2011 Rav4 Alignment

Alignment checked out by SPS – pretty much spot on from the dealer, so decided to leave it as is. Guess the dealership was telling the truth when they said they aligned the car after installing new tires.

Yokohama Avid Ascend 225/65-17 (Rav4)

Yokohama Avid Ascend 225/65-17 (Rav4, 1/2016-Current) Ironically, these were the same make & model of tire that I got rid of on the Fit concerned it may not be good enough for use in snow & daily driving situations. However, after not being that impressed by the replacements we put on the Fit, I was…

2011 Rav4 – Weathertech Mats

First maintenance/modification up for the new Rav4 – Weathertech mats! Whoever owned the car previously and traded it into the dealer must have felt they needed to take the mats with them, so I ended up with none. Sadly the dealer didn’t provide any either, and after scanning the web for a wide range of…

2015-16 Recap & Off Season Plans

What a fast year 2015 turned out to be — can’t believe how quickly time flew. Funnily enough, for the second year in a row I got in 33 events, though this time via dual driving, and managed to get a few more runs in as well. Big year of changes too — Evo 2015:…

CCSCC 11142015 (Mini)

Final event of the year! Unfortunately, a stark contrast from my performance last year – didn’t get a great run in and finished 27th overall – though we had about 10+ nationally competitive drivers at the event today. The course standard fair for CCSCC, starting from the south and running in the typical M configuration.…

Dunlop ZII Star Spec 205/50-16 (Mini 09/2015-11/2015)

Swapped these tires from our NB Miata, as we were planning to sell the car anyway. Right away noticed that, even though the tire is the same 205, runs much wider (nearly an inch) compared to the 205/45-16 RS3s. Thanks to the Miata being kind on the tires, the flipped side had very little wear,…

Dunlop Z1 Star Spec 245/40-17 (Evo 09/2014-11/2015)

These tires were leftover tires on the OEM wheels that came with the Evo when I bought it. True to form, they were still pretty grippy, though dated, and had a lot of tread. Compared to modern, fresh tires, they probably give up 1s on any decent sized course. Just trying to finish these off so I…

GAX 11082015 (Evo)

Decided to use the final GAX event as a test ‘n tune (16 runs to do some shock tuning). I had been having a lot of problems with the rear of the car being unstable, especially on lift and braking, the car would be pitching and rolling a lot. I had pretty much decided to…

Continental TrueContact 185/65-15 (Mini)

Continental TrueContact 185/65-15 (Mini, 11/2015-current): Initial impressions of this tire are very good. Main purpose was to use as a daily cruiser and highway tire for trips. This will play especially key in next year, as the RE71Rs truly disintegrate it seems. They are much narrower than what I’ve been running, so there is a…

BSCC 11012015 (Mini)

I leveled up. That’s the only way I can really describe my performance from the last event, and now this one. If only this weren’t all happening after all the points events had finished. Squashing any concerns that the last event (technically two courses) was a fluke, I had yet another best-ever performance. I actually…