My new PiP - helpful comments appreciated

Wonderful. Good to know.

 

I know you're just trying to be helpful. Thank you very much.

I'm just providing my reasoning.

A minivan driver at Costco went way off the road and forced me onto the kerb.

Another reason for my wheel choice is the replacement cost of the OEM wheel. My dealer was quoting well above $400 apiece. The Enkei is almost half that price and weighs less. It's the lightest wheel Tire Rack has for the PiP. If Tire Rack has a lighter wheel in 15" I would have gone with that. Ideally you want the smallest wheel that would fit over the brakes.

I admit that the tyre choice will hurt fuel economy, but I run this tyre on all of my cars and I absolutely love it. Lots of grip for the price.

I could always go with 16" LRR tyres and have equal if not slightly better fuel economy than stock.

 

Thanks for your comment.
Not everything Toyota does is the best for fuel efficiency. They are a for-profit company and they do have to make compromises to make money.

For example, my alignment is a little off, but Toyota does not provide any adjustability from the factory.

So yes, I will be modifying my car, but it's to correct for manufacturing defects and to bring the car closer to design specifications. In theory, I should be improving the product with the modifications.

 

Thanks for all the helpful comments.

Today I swapped out the stock low beam bulbs for Sylvania H11 Silverstar Ultra.


Here are the bulbs for comparison. While the Ultra isn't necessarily brighter, the hue and sharp contrast makes it much easier to see at night compared to the OEM Philips H11 LL.


I don't have a before shot, but this is the after view. The cutoff is much sharper and the colours are much softer to my eyes.


From personal experience, I know the Ultra only lasts 150 hours, which is less than half the life of the Philips Long Life (LL), but the bulbs are easy to change and I can get them cheaply. So to me it's worth it for the extra safety in night driving

 

Thanks for the suggestion. These Silverstars were used from my other vehicle so they'll burn out soon enough.

I looked into the H9 conversion, but I saw several issues:

1. The H9 bulb won't plug into the H11 connector. Others have suggested cutting the tab on the bulb. I wouldn't mind cutting off the H11 and soldering in a proper H9 connector: Dorman Products - 84784

2. The mounting tab on the H9 has to be trimmed to fit into the H11 housing. This one I'm a little more tentative because I don't like the idea of modifying the bulb or risking damage to the headlight housing.

3. H9 is not available locally, while H11 is easily available to me at Advance or Walmart.


#2, and definitely #3 would be deal breakers for me. Unless someone has any suggestions, I don't imagine an easy solution to any of these issues.

 

With summer coming, the interior does get a little hot for my little yorkie:


It's okay parked with the sunshade, but driving around it does get a little hot so I have to run the AC, which hurts fuel economy. So I took the car is back at RRT to get window tint: Window Tint | RRT :: Performance, Tuning & Maintenance

 

These are the typical cars the shop works on, and yet they still work on my car. Super nice guys:

 

I got the car back with new tint. State legal 50/35. Even with 50% front it still appears quite dark to me, but the shop assured me it's legal.

I also noticed that the angle of the rear windshield makes the tint appear darker. Even though the bottom window comes with 28% from the factory, the 35% upper windshield still appears darker because with the slope, you're looking through more glass.

So now the top appears darker than the bottom. This will take some getting used to.

 

Follow up from the other thread: Rear bumper protector fitment for '15 PiP | PriusChat

I decided to get the Bushwacker rear bumper protector since they provide confirmed fitment for PiP, and they also provide very detailed paint instructions. See the installation PDF on their site: Toyota OE Style Bumper Protector - OE Matte Black | 34014 | Bushwacker

I wanted to get the Toyota version, but Toyota didn't care enough to confirm fitment.

I test-fitted the part and it fits great. Fitment confirmed.


I took it to my favourite body shop for colour matching:
Welcome to Mr. Spoiler

 

The bumper protector is an extra layer that's there not to just prevent scratching, but also to provide extra puncture and shock resistance to the bumper cover.

FYI, I could just get an aftermarket replacement bumper cover and put the original bumper cover in storage. The bumper cover itself is not even necessary; I could just run a bash bar with no cover at all.

There are some good reasons to paint the bumper protector itself:

1. The polyurethane paint makes it resistance to sun fading. My RAV4 is fading quite a bit and it looks terrible.

2. The topcoat makes it easier to clean. The one on my RAV4 tends to collect dirt and it's hard to keep it clean.

Of course I could just remove the bumper protector after a few years and replace it with another one. I could also just replace the whole car.

I could just have him clearcoat it, but I'm curious to see how well they colour match plastic/rubber parts. We'll see. If it comes out terrible then I'll just go back to a gloss black finish.

 

I have 3M trim tape that's amazingly strong. 10 years after soaking in the hot sun and it's still going strong.

I also considered fabricating mounting brackets so I could easily remove the protector for cleaning.

It's not a big deal either way. My body shop could just as well easily repaint the whole bumper if it comes to that.

Knowing my luck though, I'll get rear-ended way before any of these things become real issues.

 

Toyota's newly redesigned engine block heater arrived today. It comes with the heating element itself, an extension cord, some zip ties/velcro straps, and grease. No instructions though.