John K

JEEZE! Personally I think the fog lights are a wank for driving in fog, but at night in the bush they do greatly increase the light spread up to almost 180 degrees, improving the spotting of animals etc on the road edges. That means I'm a more relaxed and safer drive. Does this dumb law really mean I can't use them at night unless it's actually foggy? What if I changed the wiring so they would work only when high beam was on?

2 friends of mine have had cars stolen from their home garages. One Audi TT and one Merc CLK. Neither were ever recovered. Probably rebirthed - if that happens anymore - otherwise, flash getaway cars for crims. The MO was the same as mooks1's mates - home broken into silently in the night, keys found and the cars driven away. Wallets left behind though.

My list - you can read my various fads and phases 1/ Hillman Hunter 2/ Datsun 180BSSS 3/ Fiat 500 4/ VF Valiant Coupe 5/ Chev Impala 6/ Buick Riviera 7/ Dodge Charger 8/ VW Type III 9/ Austin Healey Sprite 10/ VN 11/ XF S Pack 12/ XF ute 13/ EB 14/ EF 15/ Magna 16/ Magna 17/ XR6T

"She's a showbag" Explanation - looks good but turns out she is full of sh#t.

The best I've ever seen was a Porsche 356 era spyder with a heavily worked engine blowing blue/orange flames just while blipping the throttle trying to keep it idling at traffic lights. By the smell of it, it wasn't running super and I was glad I was stopped far enough away from the tail pipes not to get my paint scorched. Never before or since have I seen fireworks like that on a road car

A friend proved to me that using an iPod as a source is not a handicap - they sound extremely good, even in a pretty good sounding $20K home system. He loaded the iPod with uncompressed tracks (not MP3s) and plugged it into his HT system via 3mm jack. It sounded fantastic - the same or better than playing the original CD on his CD player. The quality of the MP3s is the biggest issue. I rip mine at the highest res available in the iTunes settings. Most that are done by others and "shared" are not. I think that is the source of the perception that iPods sound like rubbish.

Nasty! Euro DIN standard for 12vdc-24vdc wiring is Black = positive, Brown normally = negative. The black positive tricks a lot of people.

Mine came new with one press opens all doors. I had to program it myself to do two stage unlocking.

I dropped the car at the dealers this morning and have opted for Mobil 1 full synthetic. I don't rack up really high k's - about 30 a year. I'll ask the Ford dudes what they think about 2 oil changes a year for a turbo.

It's the new SD card one. Mine works beautifully and I've totally sussed out how to get it to remain silent except for pinging when a speed camera/red light camera is coming. However, it's is is proving to be a little tweaky and hangs up every now and again. Luckily it's installed under the passenger seat so I can easily reach under and pull the plugs from the back to reboot it. Seems to need a reboot about once a week. How reliable has any body else found them?

Synthetic carbonises (starts to break down) at a higher temp than mineral and is therefore better for turbo bearings.

This must be something built in - set volume to 20. Stop, restart, volume is automagically 14 ?? Is there a way to over ride it so that the volume I want stays there after restarting?

Reading all the running-in threads here, I didn't think it was - but in hindsight, many of those talking about mineral first then synth may have been talking about rebuilt engines, not first built I'll ask for full synth if it is on the menu!

I booked my first service and asked for the oil to be changed - not normally done on 3,000km service. I asked if the new oil would be mineral oil and he told me it would be Ford standard semi-synthetic. I told him I thought that synth oil would only be used after the first scheduled oil change (15,000km?) because of the rings bedding in. He told me that the engines are fully run in before they are bolted into the chassis and semi-synthetic is used from day 1 in the car. News to me!

3 weeks old. Turned over 2,000km today. I'm in love

Struck Goooooooooooooooooollllddd! How about these with a "baby on board" sign ?

If you reeeeeeeeeally want to the feminine way, I reckon that these rims would be a winner, especially with the center inserts painted up a little brighter

I normally don't give any car any stick until it's properly warmed up (unless it's air cooled!) - but the warm up time for the T does seem to far exceed my last 2 or 3 cars. I also don't believe in starting a cold engine and letting it idle for ages to warm it up before driving off - It allows the engine to run an unnecessarily long time at low temps which is not good for a number of reasons. You guys put me in a little bit of a spot and I'm not entirely sure how paranoid you might be - For morning starts I'm going to compromise and wait for 1 minute before driving gently away. No stick until the needle is at midway between 1/4 and 1/2 !

Woo Hoo! I just did my first T mod and put the footwell lights in. I got ripped off though - My local Supercheap had them for $3.99 a pair ..............................................

Hi All, I've had my new T for just about 3 weeks now and only done 1200km. So far, I'm really happy. I gave it a bit for the first few days to make sure those rings get bedded in. I averaged almost 21 lt/100km for that initial period! I'm backing off on the juice now and am sitting on an average 16.2 this morning - so it's going the right way. Haven't done any country driving yet and so haven't had the chance at all to stretch the T's legs - but once it's spooled up it sure goes - no complaints there. I was a little naughty and towed by boat with it over Easter - just a 2 hour round trip and I was gentle - I don't think the T really noticed it except up one big big hill where I did see the temp rise a little by the top. My fuel consumption did not change in the 2 hours so it looks like it will be a reasonably economical tow car - my boat only weights about 500kg anyway. My summary so far - THE GOOD A more sophisticated and quiet ride than I was expecting. It feels sure footed without jarring over imperfections. Tyre noise is not as bad as I was expecting either. No rattles or squeaks at all! Everything works! The stereo sounds better than I was expecting. The 6 speed auto is awesome - and I'm getting used to pulling, not pushing The whistle of the turbo as it come on song (and the corresponding shove in the back) is addictive - could be a problem! THE BAD The pedals don't seem to fit my feet very well. On the accelerator in my safety boots there is only a cm wiggle room between the brake pedal and the foot well. The windscreen washer bottle - What were Ford thinking! - It must only hold half a litre and I've run it out twice already! I'm short sighted and even with specs my eyes naturally want to focus on crud on the windscreen. So, I do wash a fair bit, but Having to refill with every refuel is out of line! OVERALL RATING SO FAR ONE QUESTION How long do every bodies T's take to warm up? Mine seems to take ages (15 minutes) to get to normal (about half past 10 position). Most other cars I've had are warm in less than 5 min. Also noticed the temp gauge moving up and down a fair bit - say after giving it a little bit of a squirt - where on other cars the needle never ever moved. Is this also quite normal?

Mine seems very accurate. My T is brand new with factory 18s and at freeway speeds the GPS says there is nothing in it. I was in a hired Mitsi 380 two weeks ago (with GPS) and when the 380 speedo showed 110kmh, the GPS was showing only 103!

I saw my sales guy this morning and he said the reason mine ran so late was Vic Police (?) had 30 white XR6Ts which got pushed into the queue right in front of me. Did you consider going wingless? The pics I've seen of T's without wings look pretty neat to me. I left it too late to tell the dealer so I got one. Luckily, rear vision is very good even with the wing.

It looks better in the flesh. In the sun its grey. In the shade and in the evening it goes blue-grey. I'm very happy with it.

Here - The dealer is picking it up on Monday to get the windows tinted. Should look very nice. BTW, I'll get used to the shifter. More driving time is required!

It looks beautiful. I chose silk off the colour chart - and on the car it's a bit darker than I thought it would be, but it does key nicely with the new grey highlighted wheels and skirts. After taking soooo long to be delivered, I was a little disappointed that the dealer forgot the tinted windows - but otherwise, everything seems in tip top shape. Driving wise, I'm hitting it fairly hard as I do believe engines that are babied during run in don't end up being as good. I haven't done any full throttle acceleration from a standing start yet - I'll wait a week or two for that (LOL). It's not spectacularly quick feeling, but it sure sweeps you away like you are on a magic carpet ride - effortless. I can't believe how easily it revs - I've been up over 5500 rpm a couple of time accidentally - it just spins! My only gripe is the ZF auto - is an amazing gearbox and one of the reasons I chose the car, but I'm having problems reprogramming my arm. Does anybody know why Ford decided that pushing the shifter forward in manual mode shifts down? It's opposite to what my body wants to do after 5 years of pushing forward to shift up. I think Ford have it wrong since every T bar auto since the 1970's pushes forwards to shift up. Hopefully I'll get used to it quickly before I redline the engine too many more times! I was driving it home from the dealers in afternoon traffic and some loser did a lane change on me and came within I think centimeters of taking out the whole front drivers side guard. Jeeeeeeesus! I memorised his rego and stopped at the next servo to check for scrapes - it was that close! Oh the joy of new cars