapest normal big brake kit (i.e. Stoptech), which only covers the fronts!

Option 3 Plusses;

• I get actual AUDI calipers that are stealthy and cooler than the porsche
• I can buy JUST the slotted rotors for both front and rear
• All parts except calipers are brand new
  

Option 3 Minuses;

• Almost $2500 on brakes!
  
• If I do this I feel like I NEED to buy the ECS rears to match as opposed to the JHMs (ECS happen to be the best quality 2 piece rotor there is)
• No idea if pad wear / heat will be better or worse, and if they will stop better or worse
  

Impressions of 2009 A4 2.0T Quattro loaner car.

So last week I dropped of the Avant at the Audi Dealership and they took care of some issues for me, namely;

• They fixed the sagging shift boot (i.e. the shift knob had its shaft broken so the boot was loose and the knob could be pulled straight off of the shift shaft). According to Audi they replaced the whoel shifter, which is weird to me, as all they needed was a new shift knob, whatever.
  
• There was a rock in the passenger door window slit and it scratched the hell out of my front passenger door window. They did that for free, kind of cool.
• The 4 chrome pieces that are on the outside of the 4 doors are milky and discolored, they actually warrantied those!
• I had this error "Right dipped headlight" 2 times, but it is gone now and they couldn't find any fault, just hope it happens and stays on before my warranty is up.

The 2 things they say they cant find are;

• Crackling/creaking comeine from the front suspension at any low speed under any circumstances. Tomorrow I take the shop forman out and show him what I am talking about.
• Shifting from 3rd or 4th into 2nd is sticky. Basically when you shift from 1->2 you go straight down, so its not a problem, but when you shift hard from 3rd or 4th you are putting a lot of LEFT pressure on the shifter, and it gets stuck at this little spur or notch or something. According to the guy that owns Ingelstadt West its no big deal and just needs to be adjusted.

OK, about the loaner car. Well it was a 2009 A4 2 liter turbo with quattro. My first impression is that it must have CVT because you cant feel the shifts, well unless you floor it and need to wait a full second for it to drop down a gear, man I hate automatics.

It is surprisingly fast, like really qute fast for a 2 liter. I was actually really impressed by it. That might be because it produces 258 lb. ft of torque. The exterior and interior are not very impressive to me. Audi used to be (just like bimmer used to be) all about smooth svelte and beautiful lines. This car is all angular and funky. To me the B7 -> B8 genesis is exactly like the BMW e46 -> e90 genesis. Perfect muscular, yet svelete, and classy lines turned into angular nonsense. The interior's of Audi's have always been spartan but slean, beautiful, and really nice to look at. The new one is well, just funky. too many weird shapes and different disparat ideas going on. There is no unity to it. I like my car's interior so much better. I would pass on buying this car on the lackluster and unattractive interior alone. I will admit I do really like the 3 knob layout. 1 nice large control screen that handles everthing for the car. 1 knob for climate controls, 1 for stereo navigation, and 1 little one close to your right hand for stereo power and volume. Thats a good layout. The key is funly too, exactly like the new bimmers the key fob IS the key, you slide it into a slot and then push the entire fob which starts the car.

One feature I HATE is the electric parking brake. You pull up on a little switch, this engages the brake, and then you push down on it to disengage it. Its heinous. If you are fusting around and pull on it at speed your parking brake goes from full off to full on. No more E-Brake slides, or even using it in little doses if you happen to lsoe your brakes. Very very lame.

handling its not bad, the steering is a bit soft, and the brakes are epic as all Audi brakes seem to be nowadays.

Ultimately if I was going to spend that kindf of money I would buy a B7, or any of the other 7 manufacturers cars that pretty much look the same and drive the same as this one.

Some 'interesting' cars seen today.

These aren't anything all special, but check out this doozy!

Now here is something I find VERY interesting. If you buy a $80k+ Aston martin you wont get actual directionally vaned rotors. They simply have 1 rotor and just use it for the left side and right. Can you frickin believe that?!?! I mean an $80,000 sports car and they cant manufacture a left and a right rotor? Thats nonsense. I guess thats why they are really GT cars and not true sports cars. So sad :(

Success and Some failure modding the S4 today.

First off, I started my saturday by waking up at 7:30 so I could make an 8:30 appointment at Ingolstadt West, an independent Audi tuner that does APR brand ECU tunes. You see, APR is having this ludicrous sale, $100 off any tune, and that means you get a an ECU tune for $499 for my car, which is darn cheap. Now there are some reasons I picked the APR tune over say GIAC, Revo, Neuspeed, etc. Now arguably the APR is one of the more civilized i.e. conservative tunes out there, but considering you can't really get much from a naturally aspirated V8 anyway, it kind of doesnt matter, there are some features of the APR software I realy like, and the clencher was this guys great posting about his independant chicp comparison. "Justincredibles great comparison test".

Now some of the features I really like about APR are this;

• $500 gets your 4 tunes (for instance, STOCK, 91 OCTAINE, 93 OCTAINE, VALET MODE).
• FREE - Fault Code Erase :: Erases Fault ECU Fault Codes
• FREE - Anti-Theft :: Disables Throttle to Render Vehicle Inoperable
• Linear throttle mapping (i.e. no cheating by having 20% pedal equal 35% throttle which is lame IMO).
• You can change the tunes using the CRUISE CONTROL STALK!

So, on with my story. I get to Ingle West and Ian the owner comes out to help me program my car. Well, he plugs in his trusty computer, and the APR software is supposed to identify my ECU and then give me the option of which of the 4 tunes I want. Well it can identify my ECU at all. Hmmm, strainge. So he/I spend the next hour looking through every single tune they offer and low and behold they dont have the North America B7 S4 in there at all!?!?! WTF?!? They list it on their website as having a tune available. They DO have 1 2007 S4, but its the euro S4 with tiptronic. So me thinks something must have gotten screwed up with their database and somehow the B7 S4 is no longer in it. There are LOTS of guys with these cars, and many of them have the APR tune (at least I think they do), so that's quite weird. So Ian is cool though, he is going to call APR Monday morning, and find out if they can do a custom tune (considering my car is essentially identical to the B6 S4 which they DO have a tune for) or if they have a B7 S4 tune to put it back online, and he will make sure I get the discount pricing which expires next Friday.

So that started my day with a (non)epic fail. There were some neat cars there as well. A TTS with some huge turbo kit putting out like 440HP out of a 2.0 Turbo! Then Ian has the Red S5. I like this car, but damn the wheels have got to go, just totally not my style at all!

Then it was on to the tinting place. As it turns out both of these places were in the valley, so it wasnt that far between one and the other. Also, the tinting place is this little whole in the wall that came very highly recommended by Audizine / Audiworld members, so I thought I would give it a try. Well it happens to be right across from the street from StickerCity, which is the place I had some vinyl film put on the Elise, and is also the place I bought my headlight clear kit from for the S4. So it just felt right.

Anyway this tint was place was PACKED at 11am on a Saturday. They totally have their act together, they have a beautiful waiting room, with knowledgeable girls checking people in quick style, they walk you through your tint options and tell you 90 minutes to have it done. I chatted with thema bit, they do between 25-40 jobs EVERY SINGLE DAY THEY ARE OPEN! This is unheard of for a tint place. They are clearly raking in the dough. There were ALL SORTS of beautiful cars there, the local Audi and Aston Martin dealerships send cars there all the time. I saw a brand new Q5, a DB9, about 3 S550/S63AMG/S500 Mercedes, an Audi S5, M3, etc. etc. etc. So 4 dudes worked on my car and the owner would pop his head in to make sure it was all going smoothly. Bottom line, these dues are so crazy skilled its ridiculous. I could put tint on, but it woudl turn out just OK, and would take me 6 hours. These guys know all the tricks, and are really fun to watch work.

It was $165 for 7 windows, and I chose 35% for the rear 5, and 50% for the driver/passenger doors. I didn't want to go too dark, because I hate it when you cant see out of your back window at night, but I think I might have gone a bit too light. I will have to see how it gorws on me. Its a beautiful job, and if I think I shoudl go darker I might do just the back 3 windows with 20% film. We will see. Here is a pic of the dudes working on it in their itsy bitsy work bay;

Here is what it looks like with the windows tinted. You be the judge if this is enough tint.

Then, since I was next door I decided to bring the car into the guys at Sticker City and have my door edge guards and headlight film I have previously bought from them installed. These are all things I can do myself, easilly. But who knows when I will get around to it, and I figured crap, i might as well just pay and have it done. Its a rip off to have someone do this for you, but if I got a rock chip and had to replace my headlight before I got around to it I woudl be so pissed I didnt do just that (pay for the install that is).

Some good has come out of my Eurocode debacle..

A LOT of people have responded to my post (see the last blog entry) about my non-responsiveness with a shop I was willing to give $3000-$4000 to. One of the best things to come out of it is a personal email from the owner of another very highly recommended shop that he can totally take care of all my needs. The downside is that they are NOWHERE near where I live, but I think I am going to have to live with that, if this guy has competitive pricing, and is willing to do exactly what I want and is as cool as he appears to be, it will be worth the 30+ mile drive and having to go there on weekends, leaving my car, getting a rental, etc.

It was like gong to Bill Arnold Independent BMW Service when I lived in San Mateo. He was a good 45 miles from where I lived, and over the GG Bridge, but worth every trip because he is a badass, is willing to work with you, has good pricing, and really knows his shit and is a great guy. Worth all the hassle in my book.

So it looks like I will be giving AE Performance a ring soon and seeing if they can handle my needs.

On another note El Super Goober gave me an instant epiphany the other day. 'Don't tell a shop your list of to dos and expect them to remember it, write it down for them so they dont forget or miss even one of your items'. Brilliant, simply brilliant!

Here is a link to AE's website, no guarantees I am using them yet, but given the guys cool email to me they are at the very top of my list!