What did you do today non-detailing related?

[Tasmania]

Got this for the trunk. Was going Husky but the didn’t make one in the X act contour line. The material the use in this line is. Like a foam rubber. Their line they do make it in is the Weather Beaters which is like WeatherTechs. Not fan of that material.

Was going to order a cheap maxliner one just because it had good reviews and softer and $70

3D maxpider has been a floor mat brand I’ve been interested in as a lot of guys at the Camaro forum loved them. Wasn’t gonna buy the trunk liner at $130. Looked on Flea Bay and actually found a great deal… open box for $80.

Not product. Light weight. Waterproof (dog peed on it while letting it sit flat). Has a seem to lift for spare area (car has no spare ). Nice look and feel. Will be buying for next floor mats

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My mate had these in his Ford Ranger, They're popular in the Aussie 4x4 sence,

 

[PA DETAILER]

PA INSPECTION. 0il/filter change. Tire rotation. And a overlooked item on most trucks. Had them drop the spare to check tire pressure and lube up what was needed under there. Glad to report at 75,488 miles everything passed and is good.

 

[Odrapnew]

Got this for the trunk. Was going Husky but the didn’t make one in the X act contour line. The material the use in this line is. Like a foam rubber. Their line they do make it in is the Weather Beaters which is like WeatherTechs. Not fan of that material.

Was going to order a cheap maxliner one just because it had good reviews and softer and $70

3D maxpider has been a floor mat brand I’ve been interested in as a lot of guys at the Camaro forum loved them. Wasn’t gonna buy the trunk liner at $130. Looked on Flea Bay and actually found a great deal… open box for $80.

Not product. Light weight. Waterproof (dog peed on it while letting it sit flat). Has a seem to lift for spare area (car has no spare ). Nice look and feel. Will be buying for next floor mats

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I had Maxpider floor mats in my old Golf R. I really liked them.
They perform like Husky/Weathertech as far as water retention and coverage, but have a little more 'upscale' look and feel.
Husky liners I have in my Explorer are more 'industrial' in that they are perfectly functional, but bland.

 

[Coatingsarecrack]

I had Maxpider floor mats in my old Golf R. I really liked them.
They perform like Husky/Weathertech as far as water retention and coverage, but have a little more 'upscale' look and feel.
Husky liners I have in my Explorer are more 'industrial' in that they are perfectly functional, but bland.

Do you have the weather beaters or exact contours?


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[Odrapnew]

Do you have the weather beaters or exact contours?


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Looks like I have the weather beaters.
I had to look it up because I got them over 10 years ago. I will say they have held up great. Over 135k miles on them. I put them in and never went back to stock mats.

Sent from my SM-G991U using Tapatalk

 

[Big DaveBig Dave is verified member.]

Buzzing door speaker - part 3.
Way back in February/March I had issues with the speaker in the passenger door buzzing, it seemed to come and go. I pulled the door skin off, pulled it out , put it back, and the buzzing went away. A month later it came back, so I pulled it out again, and swapped it for the one in the driver's door. Everything seemed fine, till this week, when the buzzing came back, but this time in the driver's door, so I now know it's the speaker. So it's replacement time, which is fine, they are about 6 years old. Lots of sales on too, but they all look cheap and nasty, even the "name" brands. After some research I went with a brand called Response, from Jaycar, sort of similar to your RadioShack, if that still exists. I've used their speakers in the past, to repair some old Sony home stereo speakers I was using at work, and they were really good. Interestingly they don't quote a peak output, but the RMS is 75W, the old ones were 60W with a peak of 120W, the new ones also felt heavier, they are, 970g for the new ones, 734g for the old ones, let's hope that "the weight is a sign of reliability" , as Boris the Bullet Dodger says. The old one is on the left.




I also figured out what was happening, it was heat related, which is why it happened at the end of our summer, and didn't happen over our cooler months, and now started happening again as things warm up. The glue that holds the cone to the frame would soften and separate on hot days, and harden and re-stick overnight when it cooled down. Sneaky b4stard.

 

[Big DaveBig Dave is verified member.]

Mowed the lawn, again. It's a weekly thing now. It hit 32.4C just as I finished, or just in the 90s for the imperialists. I had to blow the grass off the FJ before allowing myself some cold refreshment.

 

[Odrapnew]

Buzzing door speaker - part 3.
Way back in February/March I had issues with the speaker in the passenger door buzzing, it seemed to come and go. I pulled the door skin off, pulled it out , put it back, and the buzzing went away. A month later it came back, so I pulled it out again, and swapped it for the one in the driver's door. Everything seemed fine, till this week, when the buzzing came back, but this time in the driver's door, so I now know it's the speaker. So it's replacement time, which is fine, they are about 6 years old. Lots of sales on too, but they all look cheap and nasty, even the "name" brands. After some research I went with a brand called Response, from Jaycar, sort of similar to your RadioShack, if that still exists. I've used their speakers in the past, to repair some old Sony home stereo speakers I was using at work, and they were really good. Interestingly they don't quote a peak output, but the RMS is 75W, the old ones were 60W with a peak of 120W, the new ones also felt heavier, they are, 970g for the new ones, 734g for the old ones, let's hope that "the weight is a sign of reliability" , as Boris the Bullet Dodger says. The old one is on the left.
View attachment 137272

What's your feedback on sound?
I'm guessing the new speakers sound a bit 'brighter' with the separate tweeter.

 

[Big DaveBig Dave is verified member.]

What's your feedback on sound?
I'm guessing the new speakers sound a bit 'brighter' with the separate tweeter.

Spot on, I was saying they have a crisper sound, but brighter is a good description as well, so I've adjusted the equaliser a bit. I'm thinking I might get some stick on sound deadener for the back of the plastic door skins, they aren't as tight as they once were.

 

[chilly]

I brought all the Christmas stuff from the shed into the garage today and I will move some furniture tomorrow and get the tree set up and start decorating

 

[Big DaveBig Dave is verified member.]

I brought all the Christmas stuff from the shed into the garage today and I will move some furniture tomorrow and get the tree set up and start decorating

I don't know what it's like there, but the day after Halloween people started putting up their Christmas lights here, this pic is from a couple of weeks ago.

 

[chilly]

I don't know what it's like there, but the day after Halloween people started putting up their Christmas lights here, this pic is from a couple of weeks ago.
View attachment 137312

My son and I had the outside lights up before Halloween; after that it can be too dicey

We don't go in for the inflatable stuff, but there are some places that do that and it seems like they will add one item each year

Crazy displays

 

[chilly]

Spot on, I was saying they have a crisper sound, but brighter is a good description as well, so I've adjusted the equaliser a bit. I'm thinking I might get some stick on sound deadener for the back of the plastic door skins, they aren't as tight as they once were.

So I was reading all this when you posted it and started thinking about the audio system in the new car

It is a Mark Levinson 21 speaker system, and apparently it is supposed to be very good

It sounds good, assuming your music on your phone or mp3 player is better than mp3, which most of mine isn't

Every now and then a song comes up that is noticeably "brighter" or "sharper" or however you want to describe it and it sounds really good

Some of my music is just plain blah

I guess a lot has to do with where I originally got it; ripped from CDs, converted YouTube music, etc

One weird thing about the sound system is the audio controls

There are adjustments for bass, mid, and treble

That's it, no equalizer or anything else

Not sure if that is weird or not with a supposedly "premium" sound system

I don't know enough about car audio to have an informed opinion

 

[Big DaveBig Dave is verified member.]

So I was reading all this when you posted it and started thinking about the audionsystem in the new car

It is a Mark Levinson 21 speaker system, and apparently it is supposed to be very good

It sounds good, assuming your music on your phone or mp3 player is better than mp3, which most of mine isn't

Every now and then a song comes up that is noticeably "brighter" or "sharper" or however you want to describe it and it sounds really good

Some of my music is just plain blah

I guess a lot has to do with where I originally got it; ripped from CDs, converted YouTube music, etc

One weird thing about the sound system is the audio controls

There are adjustments for bass, mid, and treble

That's it, no equalizer or anything else

Not sure if that is weird or not with a supposedly "premium" sound system

I don't know enough about car audio to have an informed opinion

Listening to music in cars can be a very subjective thing, and you may need to make adjustments for different styles of music. If you do happen to find some settings you like for most stuff you listen to, it can sound different from the passenger seat, and the rear seats, but who cares what the passengers think, you're the captain of your ship.

MP3 quality can vary depending on the bit rate it's encoded at, the lower the bit rate, the worse it's likely to sound. When I first put an MP3 capable head unit in my Pathfinder back in about 2004, I ripped the same song 5 times at 5 different rates, and figured out I could hear the difference if I went below 192kbps, in a stationary vehicle, without the engine running. But it's a lot harder to pick the difference when you're driving around. But most of mine are at 192. Streaming services typically are down below 160, so the internet says. Years back I took a couple of months and ripped all my CDs to MP3, they're backed up in 3 different places, and I still have the CDs stored in boxes in the garage, I can't bring myself to give them away.

The reason I have a full equaliser in the FJ is because I upgraded to a Kenwood head unit. It had Android Auto and Apple Carplay when I bought it, but after a firmware upgrade a couple of years ago it doesn't support that anymore, bummer. But I'm not changing it because none of the new units have CD players in them, and mine is both a CD and DVD player, not that I play either in the car anymore, but I don't want to lose that functionality.

 

[Big DaveBig Dave is verified member.]

Mowed the lawn again today.

I had the supervisor watching me while I did the front lawn, he said the lawn was acceptable, but he wasn't happy that I hadn't cleaned the windows yet.

 

[DFB]

Mowing at a commercial property this morning, I had a guy stop me to say he liked my ute. And according to him, it was a "real ute and not one of those jacked up dual cabs".

As a body-on-frame vehicle, I don't consider any Ranger to be a "real ute", or any of its competitors. But I did get a little laugh out of his assessment regarding jacked up dual cabs.

 

[Klasse Act]

Mowing at a commercial property this morning, I had a guy stop me to say he liked my ute. And according to him, it was a "real ute and not one of those jacked up dual cabs".

As a body-on-frame vehicle, I don't consider any Ranger to be a "real ute", or any of its competitors. But I did get a little laugh out of his assessment regarding jacked up dual cabs.

The rims have made for a nice addition to the Ranger

Sent from my SM-G991U using Tapatalk

 

[Karl_in_Chicago]

So I was reading all this when you posted it and started thinking about the audio system in the new car

It is a Mark Levinson 21 speaker system, and apparently it is supposed to be very good

It sounds good, assuming your music on your phone or mp3 player is better than mp3, which most of mine isn't

Every now and then a song comes up that is noticeably "brighter" or "sharper" or however you want to describe it and it sounds really good

Some of my music is just plain blah

I guess a lot has to do with where I originally got it; ripped from CDs, converted YouTube music, etc

One weird thing about the sound system is the audio controls

There are adjustments for bass, mid, and treble

That's it, no equalizer or anything else

Not sure if that is weird or not with a supposedly "premium" sound system

I don't know enough about car audio to have an informed opinion

FWIW "premium" home audio components don't have EQ's and many don't even have tone adjustments; those that do are typically limited to bass/treble (and frequently more for the benefit of correcting for room acoustics issues). Now a vehicle is, compared to a home, usually a terrible listening environment between the acoustics, powertrain, road and wind noise and frequently questionable audio source quality so being able to "twist more knobs" has more value there to help overcome all of that and get the sound to your ears in a recognizable pattern.

The Lexus engineers typically do some pretty terrific work in isolating a lot of those negatives and there's more buy-in there on the costs of designing in better (and more) speaker placements, quality signal processing and amplification, etc., so your system is (typically) going to sound near the top of the range of what can be done in a vehicle (vs my Bronco which is like a K-Mart boombox in an empty YMCA swimming pool). The big variations you are hearing are most likely due to the differences in sources - in general a lossless (FLAC) or similar rip of a quality recording being near the top in AQ across a variety of other possible options until you get to some of the stripped and compressed signals that some digital broadcasters use (Sirius/XM). Using the tone controls to compensate is normal here but it's annoying that the sound changes like that - kind of like late night TV jumping around between soft spoken passages which need boosted volumes to hear only to be slammed back in the sofa when some commercial comes on yelling about ED treatment or magic coatings on frying pans.

FWIW I'm a YT Music subscriber too and, in general, it's not all that bad for non-premium streaming music (and I enjoy the very deep catalog) but it's never going to be as good as the same music from the original vinyl or CD/SACD through my home stereo. Similarly, switching between your own recorded media, broadcast radio and streaming will typically result in the changes in sound you are hearing. It's just the nature of varying the input source to the system that reproduces the audio.

 

[chilly]

Listening to music in cars can be a very subjective thing, and you may need to make adjustments for different styles of music. If you do happen to find some settings you like for most stuff you listen to, it can sound different from the passenger seat, and the rear seats, but who cares what the passengers think, you're the captain of your ship.

MP3 quality can vary depending on the bit rate it's encoded at, the lower the bit rate, the worse it's likely to sound. When I first put an MP3 capable head unit in my Pathfinder back in about 2004, I ripped the same song 5 times at 5 different rates, and figured out I could hear the difference if I went below 192kbps, in a stationary vehicle, without the engine running. But it's a lot harder to pick the difference when you're driving around. But most of mine are at 192. Streaming services typically are down below 160, so the internet says. Years back I took a couple of months and ripped all my CDs to MP3, they're backed up in 3 different places, and I still have the CDs stored in boxes in the garage, I can't bring myself to give them away.

The reason I have a full equaliser in the FJ is because I upgraded to a Kenwood head unit. It had Android Auto and Apple Carplay when I bought it, but after a firmware upgrade a couple of years ago it doesn't support that anymore, bummer. But I'm not changing it because none of the new units have CD players in them, and mine is both a CD and DVD player, not that I play either in the car anymore, but I don't want to lose that functionality.

The 2020 Lexus has a CD player, the 2024 does not, another thing that surprised me, but I guess it really shouldn't

Both cars have Apple Carplay but the 2020 is wired and the 2024 is wireless, although it has a wired input as well

I should hook my iPhone to the wired input and see if some of the cleaner/sharper music sounds any different that way

The 2020 is also inherently a noisier car, and with the studded tires it is certainly not the ideal rolling music studio

I guess being 69 years old with a lifetime of industrial noise, loud music, gunfire, etc is probably one of my biggest hurdles in this whole equation

 

[Karl_in_Chicago]

The 2020 Lexus has a CD player, the 2024 does not, another thing that surprised me, but I guess it really shouldn't

Both cars have Apple Carplay but the 2020 is wired and the 2024 is wireless, although it has a wired input as well

I should hook my iPhone to the wired input and see if some of the cleaner/sharper music sounds any different that way

The 2020 is also inherently a noisier car, and with the studded tires it is certainly not the ideal rolling music studio

I guess being 69 years old with a lifetime of industrial noise, loud music, gunfire, etc is probably one of my biggest hurdles in this whole equation

I miss in-car CD players but the truth is the majority of the car buying public had much more interest in being able to stream from their phones than they did in playing CD's . . . since to play them would require them to buy them in the first place. My 99 corvette had a 6-disc changer in the "trunk" (and a cassette player in the dash!) and my '05 Acura RL has an in-dash carousel that plays DVD-A and CD's. I really like that as the vastly greater storage capacity of a DVD allows me to burn my own with the equivalent of almost a dozen CD's. My '23 Bronco has a crappy sound system with a host of interfaces (but no CD) to input audio which it can then mangle.

Unless Lexus royally screwed up the wireless system (unlikely) I doubt you'll hear any difference playing the same music on the same device between wired and wireless (despite my inner audio purist wanting to say otherwise). Disclaimer: I have no direct experience with Carplay. That out of the way it's my understanding that the wireless streaming protocols available to us (Android Auto and Apple Carplay) are limited to the fidelity of "CD quality", which is what *most* people will have that carry ripped music on their phones (if that, many will rip at a lower quality to save space). It may be possible to play higher resolution quality music via storage plugged directly into a USB port on vehicles that support that (and even *possible* said device could be a phone being used as a storage device, though I'm thinking that's a fringe case). In general this would be using a memory stick or portable SSD with a USB interface. Even with this solution, though, a remaining unknown is the capability of the on-board DAC in the vehicle's audio system and the system itself which may or may not support super-fancy hi-rez formats.

FWIW I keep a 128GB thumbdrive plugged into one of the USB ports just as an alternative should my phone flake out, break, etc. but I almost never use it.

TL;DR - I doubt you'll notice any difference between wired and wireless if you are using the same phone/device to stream music to your car's audio system (esp. between '20 and '24 models). The only differences should be related to the actual source material.