ian

OK, I know I'm going to get laughed at.. :-) I've had a noticeable fall in fuel economy recently - so I replaced the air filter, cleaned the spark plugs, checked the fuel lines, replaced the fuel filter (all things that needed doing) - no change. So the next obvious thing (after cleaning the AFM which I'll do next weekend) is to clean the fuel injectors. But I don't want to take them out myself, so I did a search for a place in Melbourne that would... I was surprised that lubemobile came up near the top of the google search - and they say they clean them 'in place' ie http://www.lubemobile.com.au/Content_Commo...ter-Service.seo Has anybody used this and can tell me if it is OK? They specifically list skylines on their web site, but I'm a bit nervous.. Alternatively, can someone recommended an inner city (if possible) Melbourne workshop who would do them for a reasonable price? Ian

Mine (A1rm) have been in two weeks now and are squealing like a stuck pig at slow speeds. They brake great, are nicely progressive, and I really like them - apart from if you are doing less than 10km/h and they have warmed up.... I'm going to give them another week then may have to pull them out, as the whole street can tell when I get home at the moment...

I've got a r34 4 door, and a S2 rs4s stagea - and the wife much prefers the stagea even though it's the first manual she has driven in years. I also tried her in a legnum - but she preferred the stage to that too.. The two top reasons she give is 1) stability and control in the wet, and 2) carrying room - as you can put a hell of a lot of stuff in a stagea! It's the only way I've got her out of those horrible '4wd' cars she used to drive (CRV etc) - which I hated.. So either go for a late C34 (mine is late 2001, I got it in 2005. If you're in Melb your welcome to have a look), or a m35.. Ian

I ordered a pair this afternoon, so I'll post my experience with them next week. I've never had noisy brakes, so they aren't going to be in for long if they are - but it seems not to be a too common experience with them.... (I say hopefully ) Ian ps I think I still have the original ones on my skyline, and it's done 140K.. But they do need replacing now!! I almost just ordered standard nissan ones, but I decided to try the a1rm's instead...

thanks - they look good so I might give them DJM a ring tomorrow. Ian

DJM? Ian

I've been reading the brake pad thread (ie http://www.skylinesaustralia.com/forums/Br...s-t169972.html) and really need new pads.. Does anyone know somewhere in Melbourne that is not going to stuff me around eg telling me the disks need machining even if they don't (but will if they really do!) etc? I'm a bit worried about going to a random Brakes Plus... Ian

My understanding (it's in another post somewhere..) from a tuning place that looked under my S2 rs4s is that it has the GTR back axles etc. So if you can find someone scrapping one of those and can grab the parts... Ian

I'd say he is talking crap, as a turbo timer shouldn't cause such a massive current flow! Ian

Why can's she learn in a stagea? Th stagea I bought my wife is the first manual she has ever driven, and she is fine with it!

I've put a 'pivot x' meter in my r34, and have also had it plugged into my RS 4S - while they don't sell the 'x' anymore, they do have a 'z' ie http://pivotjp.com/product/flame-speed.html What it does is 1) show the speed, 2) show 400m time and a few other bits and pieces like max speed, and 3) at speeds above 180km/h still sends 180km/h pulses to the ECU - ie it has defeated the speed limiter... To make sure it was calibrated right, I stuck the car on the rollers and tested it over the range 0 to 240km/h - it was spot on with the speed from the computer on the rollers - BUT the car speedo was between 3km/h and 5/kmh over reading ie when I was doing 97km/h it showed 100km/h, and when I was doing 165km/h the car speedo showed 170. This fits with what I've done with the consult port - the pulses coming out of the ECU are more accurate than what is shown on the speedo - so I suspect they have deliberately built in a positive bias in. (Note - I have stock wheels, and the same size tires that came as standard...) One more thing from above - there is NO way the blitz (or any other) software can adjust the speedo through the consult port - as there is no command in the protocol to do it... Ian

Sorry to sound like a broken record (again) but the reason that the cost here is so much higher is simple.. 1) taxes, specifically the LCT which all cars pay and does nothing to 'protect' the 'local' assemblers 2) Even more importantly, the anti anticompetitive import laws that stop you importing cars - this allows manufactures to sell cars at widely different prices in different markets. The price they sell it at virtually has nothing to do with what it costs to make - it's at what price they will maximize their profit. Often, as someone commented above, this means making sure a new car doesn't compete with an existing one... With every other thing you buy in Australia, it doesn't work like this, as you are allowed to import just about everything else - so if the local distributer charges too high a price, you can just bring it in yourself from where they sell it cheaper.. With cars you aren't allowed to do this, something that makes the car manufacturers very happy.... Ian

Are they still doing free to air broadcasts in Aus? I hadn't noticed...

It might be for you, but not for me! I not only wouldn't care if every car on the road was a GTR, I'd be happy! Having something that other people want, but can't have, isn't a positive for me, it's a negative. And my fun of having a toy isn't diminished by them having it as well.. Ian

Do you mean 1) buy an import or 2) get one through jspec? I can't answer (2) 'cause I haven't used them, but if it is (1) I'd say go for it. I've imported a few cars now, and even with the hassle of the paper work and things disappearing from the car in shipping, it has been worth it. Though you really need to know what the local market has, so that you know what is going to be a good deal to import.. And then don't hurry, wait for exactly what you want...

yep - don't touch the car you mentioned with a barge pole, even if it is cheap... Ian

I agree entirely - they can sell them however they want to, to who ever they want to, for whatever price they want to. Absolutely their right, 100%. What isn't their right is then to tell the person they sold it to NOT to sell it to someone else or NOT to import it into another country or NOT.... Once they have sold it, their rights on saying what happens to it next SHOULD be non existent..

Of course they could! First, shoot the horse. Next load the horse into the cart. The say 'what was the question again?'

Which is the whole point of my original and subsequent post. Even if you accepted the argument that you need all this 'compliance' stuff, why wouldn't you let individuals (or other companies) bring in the SAME cars that the 'official' importer is allowed to bring in! Thus the words 'monopoly imports' above! In fact, the phrase I should be using is 'monopoly import racket' Ian

Actually, there is a direct parallel - electrical goods (using 240v) can kill you, and burn down your house etc ie are just as dangerous as a car is. However, we trust that something that meets (say) the UK electrical standards is safe enough to use here. It should be the same for cars. I personally have no problems driving a car that has passed the Japanese design standards, or the UK ones, or the USA ones, or the German ones, ... or the Australian ones. So if a car meets the design standards of a country we are happy with (there would be a list) AND can pass the local road worthy test, we should be allowed to own it and import it.. But yes, you're right, we have been through all this before. And I agree that the side that wanted to pay more money for less choice has effectively won for now.. Nope, found out what it meant decades ago. I use it as it is the right word, and it is pretty rare in Australian import rules. The only other one I can think of right now is the drug (legal) import rules. Hmm, I suspect - though again, maybe I'm wrong - that if we have them officially imported and a handful or two are sold, vs if they weren't officially imported and we had 10 times that number because they were cheaper (just guessing what the multiple would be) - that the 'support' would be much better in the latter situation! You just have to look around for the level of support that's around if you have a r33 or r34 gtr - it's not exactly hard to get parts or to find workshops who can do things with them! In the old days (pre internet and easy ability to get parts from anywhere in the world..) I think you would have been right. And yes, I agree with you - if you value exclusivity (which I don't, but I know other people do) it's much better for Nissan to officially bring them in. Anyway, I stand by my original comment, it's a pity they are bring them in. Although I will add a big UNLESS we can still privately import them, or even better Nissan sell them for the same margin a Japanese dealer would and they do come on the market at a similar price to what we could import them ourselves for - I think that would be a very smart move for Nissan and would help them a lot, but I suspect they aren't going to do it... Ian

Simply not true. Yes, there were dodgy cars coming in. But that could easily have been stopped without giving the importers monopoly rights. I'd say that the only people who LIKE the current laws are people making money from buying compliance 'slots' and selling them. If I can walk into a dealer in Japan - ie retail - and buy a car, put it on a boat (retail again), and bring it here much cheaper than the manufacturer wants to sell it to me, why shouldn't I be allowed to? The manufacturer has made it's money (in Japan) a dealer has made their money (also in Japan) and I've ended up with a car the same (or sometimes better) than what they will bring in to the country. For just about every other product in Australia you can do that. But not cars. Why not?? For example, if you don't like what the hi fi stores have, get it overseas and bring it in yourself (my speakers came from canada, my amp from the usa, my CD player from the UK), or if you don't like what the local camera store has, buy it somewhere else - all of my cameras, up until a few years ago, came either from Japan or the USA. The only reason they don't now is that local camera stores picked up their socks both in terms of what they offered and the price they offered it for.. Because of the competition.. The same would be true for cars. If there was actual competition in imports, you'd see a massive improvement in what you could buy, and how much you were paying for it... And if you want to protect the local assemblers (which I wouldn't, but that's a different topic), the way to do that properly is tariffs, not import monopolies. Ian

Actually, I think the opposite is true. We have very bad import rules ie the 30 year monopoly rule, and unlike other countries we aren't big enough internally to get any real competition going... And compliance isn't really about quality, it's about restricting the number of imports, and increasing the costs. We should go the same as NZ, ie remove all import restrictions. Back to the GTR - if we can get a date 'window' through SEVS ie 2008, that would be really good. And if we can get a window through on the 'models' that would be good too - though I suspect (I don't know that there are going to be enough gtr models to do that one). Lets hope I'm wrong! Ian

It's sad that Nissan Aus is bringing the new GTR in - as that means most of us won't be buying one ever.. I suspect the main reason they are bringing them in is so that we can't import them via the SEVS scheme, as once they have brought a few in - and sold them for silly prices - we won't be able to.. ie they are going to sell them for $150K (or higher). Yet, if they didn't bring them in and get monopoly protection, we could buy a 2 minute old one for say 8M yen. Using the calc at http://www.prestigemotorsport.com.au/modules/costCalc2/ shows we could probably get it in our driveway for $105K.. And when they got a few years old (they will depreciate fairly fast in Japan, as all cars there do..) it won't be long before we could get one in our driveway for $70 to $80K, and $50K isn't too many years away... In contrast, when Nissan Aus brings them in and sells them with another $50K markup (on top of the Japanese nissan markup, and the Japanese dealer markup) at $150k, not only will most of us not be able to afford that, they are going to depreciate much slower as well in this protected market.. So they probably are never going to be reasonably priced.. So unless we get law changes (to remove the monopoly import rights) I don't think many of us in Aus are ever going to own a r35gtr... The only good thing (for us) about the R35 GTR release is that we can still bring in r34 GTRs (we are lucky nissan aus didn't bring a few in to stop us doing that..) and their price is going to drop noticeably in the next few years.. :-) :-( Ian

back in melb finally, and did a quick search of this thread to see who had been spotting who :-) Every time someone has been seen driving a bayside blue S2 in Victoria it has been mine! :-) Maybe I've got the only one in Vic! And if there has been an asian girl driving it don't panic, that's the wife - it's 'her' car as I normally go out in the skyline (she prefers the stagea).

I've got the rwd r34 skyline, and the awd stagea rs4s. Same engine, turbo etc in both.. So I can tell you - yes you will have traction control. But all that does is take the foot of the gas for you! And you may have already gone sideways a meter! Even with 245/45 tires on the back of my skyline, if I go around a round about in the very wet, and put the foot down even a little bit (not remotely hooning) on the way out, the back will slide.. In the AWD stagea, you don't NEED traction control, as it's like it runs on rails... Now I agree that sometimes going out and sliding the back of a car around can be fun, years ago I broke 3 back diffs in the one car doing exactly that. However, at night, in the rain, when you aren't expecting it, isn't the time! So if you are looking for a family car, and one the wife will be happy with, get the AWD. If you want to get a car that you will be driving 100% of the time, and having fun stepping the back out at times, by all means get the RWD.. Ian