kag8

True. Plus having to pay £3k insurance wasnt gon a happen. Else I'd have somehow kept it most likely and probably found time to make the long trip to you!

Surprisingly the LS insurance is much cheaper. I think theres another forum member lucky enough to own both the LS and coupe and he too mentioned insurance was cheaper on the LS :s

Not sure what the contaminant could be. I had used the forum recommended oil and mentioned it needed changing soon as was coming up to the 3k mile mark.

Great that the coupe got to u finally and sorted properly!

Isn't she a beauty. Man i miss her.

Stu its not like I didnt try to take care of her. I actually put alot of effort and funds. It just got to a point where it wasnt feasible for me plus garages here are idiots. If i was closer to u I would have come definitely. Besides Becci loves the car and I didn't charge a stupid price she is happy so im happy.

Becci has made my dreams for this car a reality.

Body kit, exhaust, properly lowered. The rims which i hunted for so many months!!! i also considered buying a whole other accord just for the body kit. But Becci did it. Awesome.

If anyone is wondering what I'm driving now. Remember my dream? 1 sports car and motorway cruiser luxury sedan and 1 suv? Well im living that...but 1 car at a time lol.

I couldnt keep the sports car Becci now has. But ive got the LS400. Its a good car. Good community too. Maybe 1 day I'll finally own an SUV or even better all three kinds 

Obviously the cars in those 3 categories may change haha another excuse to try as many different cars as possible ?

5 hours ago, PTR200S said:

realise everyones circumstances are different, age, location, no claims etc and Insurance sure is a pain but a 3x hike is horrendous... 

I presume you have tried the usual route of the comparison sites, Mustard.co.uk, Confused you will be, Money supermarket, Merkat etc... 

Have you tried the specialist guys like Classiccarline , Peter James, Footman james or Carole Nash? 

Im 26, live in a crap post code. Had 4 years no claims and was on my way to 5 until that incident, dropped me back to only 2 years.

The insurer i was with were always the cheapest, have a look at the renewal quote (and last years price for comparison):

Gave them a ring got 100pd knocked off, gee thanks lol.

Spoken to footman james, not a classic they won't quote.

Comparison sites give me even higher quotes.

24 minutes ago, Laird_Scooby said:

I see you've added a couple more photos - are you adding anymore? Some of the interior, underbonnet, boot inside, wheels/tyres etc all help get people looking and interested in the listing.

Also how come you've got blue skies and sunshine in Dunstable this morning? It's horrible and cloudy over my neck of the woods!

The ones I added to the ad are what I could find from past year, not proper photos for a for sale advert as still need to take photos of all the angles and bits you mention, but whilst its pouring down here might as well have these pics up rather than no pics. Even the rims on the pics are wrong, not including those ones but will be going on the type r ones i recently got.

Been a really bad winter this year, i remember last year around this time it was so sunny and warm!

Yes, that's my ad. Hopefully goes to someone that will take care of the bits that need doing. As I knew it would come to this I just had to stop spending on it. I did treat it to nice accord type r rims though!

I'll be giving it a nice clean tomorrow and take proper pics for the ad. Weather permitting.

If only it were considered a classic for insurance, it should be! I'd be able to keep it then.

Yes, I'll pop by here once in a while I'm sure, and the facebook page too. The coupe is a car I really fell in love with, in part due to this forum and also its just a great car overall. Am genuinely sad to have to sell it. All the best everyone, and thanks again!!!

So...the time has come...inusrance quote gone up by triple (due to that small incident :'() I cant afford that, sad reality. Oh well...such is life, its been fun, really learned alot as well, want to say thank you to everyone who posted and huge thanks to @Laird_Scooby especially as he has always given good tips and detailed explanations, thanks everyone though! I'm definitely less of a noob now haha.

Advert is now on eBay, price is negotiable before anybody baulks at but I hope I get something close, wish me luck!  

Sorry for the absence and lack of update, I can never remember my password when on my smartphone and so have to borrow my wifes laptop as it auto logs in somehow.

This is a pic of the old tyre which was on the front for quite some time after lowering, the inner edge wear lead me to get the alignment done and swap the rears (which had even wear) to the front. So a rear tyre.

This is a pic of the front tyre (previously rear with even wear) after approx 1500miles after alignment. Shocking. Im thankful it didn't burst on me especially that day I drove a 170mile round trip in the snow!

As posted before, I discovered the wear when swapped tyres for winter tyres. I posted on here and got lots of great info (thanks!). I didn't manage to get the new drop link in time but I did get to the garage just before they shut. We had the car on ramps and looked at every component on the front end comparing with the diagram posted. We couldn't see anything missing, installed the wrong way round or with excessive wear/play. In fact we couldn't see the 'gouging' of the drop link nut as claimed by a different mechanic (same garage) just the day before. We could just about replicate the sound I was complaining of but just barely. I think I'll get the front drop links re-done again asap just to be sure, but I'll put down the excessive wear to wrong spec wheels.

Anyway, car was untouched and I drove it on my christmas and boxing day trip (not long about 50miles round trip) with my newly fitted winter tyres. They fared well. Only thing was they did rub! On full lock (because of extra width/height of tyres) inner tyre rubbed, and because the wrong offset wheels already stuck out from the arch the top of the wheels rubbed when going over bumps. I just drove extra slow and carefully, was fine.

I then soon after managed to pick up a set of accord type r wheels!!! finally!

I done the front alignment to stock toe of 0. Steering is tighter (?) and more responsive. The ride quality is about the same as when I had the thick winter tyres on but definitely less harsh than with the low profiles that were originally on. Now I have the correct spec wheels I can also drop the rear but as I'm probably only going to have the car for another 3 months (insurance renewal is then) I don't want to spend more money on it, in fact I am toying with the idea of reverting to stock i.e. refit stock headlights and stock height suspension of the front and sell the bits separately but it is a lot of effort. For now, I'm just going to enjoy the car as is!

Huge huge thank you, Dave. Really helpful as always, thanks alot!

Garage C were saying the nut (item 21) that goes against item 7/9 in the diagram was gouging it.

14 minutes ago, Laird_Scooby said:

Item 14 is a spacer that holds the bushes centrally around the place where they mount on the subframe. Note that each bush has the smaller end away from the subframe which many people think is the wrong way so fit the bushes with the pointy ends together.

This allows too much fore/aft movement of the tie bar allowing the lower wishbone to move back further. If it's too far back the wheel alignment becomes toe-out instead of toe-in, hence scrubbing the inner edges of your tyres.

You've just reminded me, Garage A had changed bushes for me too same time as the droplinks. Although the bushes were more like item 2, one on each side if I'm not wrong. I will however get the bushes 10 & 11 checked out as it's probably something as daft like that causing toe-out and ridiculous inner tyre wear.

46 minutes ago, PTR200S said:

its a hell of a camber to wear out the tyres in 1500 miles.

could it be....low tyre pressure? I used to check it every 2 weeks but as I noticed it was not losing any air...I probably haven't checked or topped up in about 6 weeks? have racked up most of the 1500miles in the past 6/8 weeks. I didn't even check the pressure when taking wheels off, probably should have but as always pressed for time and garage almost closing, argh.

1 hour ago, Laird_Scooby said:

I'm with Stu on replacing rather than adding a washer to shim it. The point being, if the thread is weak all the way along, adding washers to shim it will only move the problem further up the thread.

That makes sense. While the car was up on the ramps I had a look and couldnt see any 'gouging' but going by the massive torsion bar they tried tightening with and not getting any movement I said to them to leave it for now. Thats when they mentioned its gouging into the adjacent metal piece. 

I think I'll have to drive around tomorrow morning looking for a parts shop, maybe even ECP as they probably will be the only ones open and grab a single drop link and have garage C replace it. 

1 hour ago, Laird_Scooby said:

Going back to your tracking/wheel alignment problem, what are the brake reaction bar/tie bar bushes like where the bars enter the front crossmember?

If these are worn or the tie bars have been loosened and not refitted properly, the lower wishbone will move back further under load than it's designed to. I've seen this happen several times and also seen a tie bar snap as a result!

I'm sorry I have no idea what that is. The suspension setup was tested vigorously when I took the car in to garage B for a diagnostic on the alignment - they put it on a special ramp which shook the car all sorts of manners and they gave it a clean bill of health. I assume even when doing the actual alignment any such issues would have been noted. It has since then been on a ramp a few times and 'echanics under there they didnt notice anything.

I will however ask that exact question to the mechanics tomorrow. Thanks for the technical jargon at least that gives me a stronger position and somewhere to ask them to look into!

1 hour ago, Laird_Scooby said:

It could of course be as Stu suggests that you have too much negative camber and you need to add some sort of camber adjustment at the top end of the front suspension

Yes, I'm hoping it is just this. If it is, rather than spending any more money on the car I'll just undo the lowering and have 16s or 17s on it with the right specs, even if it's steelies! Enough with the deep dish multi spoke bling haha.

I have been seriously considering another car ('what would you buy next' thread) with 4 doors as now with 2 little ones (new arrival woohoo lol) it is getting too difficult. The argument that the family spends 5% of their time in the car and me 95% of the time alone in it is getting tired now. Having said that the resale value of my car will be so low due to this thread (can it be deleted? just kidding) I might as well keep it! But I probably can't keep it because of the insurance renewal which will be coming up in 3 months which I've been dreading it as already paying approx. £100 a month, now with the premium going up because of that minor incident (separate thread on here with details)...I've just got to be prepared for the inevitable haven't I? :'(

39 minutes ago, PTR200S said:

I would be looking at a rebuild of the front end completely, after all when it left Honda it was working correctly I presume  without adjustable bits as such!!!

In an ideal world, rebuild yes, but only in the hands of Stu! I'm quite positive it would be unnecessary and kinda think that simply rolling back to stock would sort it out. Although when I got the car the front tyres were worn on the inside too (but not as extreme as now!). The cost of doing any major rebuild would not be economic given the value of the car or rather my coupe to be specific.

Garage A replaced all 4 drop links. Only the front passenger side had snapped but I thought I was doing a good thing in replacing pairs and given the relative low cost got the rears done too. Garage A re-tightened the front driver side the next day when I went back complaining of the noise. Noise went away. Noise came back about 3 months later and Garage A again re-tightened it. Noise went away. I already had decided to avoid this garage at this point.

Garage B, a reputable garage with Hunters alignment machine, did a four wheel alignment and set front toe to -0.5 as per my request.

Noise has now returned approx 7 months since first changing the drop links and about 3/4 months since last 're-tighten'.

Garage C did the tyre swap and balancing for me today. They are the ones who tried tightening the drop link again but stopped as said it was gouging into the metal plate.

:'(

Garage C also have an alignment machine and I would rather they sort out the drop links too.

I managed to pick up some winter tyres from a friend at a good price, so went to get them fitted today. I was absolutely shocked to see the wear on the front inner shoulders of my old tyres! Even worse than before getting the alignment done Before it was just the edges which went bald but after doing the alignment it looks like almost half of the front wheel has been worn down and in fact the edges were down to the treads almost peeking out! I've not done more than 1500miles I don't think since getting alignment done and the tyres had even and decent tread before as had swapped the rears for the fronts. I'll try post pics tomorrow of the tyres.

Got a semi long trip over christmas and boxing day and the garage with the alignment machine is only open till 1pm tomorrow - any tips on what toe settings to try out instead of the -0.5? I know it will never be perfect because of the wrong offset but I am half tempted to get them to adjust to stock of 0.00? I'd hate for the new (to me) tyres to be worn out in no time again. I know the true answer is get the right rims and I am looking for them...

The winter tyres are 235/55/18s and they already fill the arch gap even more...makes me think all this lowering business is unnecessary lol should have just got 17s with huge sidewalls???

Also, the blinking front driver side drop link started making noises again. You might remember I had all of the drop links replaced and since then the front right one kept getting loose so have had it tightened twice now. Asked the garage I was at today to tighten it again to save me from going to the garage that originally fitted it and the guy said whats happened is the previous garage overtightened it so that the nut has shredded into the metal piece it sits on. Over time the gouge is getting bigger and hence the 'loosening' effect. So they've advised me to go back to that garage and beat the s**t out of the mechanic with a crow bar then when he recuperates and is discharged from hospital politely ask him to undo the drop link and fit a washer in between the nut. I might skip the assault part...but just wondering what size washer would be needed and where can i buy it from physically rather than online? I think the nut on the drop link is 14mm...if that helps.

On 12/21/2017 at 1:04 AM, AhsyV6 said:

Beautiful colour too.....my second fave colour  after my Dark Emerald Green

I have to admit seeing pics of your green coupe has had me lusting after that colour too. Ordinarily never been a fan of green but yours looks so good!

After many weeks of driving in abysmal conditions including being the slowest person on the M1 north bound on one snowy Sunday (had my kid and nephew with me so no point risking anything lol) I finally treated the coupe to a thorough clean and polish. Abit pointless I know as its only gonna rain overnight most probably and get dirty in a few days again but it deserved it for being so dependable and reliable. Much like the video Stu posted it started with a half turn of the key while buried in snow! Awesome machines.

Welcome to the forum.

Looks a nice coupe. Same colour as mine (myfav colour - ok maybe if it were a shade darker would be my absolute fav colour).  Hope you enjoy owning and driving it as we all do!

Sorry for late response I couldn't remember my password to logon.

The wheels are 18x8j ET35.

Only the front has been lowered. I think I took this picture right after lowering so might have kind of excitedly focused on the front section of the car making the rear arch gap look less than it actually is??? It is the same as stock or even more since have low profiles (225/40/18) but my eyes don't dwell on the gap at the back as they did with the front of the car. If I had the right offset on my wheels I would have lowered the back too as I don't want to roll fenders or anything like that. I am on the lookout for 17s which will allow me to lower the back too. Even posted a wanted advert on facebook for the accord type r (or 5 stud prelude) wheels!

Ebay item number - 302277297860

Good responsive seller, he can make it to any size, font, etc. As mentioned before it was a very very sticky and I thought good quality plate. Just be careful and apply it correctly first time!

Hi @hughezee, Great Post Thanks!

Abit of an update. Finally got the alignment done according to the specs prescribed by Laird_Scooby and Stu (-0.5 toe for fronts) and temporarily swapped rear wheels for the front. The rears had even wear so will be monitoring them closely to see how they fair. I can't say that the drive has improved, still drives straight as before, haven't done any high speeds to test the vibrations I was complaining about previously.

I also replaced a front driver side indicator bulb, what a pain having to via the front wheel well on a dark rainy evening! 

Haven't yet managed to do the ATF change with valvoline and install the inline filter as intended (had already done 3 part changes using ATF-U), will hopefully get to it this weekend.

Oh and I remember complaining about a squeeky sound on rough roads when I first got the car, I had checked the spare wheel section, wasn't the source. The past weekend I drove without a carseat and no more squeeking! So probably the carseat was bouncing around (it is as tight as possible!) causing the sound, or maybe the rear seatbelt holder/clip when in use. Will try clip the rear seatbelt in without the carseat and see if it is that. Just a  minor annoyance that would be good to get to the bottom of.

On 16/03/2017 at 2:25 PM, Mangoman said:

Hi Dave.

Sadly they have frames... ?

Just imagine if they were Pillarless...!!!!  Would give me a hard-on....lol.

 

@PTR200S

@Laird_Scooby

It was neither of you after all!

Just now, Laird_Scooby said:

Me? You start it! Lol!

Hahaha.

I think we need to check my introduction thread to see who started talking about the old school mercs and where that thread went.

No worries at all, your input no matter the topic of discussion is always welcome

I do regret selling my stock alloys as would have been very handy to swap back to. I sold them to bring the cost of my new wheels down but wasn't very smart thing to do after all. The guy i sold to has been trying to sell them on but has struggled so I may try a cheeky offer.

Makes alot of sense now. Thank you. Ill try my best to get to the alignment this week.

25 minutes ago, Laird_Scooby said:

Then if i remember and it's still dry, i might give the wheels a coat of wax polish to make them easier to clean next time.

Good tip. I usually had a spray can of wonder wheels which seemed to do a decent job (but never used anything else so cant really compare). That can ran out. So ive just gone and applied some wax to the wheels.

17 minutes ago, Mangoman said:

And just to further on from Dave, generally Offset/ET is a 'Positive' number. ie. the lower the Number the more the wheels will stick out.

Whats the coupe standard spec? My wheels are ET35 which is lower hence stick out. Just wanted to confirm by how much out they are.

27 minutes ago, Laird_Scooby said:

Stus suggestion of increasing the toe-in to a maximum of 0.5 is one way of doing it.

Still confused, just wondering if im currently on -0.25 and that didnt help the inner tread wear, if I get them further up to -0.5 isnt that increasing the problem? Shouldnt it be going closer to zero?

7 minutes ago, Mangoman said:

And yes, I remember the days when if a car had a 100000kms on the clock it seemed a lot - but really it was only about 62000 miles...lol.  

Exactly! When I glance at the odo and see 120,000, my mind defaults to kms and I feel super happy haha.