Category Archives: Car
Subaru Impreza DIY – How to replace front signal light
We love our 2011 Impreza, it’s an excellent car! However, at around 8500 KM under the sudden change of temperature, the left turn signal light died (you can tell from the rapid relay sound when using the signal). Okay, I flipped through the user manual and found this, quote “Front turn signal light: It may be difficult to replace the bulbs. Have the bulbs replaced by your SUBARU dealer if necessary.”
Note that they used the word “may be” and “if necessary”, what does that mean? It means you can DIY for sure. Since I only got the left signal problem, I am going to show you how to do it on left side only, go figure it out yourself if you have the other side problem. Quote “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.”
Wanring: Do not perform the steps if you are have big hands, you will get stuck. So, put your cell phone in your pocket just in case you need to call 911 for fire fighters to save you.
- First you need light bulbs, 1157NA is the bulb you need, around $5 CAD for 2
- Disconnect the battery negative connection by removing the screw
- Remove the battery holder bracket (you need a long socket)
- Move the battery aside (towards the engine) to make space and locate the bulb
- Stick your hand there and remove the bulb holder by turning counterclockwise
- Replace the old bulb with new one
- Put the bulb holder back carefully, make sure the rubber seal is tight when you secure the holder back to the original position
- Put everything else back (bracket and negative battery terminal)
- Done
It took me 20 min to do it for first time, I am not sure why the manual said it’s difficult and it didn’t even tell you how to do it. The simple description on the manual should be: The bulb is hiding in tight space and it requires the removable of battery. Do it at your own risk.
Subaru Impreza DIY – Changing snow tires using center lifting points
Subaru is very similar to stupid Toyota/Lexus, they have the pitch rail design on the side of the lifting point. Read my Venza snow tire article for more information. I am sick of this every time I need to lift up the car, so I need to find the Center lifting points for Impreza.
Before doing anything, detailed research MUST be done properly. So I downloaded the Impreza Mega Manual from Internet, search for “Impreza 99-01 mega manual.pdf” on Google. The manual is for older model 1999-2001 but it’s good enough for reference since basic lifting points does not have major change even for 2011.
There are two major benefits of using center lifting points, first you don’t need that pitch rail adapter which saves you some money, secondly you will be lifting 2 wheels at the same time and this will speed up your tire changing process a lot more. You need to get a good 3-ton floor jack, although 2.5 ton will work on small cars like Impreza, but 3-ton is strongly recommended for safety reason.
If your floor jack does not come with rubber pad for the saddle, you can do one of the following:
- Cut a piece of 2×4 making sure it is perfectly level sitting on the saddle without gap otherwise it will crack
- Buy a piece of rubber called ‘prothane jack pads’ Google it
- Get a hockey puck
It is very important to do this, because bare metal contact will damage the protective coating of your car and it will rust. Since I don’t play hockey and I do have some extra 2×4 around, so I went with the first option.
Tips: If your floor jack is not a low profile model, you may not have enough space to lift up front (back is fine). For workaround, I had to drive the car on a 2×6 to make 1.5″ more space in height. As you see in the photos, this makes swapping summer/winter tires easier.
For snow tires, we re-used the rubber 205/55/R16 from Deb’s old car (which we traded-in for the Subaru), as you can see in the photo of the golden color alloy rims were really old and it had bolt pattern 5-120 mm which does not fit the Impreza, so I had to buy the steel rims to re-mount them. Sigh…. Well, you definitely don’t have to follow what we have done, it will be way cheaper if you go with 15″ instead. Usually it will be better to go smaller size for winter tires -1 (15″) or even -2 (14″) would work provided that there is enough space for the rotor. Read the articles and forums on why smaller size is better in snow.
2009 – 2011 Impreza Information
- Tire pressure: 32 psi front, 30 psi back
- Wheel torque: 65 ft/lb (88 NM) – In user manual, there is a +/- 10 ft/lb range given, 65 ft/lb is the best, read the forums yourself
- Bolt thread size: M12 x 1.25 (Canadian Tire – “Mr. Lug Nuts” for snow tires)
- McGard 24152 Wheel Locks (Tips: Buy from Amazon.com cheap $16.67 US, ship to CBI USA, pick it up when you have time. Hard to find locally coz of 1.25 thread)
- Snow Tires: 205/55/R16 Michelin Primacy Alpin
- Steel Rim: Costco X41657 16″ x 6.5″, Bolt pattern: 5 bolts 100mm (5-100)
Most photos were taking using iPhone resulting in poor quality, some were taking using DSLR as you can tell.
Yokohama 神者撚 撚太撚 Snow Tires finally arrived for our Venza
I pre-ordered a set of Michelin winter tires a month ago, last week they told me that it was still on back order and there was no ETA when will it arrive. Okay… the other option is to use Yokohama instead. What’s good about Yokohama? I don’t know, well it’s made in Japan! Also, after watching 古天樂 TV commercial 神者撚 撚太撚 on YouTube, I will give it a try.
Since this is October in 2009, I don’t need to install them so early but I wanna give it a try on one of the wheels to make sure they fit (you will never know). Also, I want to test out my new toy I bought from Internet – floor jack adapter. Because all Toyota/Lexus have a stupid design called “pinch rail” on the lifting points along the side of the car, without the adapter you will ruin the rail so badly (I had that experience with my Dad’s old car). Well, the other option is to lift the car from the center on the front/back axle.
Update (1) – Installed (Nov, 2009)
I installed the snow tires in mid of November. As usual, I put anti-seize on the surface of the hub, however never put it on the thread of the bolts – this is a good practise to prevent the wheel from getting stuck in Spring when you take them off. The cheap nuts that Toyota dealer gave me sucked badly, I threw them in the garbage and I replaced them with McGard. They are so damn expensive, according to my research the following fits Venza steel rims:
- McGard 64002 13/16″ hex, M12 x 1.5, cone seat
- McGard 64012 3/4″ hex, M12 x 1.5, bulge cone seat
To protect the center from rusting, you can buy a plastic cap. Toyota dealer carries the center cap for $50 each, so it comes out to be around $200. Holy crap, I didn’t bother. If you really want them, search in “Cheap Toyota Parts” or “Trade Motion” for “2009 Rav 4″ > “Wheels” > “Center cap” > “Steel Rims”, $28.83 US each.
Update (2) – Lifting using Center Lifting Point (Nov, 2010)
The following year, I found the center lifting point from the service manual (see photo). So I didn’t have to use the pitch rail adapter anymore (you don’t have to buy it), just simply put the 3-ton floor jack properly underneath the axles as shown and you can lift 2 wheels at the same time, this makes the tire changing a lot faster. Make sure you put a piece of 2×4 on top of the saddle (hockey puck works well too), otherwise it will damage the protective coating.
Related articles/projects:
Where did I buy the snow tires?
If you go to Chinese place or Costco, they will give you some ugly black color steel rims for winter tires (like my old Honda prelude). After doing some research on the forums, some people said that aftermarket steel rims don’t fit properly on the center hub for this specific car model, and worse it is too close to the brake caliper. So, I decided to go back to the dealer. With the genuine parts, the steel rim is in silver color, nice! Whole package is $1245 + tax and there is a $50 rebate on top of that! It will cost over 3K for winter tires if I go with original size (20″). Like everyone else on Internet, the dealer suggested downsizing to 17″. The winter tires package does not come with the stupid tire pressure monitoring sensors (I don’t want them), so I expect the TPMS warning light on dash board will come on, but who gives a shit about TPMS? Here is the spec:
- 245/65 R17 Yokohama Geolandar I/T G072
- 42611-0R020-SW (steel rim in silver color)
Reference: Torque on wheel nuts 76 ft/lbs (103 Nm), 32 psi on tires
Why do you need snow tires even for All-Wheel-Drive?
A lot of people ask the same question and they always use the argument “I have been driving with all-season tires for 15 years, I have no problem in winter”. It’s just like saying “I have been smoking for 15 years, I am still alive”. Does it make sense? There are 3 points I want to make and it may change your view:
(1) The rubber for All Season tires becomes hard when temperature is below -7 degree, while snow tires remain flexible for better grip throughout the cold winter, so it has way shorter braking distance to prevent an accident.
(2) Salt will damage the summer alloy wheel so badly (I had that bad experience), so it is wise to have a set of winter steel rims. Unless you are rich and plan to buy a set of new rims.
(3) Quebec has passed the mandatory winter tire law in 2008, all cars need to have snow tires from Dec. 15 to March 15 every year or you will get a $300 ticket. Why is all-wheel-drive not an exception?
When I was young
I remembered when I was young, I used to do a lot of crazy things with my old car. I intentionally put summer tires in winter, so that I could practice fish tail parking and donuts easily in the snow. Since it was a FWD car, I had to abuse the hand brake and it costed A LOT to repair that. Now that I am getting older (really old), safety is more important.
Red Light Camera ticket – $180
Today, I got a mail from Ontario Court of Justice with my name printed on it, I thought I was being selected to do Jury Duty so that I can sentence some mofo to jail and I don’t have to go to work. Very disappointed… after opening the envelope, it was a $180 red light camera ticket instead!!
Last week, Deb fell into one of these traps on the way home after she picked me up, we were on Don Mills turning RIGHT to Finch.. (Note: we were NOT running a red light) Wow.. I didn’t know that fail to stop “long enough” on a right turn would cost that much, I mean $100 would make more sense. It said in red color “Neither demerit points nor a driver’s license suspension will result from your conviction for this offense”, just like photo radar years ago. They are pure making money machines!
New family member arrived – Toyota Venza
After waiting for more than almost 3 months, our new family member Toyota Venza 2009 has finally arrived. It’s an awesome AWD V6 car (268 HP + 246 lb/ft torque) packed with features for a reasonable price. I love the 20″ rims and P245/50 tires, but buying snow tires next season can be very expensive.
The package we order comes with “Backup Camera” and I thought it is totally useless originally. But after using it, my reaction was “WOW”, it has wide angle view and it is extremely precise. Although we didn’t upgrade the audio system to JBL, I am very surprised that the audio quality. As a former car audio person, I am impressed. The bass is pretty solid and high-mid range got no major distortion even I cranked up the music of hardcore hiphop.
In additional to standard features, we added the remote stater simply because Canadian winter is horrible. We also added bluetooth for handsfree cell phone due to new Ontario stupid law that penalizes drivers who “talk and drive”. Worked flawlessly on Deb’s iPhone and my HTC Windows Mobile.
I may add a hitch for towing trailer and bikes, probably next year.
Costco Tire Center damaged the wheel lock
I wasn’t very happy about Costco Tire center coz my wife bought a set of new snow tires for her car and we let them to do the installation. While we were waiting, I got a call on my cell phone from the tire center saying one of the wheel lock got some problems, they could not proceed.
They must have used the impact wrench on the wheel lock to loosen the lug bolts and damaged one of them. For anyone who thinks using the impact wrench is the right way to do it, good luck to you. Quote from the lock manufacturer McGard’s site: “Use of impact guns (pneumatic, electric, etc.) for installation may cause permanent damage to lock and key. Normally McGard does not recommend the use of an impact gun.” Sigh….
Well, they put the new snow tires on the rim, balanced them but couldn’t installed any of them because one of the wheel got stuck. When I picked up my car, they asked me to find some mechanics to fix it. It pissed me off so badly and I talked to the manager but didn’t get any futher, so forget it. I want to show you that even a non-mechanical person can fix this in 5 min.
The Problem: These photos below shows the damaged wheel lock. As you can see half of the threads were “broken” into small pieces. The key wouldn’t able to turn and slipped because of the broken pieces.
My Solution: Since not all the threads are gone, that means it can still have 30-40% grip. The only problem is the tiny broken pieces were blocking the key from gripping. The trick was to remove those broken metal pieces by using a screwdriver until it is clean, as you can see photos below. Then, I put the key in, slightly hammer it and loosen the lock using breaker bar slowly. The lug bolt lock was out easily, DONE!!
Will I ever go back to Costco for tires?
Absolutely NOT. In additional to what I described above, I checked the tire pressure of the new snow tires, they were ALL all wrong @32 psi (I checked it with digital gauge, very precise) - they FAILED to follow the car specification. The car should have pressure of rear: 35psi, front: 30 psi.
My friend bought the same set of tires at the same Costco location last year, hit a nailed and got flatten tire. Costco refused to repair, because they said that it was too close to the wall and tried to sell some new tires to him. My friend told me it was around 1.5 inches to the wall, not sure why it was not repairable. He took it to a tire shop, got it repair for $10. Where is Costco warranty?
Want to read more story? Google this “Consumer complaints about costco tires” and have fun reading tons of stories in the States.
What if all threads were gone?
If all the threads were totally gone, there are alternative solutions. There are products such as CRAFTSMAN Bolt-Out Damaged Bolt/Nut Remover, however the largest it fits is 17mm, it won’t work on this type of lock specifically. Well, that is Craftsman ONLY. However, I am just surprised these professional tires centers don’t have similar tools in their toolbox.
The other solution I can think of is to use a high amp wire feeder and weld the lock to a solid metal rod, well, it is possible to damage the rim although it’s not a bad solution. The last solution is to cut the lock by drilling and/or grinding, and of course the damaged piece will get stucked in the hub, a new hub is needed.
Pioneer CDRB10 Aux Input Adapter Not Working!
After disconnected the battery by Honda for timing belt replacement, my Pioneer head unit couldn’t find the AUX any more! No iPod!! Finally I found a solution on the web that solved the problem:
Solution: Auxiliary input has to be turned on the Pioneer head unit setup menu. With many models you turn the unit off first, then press and hold the Audio key (or function key). You will enter the menu, like clock setting, and keep pressing Audio key and you will see the Auxiliary = Off, turn it on by using the UP arrow.