Kiwi-Corolla

I've had this particular style of LED rear bumper lamps installed for the last 3-years, but after noticing that one of them had moisture inside the lens I decided to swap them out for new ones - And to my surprise, they now do one with a sequential indicator instead of a normal flashing one, so they're even better than before! Here's the video I uploaded to YouTube earlier: https://youtu.be/ty8JQPmolFA

Well guys, it's been almost 2-years since I sold the Aurion, and I'm pleased to say that I bought it back a couple of weeks ago from the same person I sold it to. When I originally sold the Aurion it was a regretful sale, but we were buying our first home and the difference between our offer on the house and what the seller was willing to accept was about the cost of the car, so sadly it had to go. I've wanted it back ever since, so when the opportunity arose to buy it back I decided to take it. She still looks the same as the day I sold her, albeit with a few more km's and stone chips here and there, but for the most part she's exactly as I remember. I also have a Lexus IS350 which I take turns driving to work on alternate days, but they both share the garage together and it's a nice feeling to have the old girl back again.

Well, it's been a week so far and the splitter is still there, without any real damage. I've scraped it on a bunch of entrances etc, despite being extremely careful and taking extreme angles wherever possible, but so far so good. The goal of making it to at least a month could well be achievable, but time will tell ;) Obligatory victory shot:

Thanks Trev :y: Washed it and then chucked this front splitter on today. I bought it from the US 7-months ago, and it has sat in the garage while I've been deciding whether to put it on as the front bumper already scrapes on a daily basis. I decided to throw caution to the wind however and this is the result. The EZ Lip I had already fitted is still there (except now sits flat), which provides a decent contrast between the bumper and splitter. I can't see this thing lasting more than a month before getting destroyed by a driveway or speed bump to be honest, but it beats sitting there collecting dust.

Thanks! :thumbsup:

Happy Friday!

Season's Greetings!

I hear ya'. I originally had a black EZ Lip on when I bought the car and that lasted almost a year before I decided to pull it off and install the carbon fiber type lip, but even that was fine until I decided to drop the front end another 20mm a couple of months ago, and that's when the problems began. Carbon lip ripped straight off upon reentering the driveway, and that was with double-sided tape and a series of screws all along the bottom (the screws ripped straight out from the bumper). This new silver EZ Lip is also held on with screws too and is holding in there remarkably well. Despite the split in the foam where it meets the double sided tape it hasn't got any worse, so I'm hoping that it will just keep rubbing in the same spot and never fully actually tear right through, because they're a right bastard to take off due to that 3M VHB tape and the rub-on adhesion promoter it comes with :laff:

Haha, I've hit rock bottom, literally :insane: TRD fuel cap cover = +12kW :P

New mods! I discovered that EZ Lip have recently introduced a silver version into their 'Colors' range, so I decided to buy one off TradeMe and give it a shot. My front bumper has seen a few lips over the last 18-months that I've had the car, all of which have been torn off or been damaged beyond repair due to the entrance of my garage and the height of the front-end, so I'm not planning on the EZ Lip sticking around for the long run, but for now it looks good. Upon the first drive into the garage it tore where the lip meets the 3M VHB double-sided tape (no fault of the lip itself) but it's not overly noticeable and seems to spring back for the most part every time it happens. The 'silver' is actually more of a very light grey, which in directly sunlight is quite a lot lighter than the actual color of the car, but if it lasts the distance I may look at trying to stain it slightly or maybe even plasti-dipping it to be slightly darker. Who knows, once it gets dirty from road grime etc it may naturally become darker, lol. The other new addition was the carbon fiber looking sideskirt extensions. Some of you may remember that I had one of these on the front bumper before I lowered it even further, which got torn off by the driveway straight away. I had two brand new spare ones sitting in the wardrobe however so thought I'd put them to good use. The photos don't really do them justice, but you get the idea. That's it for the weekend. Back to driving the car and clenching my butt cheeks every time I enter a driveway :lol: And some random photos taken before the new additions:

Decided to do a couple of small things to the Aurion this weekend. Had some stick-on chrome trim left so put some around the rear lip. Hard to notice unless you know it's not meant to be there, but makes it look a little better back there. Tinted the LED bumper reflectors with a 50% opacity black film, so it's now the same colour as the tail lights and has no more glare but isn't fully black when switched off (much better than the 20% tint or red film I tried previously). And, last but not least, loaded some custom dash faces onto my head-unit which work with the DashCommand OBD-II software I have installed.

After almost a year of the having the King Springs installed and never really being satisfied with the horrendous fender gap at the front compared to the slammed look at the back, I decided to do something about it and get new springs and shocks. I toyed with the idea of coilovers, but due to needing a cert it just wasn't justifiable enough for me, but luckily these new Dobi springs have dropped it to a coilover-like height without all of the extra expense. To achieve the perfect drop all round I ended up reusing the King Springs in the rear and only used the Dobi springs in the front. You may notice that the carbon front lip isn't in the photos.....Reason being is that it ripped off from the front bumper trying to get into my garage....twice. So after two unsuccessful attempts to overcome the small concrete lip at the entrance of the garage I decided that a front lip is just never going to work at this sort of height. Even now the bottom of the bumper scrapes against the concrete coming in, and that's minor compared to most places I go, so it's probably for the best :D

New photos:

Figured that I should post a few other small things that have been done over the last couple of months that made a noticeable difference (or at least to me anyway, haha). The photos were taken before some of the latest updates (carbon lip etc) but include chrome trim around the silver dash inserts and front fog light surrounds, a facelift Aurion license plate bracket that I modified to fit the pre-facelift front bumper so the plate sits nicer with the large frame, the reinstall of my original knob type A/C controls but wrapped in carbon vinyl to match my centre console and an updated photo of my engine bay as it stands right now.

Something a bit different from me - Night shots!! We decided to take the kids into town last night since they've never been before, so while we were there I took the opportunity to take some night shots of the Aurion with the Auckland Sky Tower in the background.

I installed these LED bumper reflectors today. I haven't see this particular style on any Aurion before so when I saw them I knew I had to have a set :). They're designed to be 100% plug-and-play with no splicing required and mount the exact same way as the stock reflectors. The worst part about the whole job is that you have to remove the rear bumper in order to get to the screw on the back holding the reflector in, but it didn't turn out to be as difficult as I had imagined. After fitting them I found that they were really quite bright, in fact too bright, so I put a layer of tint film over each light to dull down the light output a bit. Not 100% sold on the tinted look however, so time will tell if I pull the tint off or not. Either way, the lights are here to stay. The lights come on when the park lights are on and get brighter when you brake. They also have the ability to flash when you indicate, but this looked tacky in my opinion so I left that particular plug disconnected. All in all it's a nice simplistic mod that looks like it was there from the factory. Below are a series of photos in their original form and then tinted. Also, these carbon fiber vent stickers arrived in the mail today so I figured I'd chuck them on and see how they look. I'm not normally a fan of dull/matte carbon fiber designs but these were nice and cheap. I traced around them before sticking them on so I can try and make my own ones out of glossy carbon in future:

Some new pics: And this photo I took the other day:

Quick Saturday mod - I pulled off my old foam EZ Lip and installed this glossy carbon lip in it's place. Was difficult to photograph due to the glossiness but you get the idea :)