jobyfreddel

We must be talking about different settings because there's not a whole heck of a lot of enjoyment coming from any of these for even a short period let alone a long period of time. The one thing I wanted to get done was to be able to close all the windows/moon roof using the key/fob in case I forgot to and turned the car off. It's not going to kill me if I don't have it and apparently I was wrong in the first place as it's not one of the listed items. BTW, if you get laid off, you become a lot more particular with where you spend your money. :(

When I purchased my 350, I was never informed by the dealer about the ability to customize certain options in the car at the mile checkup. He basically told me it was an optional checkup if I had any issues or questions, to bring it in. I found out later that this was the time to get the light timer/windows/moon roof/etc customized and now they will charge me. I'd rather not pay for this and can live without it but is there anyway I can do this myself? I assume not, but no harm in asking...

And the finger pointing has started LINK... This is the person that some people want to run in 2012. I think the Republican party is already making sure this doesn't happen.

I agree with you that unfortunately for him, his people did run a poor campaign and they got more caught up with trying the Rovian tactics which had worked for the Republicans the previous two campaigns. When I heard his concession speech, I too started to feel bad for him. That was the "real" John McCain. Like many others have said, I too would have voted for him over Al Gore had he gotten the Republican nod back in 2000. But you know what, I stopped feeling bad for him very quickly. I am not able to give him a pass on what he and his campaign did and said over the last few months when they decided to take it 100% negative and primarily personal attacks. They have divided and damaged the country in addition to the division/damage that was already done by the previous administration. I'm positive that John McCain knows that the America hating/terrorist/socialist/experience-lacking red herrings were BS, but he let his ambition to be president (and I'm sure, a decent amount of pressure from his campaign managers) get in the way. I know he loves this country and he obviously believed that he was the best candidate for president. He is an American hero and no one can take that away from him. Unfortunately it seems as though he may have started believing the ends justify the means. I believe that when he went on and on about Ayers, socialism, etc, he was simply using them as issues to enrage his supporters and he personally didn't necessarily believe them himself but was going to do whatever he wanted to get votes. His concession speech somewhat confirmed that for me. It may have gotten him some votes, it did not get him the presidency. Ultimately, the saddest thing is that while IMO he doesn't believe it himself, he is the one that has caused (i.e. robo calls, his and Sarah Palin's comments at virtually every rally) more division in this country. An unfortunately large portion of the American population will believe that in January, there will be a terrorist/Muslim/socialist sitting in the White House. Please keep in mind almost one out of every four Texans believe that Obama is a Muslim. LINK He gave a very gracious concession speech and I know he believes in the words he spoke. The thing is, after drumming it into his supporters heads for months, many actually believe the negative ads and smears. Unfortunately those beliefs cannot be turned off like a light switch. The booing by the audience attested to that. It was a very dangerous thing that he did.

When you post statements like the ones above, please keep in mind, anything else you have posted or will post will be discounted. When you read or hear things from biased sources and don't bother to check to see if they are true, but repeat them to others, you risk sounding ignorant. Regarding social security: McCain voted "yea" for the exact same bill LINK And read the article, McCain took it further by actually giving a floor speech arguing against an addendum which would disallow aliens to go back and claim SS benefits for work they did as in illegal. Are you then saying that McCain is too radical and too risky as well? Regarding health care: I read Obama's health care PLAN and his immigration PLAN but didn't see anything explicitly giving health care to illegals. If I'm missing something, by all means, please provide a link to an unbiased source which gives the details on that program. I don't claim to know all the ins and outs on every plan for either candidate. By the way, right now, today, uninsured illegal immigrants that go to the ER will get treated and guess what, Obama has not even been elected yet. There is a federal law that prohibits hospitals from refusing care to anyone that goes to an emergency rooms, no matter their residency status or ability to pay. Now, the source from which you copied/pasted the statements COULD be referring to the $250 million/year plan that is referred to in this article. McCain supported this as well. Too radical? Too risky? Illegal immigration hardliners Senators Dole and Cornyn also supported this bill. Read the entire article and you will see an example of how the sources where you get your information like to cherry pick tidbits of information, sensationalize it and use people like yourself to pass half truths along to others. These are not black/white issues; it is in your best interests to try and understand the entire reasoning instead of getting outraged by a sensationalized half truth and even worse, passing it on. As stated in the article, "it is the responsibility of the federal government, not emergency room nurses and doctors, to enforce immigration law, and that treating those with disease, regardless of immigration status, is necessary as a matter of public health.” Regarding Driver's Licenses: This issue is like complaining about a leaky faucet in a house that has major structural problems. Obama has stated many times that a comprehensive reform package is needed for the immigration issue. Unfortunately, the Drivers License issue is being used as a distraction. As he stated himself, "We have to have a comprehensive reform package and if we are doing what we need to do to control the borders, if we are doing what we need to do in cracking down on employers who are hiring undocumented workers and undermining U.S. workers then we shouldn't have a problem with driver's licenses because we will have legal workers here in this country as opposed to illegal ones." What's really sad is that so many of us don't even try to educate ourselves on the issues.

I honestly am not trying to flame here but I'm guessing that you didn't see the interview. Here is a snippet from the full interview :

I have the same problem on my black car. It only started after I polished the car with Sonus SFX 2 and 3 a few weeks ago. I got tons of the little white bugs flying around when I park my car at work and it's hard as hell to get in the car without having a bunch come inside also. The worst was when I was stopped at red light a few days after polishing and had my moon roof and windows open. All of a sudden, I had two bees flying around my car and then both were inside my car. I hate bees so I started swinging a notebook I had sitting on the passenger seat. I whacked one out of the passenger window and the other one flew out by itself. I immediately shut the windows and the moon roof and both bees kept flying around the car. That weekend I washed the car and it seems to have gotten much better but I still get those white bugs at work (albeit to a lesser degree).

I just got one... because they offered zero interest for 6 months and an $800 dealer credit if I put $5000 of my purchase on the credit card. Seemed like a great deal to me. How did you get them to offer you the $800 dealer credit? Was it part of a new purchase deal or is this something anyone can get by spending $5000? Thanks!

Looks great! Did you put the DWG on top of the UPGP or vice versa? I went to the Danase website and laughed at the product description:

sigh...

Going down to the exact dollar, it breaks down to $2295/person. You had me excited for a second there ;) With that said, Steve is absolutely right. It's somewhat shortsighted to say no to this bill simply because of not wanting to bailout these companies that have admittedly screwed up. There is an extremely likely possibility of a financial collapse if something is not done which will affect us all (read: companies allowed to fail). One thing that many people are reacting to is the term "700 BILLION DOLLAR BAILOUT." Many people are assuming that 700B is simply free money given to these companies. It is not, the treasury would be purchasing assets from institutions which would allow the institutions to start lending again and basically jump start the economy. These assets would be repackaged and eventually sold back to financial institutions. It is not a gift check. Like Steve mentioned, this could potentially be profitable to the taxpayers. There were add'l provisions in today's bill which protected you and I as taxpayers. Again, it's not a $700B blank check, there is going to be a purchase of assets which do have an underlying value. As Steve said, the treasury would also be able to take ownership interest in those companies. Also, if this bill caused a loss five years from now (if it overpaid for the assets), it required the president to propose legislation to recover the loss from the financial industry itself. Credit standards have tightened so much so quick already. To get the best rates on loans, many lenders now require a 720 fico or better. On an 80 LTV Agency home loan (Fannie/Freddie), you actually have to have a 740 fico to avoid rate adjustments. Roughly 6 out of 10 Americans would not be able to get these best rates today due to their fico. Imagine if this gets even worse if lenders start tightening even more. Less homes purchased, less automobiles purchased, even credit cards... Standards of living could go downhill pretty damn quick for you and I. The saddest thing is that it appears that this is being turned into a political issue on both sides of the aisle with all kinds of finger pointing and posturing. And on a related note, here is an interesting article here regarding the vote breakdown Quoted for Truth:

I second the sentiment re: customer service. I had ordered the SFX-2 but had forgotten to order the SFX-3 and only realized this once I rec'd my shipment. I sent Lynn an email and asked her if I would have to pay the shipping or if she would be able to just ship it with a nozzle that I originally purchased that was on backorder. Not only did she waive the shipping charge, but she took off another 25% because she had just put up a 24 hour sale on the Sonus SFX line. (LINK). She mentioned, "We are a small company so I wear a lot of hats (I am actually the only employee) and it is much easier to treat people how I like to be treated." I thought that kind of customer service was long lost! Lynn is awesome!

Don't be sorry, I'm very glad you started it! Like I said before, I had always wanted to detail my car but felt overwhelmed before when I tried to learn about it. It sounds so stupid now. I think I have picked up a decent beginner's understanding and I don't know why I felt that way before. This thread made me feel much more comfortable as the position that you were in months ago is what I was in a couple of weeks ago. I've read this thread through 3 times now and everytime I do, I pick up a few things that I missed before. The best thing about it is that since you guys have been going back and forth with the discussions for months now, I don't have to wait for answers, they're already there. One order arrives Wednesday, the other arrives Friday! The funny thing is that even though I've never done a single detailing myself in my life, I'm already getting requests from friends to do their cars. Hmmm, maybe I should practice my skills on their cars first and THEN do mine ;)

lux, you mentioned that when you restart the car, it doesn't recognize your Pearl and you have to "start the whole process again." Does your phone totally disappear from the system and you have to re-register the phone from scratch? Or is the phone still showing in the system and you just have to manually connect it every time? If it's the first thing, I had the same issue very recently on my ES350 (Discussion Link). The local dealer service dept. had never heard of the issue before and had to replace the NAV display and now it works fine.

They were saying that because they hadn't seen all the before and after pics of everyone's cars like I did ;) I'm not going to lie, there was a lot of rationalizing going on...

The first time I went through this thread, I didn't see the Camaro pics. I just saw them last night. Holy crap! That was amazing! I had to forward them to a couple of friends who were trying to talk me out of buying all the stuff saying I was wasting my money. When they saw the pics, they backed off quite a bit. Soooo, I just took the plunge. It took me 4 days to finally feel comfortable that I had everything I needed in my cart. Adding and dropping items (mostly adding) and I pushed the Submit Order button. Autopia and Autogeek split $800+ of my hard earned cash. I figured I'd get everything at once including the Flex. Kind of like ripping a bandaid off all at once rather than pulling off a little bit at a time I guess! Even so, I'm so excited, I can't wait to get started!!! These next 3-5 business days are going to go by slowly.

First of all, I want to thank everyone for the wealth of information that is in this thread. I've never detailed before and was pretty apprehensive to try as it seemed overwhelming. Then I read this thread (twice through now) and now I'm excited to get started. I "took advantage" of the dealer car washes and now have swirl/light scratches which show quite nicely on the Obsidian paint which I need to fix but is the only real problem I have. Here's what I have so far in my cart and just want to run it past you guys to see what I'm missing. Sonus Perfect Leather Interior Kit Sonus Tire & Wheel Care Kit Ultima Paint Guard Wash Ultima Paint Guard Plus, 12 oz. Sonus Der Wunder Drying Towel, Pkg/2 Sonus SFX Detail Clay Bundle Ultima Interior Guard Plus, 12 oz. Sonus Der Wunder Wash Mitt Sonus Professional Bucket add'l 5 gallon bucket Optimum No Rinse Wash & Shine, 32 oz Also, I was thinking about getting the Flex XC3401 VRG. 1) Many places offer this as a kit. LINK Does it make sense to get the kit, or should I get the pads separately? And if separately, which pads should I get? 2) There were a number of people on various forums that were talking about having issues with the backing plate. I.E. LINK There was a solution mentioned which included oiling the felt ring after removing the backing plate. Has anyone here experienced this problem and did the solution work for you? Lastly (for now) I've seen a number of videos which show the person using a foam gun to presoak. Is this something that is a good thing to have or is it unnecessary? Thanks!

Nav display replaced. All is well! Navsafe, seems like the only solution is to take it in to be replaced. Apparently it's pretty damn rare and we were the lucky ones, I guess.

don't you love it when they try to make up explanations for problems with the car? Glad to hear that it's covered under warranty. Let us know which part they replace. Maybe it's the bluetooth module itself? They were a bit more specific when I stopped by today. They are going to replace the "nav display" because "there's a connection that is bad." I questioned on why the display would need to be replaced. I'm far from being an expert, but that still doesn't make sense to me. I don't understand what the display has to do with the deletion/storage of the Bluetooth profiles. I was told, "don't worry about it, he (service tech) does it all the time, he knows what he's doing." I will be stopping by tomorrow to talk to my service rep to get a little better clarification.

Well, I dropped my car off yesterday afternoon. Apparently they have to order a special part for the nav system and it will need to be replaced. Thankfully, warranty will cover it. Unfortunately, I have to be away from my baby for 3 days but at least they gave me another ES as a loaner. The last time I had extended service, it was a different dealer and they gave me a Kia SUV as the loaner (they have an Enterprise rental desk in the service dept and that's all they had.) I'll update once they replace the part.

I have an 07 ES and had been using the Bluetooth with my old cellphone for 14 months with no problem. It would auto connect, transfer from nav to phone and back again with no problems. I got a new phone last Monday and since I knew I wouldn't be using my old phone anymore, I decided to delete the registration of that phone (and another different phone that was also registered). I successfully deleted both of the old phones and also successfully registered the new phone. The system recognized the model number and it was the only phone listed. I received a call, dialed out with no problems. The next morning, when I started the car, I got the message "connection not successful." I checked the settings in the nav system, BOTH of the old phones were back and the new one was gone... I tried it again, deleting both of the old ones, and successfully registered the new one again, drove to work. Hours later, jumped back in the car, same thing, both old phones are back, new one is gone. Did this ~10 times now, can't get it to stick but kept doing it as I did still need to use it in the mean time. I took it to the dealer twice. One time a Service Rep did the same thing I did, the second time a tech came out and did the same thing I did. Both times, the old phones did stay deleted but this was only when I restarted the system after 30 secs. When the car was stopped for an extended period of time, the old phones came back. The Service Rep was saying it could be because the phone may not be compatible, but that doesn't make sense to me. Phone compatibility shouldn't cause old profiles come back after being deleted. I'm going to have to drop the car off so they can take a thorough look at it, but just wanted to see if anyone else had experienced anything like this.

Just in case anyone is interested, the redesigned(?) ES 350 all weather floor mats (the original style was recalled) will be released to the dealers by the end of November per my conversation today with a very nice rep from the corp. offices. I had called the local dealers prior to calling the corp. offices to see if any of them had any stragglers on hand (none) and none of them knew when the mats would be available. I then called the corp offices, the rep eventually called me back with the update after speaking with her manager(s). They were recalled soon after I purchased my car so I was unable to get them.

I did a search but didn't find anything on this. To preface, this is my first new car and I've not had ABS before so forgive me if this is a stupid question. I've had the 350 for 4 weeks now and I've been experiencing issues with braking. I generally experience this at low speeds (i.e. coasting up to a red light). When I hit the brakes, I get no resistance unless I mash the brakes all the way down to the floor. It's a little disconcerting as I often have a car in front of me and am expecting the resistance/brake application but do not get the response and usually stop with a hard jerk. I have noticed that if I tap the brakes and then hit them again, I get resistance right away. Also, it's not everytime; I've probably experienced it about 5-7 times. I spoke w/ my dealer and he had not heard of anything like this and set up a service appt for me. Anyone else experience this or know anything about it? Thanks.

I'm very happy. I spent a long time researching the car but it was not really needed. With KBB and sites like LOC, anyone can become a well informed buyer with very little effort and in very little time. I had gone to KBB and gotten the dealer invoice including options. Buying on the last day of the month is definitely recommended also. It also didn't hurt that I had a little bit of leverage as my buddy was also buying (he ended up with an RX350)

I joined the club last night! My first ever car purchase and I'm too damn excited. Got a fully loaded UL package for 39070. Last night I woke up twice and both times, in my half awakened state, I couldn't tell if I had actually purchased the car or if it was a dream. Beautiful car!!! I'm excited!