Just wanted to say a HUGE thank you to Dickyboy72 for your excellent and fun posts.
I have looked forward to, anguished over and enjoyed the brilliant Star Wars vs posts you have created AND sustained over the past few months.
It’s been great fun! You deserve a Medal of Yavin for your hard work and bravery seeing this through!
Thank you!
So a few people have shown some interest in this knock off spoiler on eBay. I was lucky enough that my son bought me one of these, actually the painted one for Father’s Day.
I was quite skeptical about how the fit was going to be but I ended up surprised. Because I was concerned about the fit. I did a couple of test fits before I added any of the glue.
The most worrying thing was the length of the bolts going into the main spoiler.
I’ve included in the pictures, the instructions the kit that came with the spoiler and also the stages of taking off the Toyota original parts.
I removed the two bolts on the original Toyota part and then realized there were two push fits holding the original parts in place that you just have to pull straight out, away from the body.
I put the sides on and then the center fin expecting the bolts going into the center fin to be too long but once they were in place, everything seemed good.
I did try putting the fin in upside down as well just to see how it looked, but it was bad! 😝
If I hadn’t been so concerned about the fit, it would’ve only taken 50 minutes, but he ended up taking me about an hour and a half.
Next on my list is some cut vinyl to tie the wheels to the rear fin cap. Maybe some of the GT four stickers for the sill as well.
I wanted to share an experience - one I wish I could have found somewhere on the net, so I didn’t have to take the plunge myself into ‘the double unknown’.
Haters gonna hate. This is about a set of reps. It’s ok to hate them, but we don’t all have Volkswago money to drop at a moments notice.
Back in Feb, I bought a used ‘25PP GR with 4K on the clock. The price and spec were good, but the car was an 11hr drive away (I’d been looking for 2 1/2 months) and had a trade in.
Long story short, the car was as described but, someone had done a kerb job on 3 of 4 of the wheels and the paint behind the door handle was scratched up from long fingernails.
Took out a loan at the dealers and drove the car 11hrs back. On the drive I realized that the wheels needed a balance but otherwise everything was good.
Got the wheels balanced but every time I looked at the car, I saw the scuffed wheel rims. A plan was hatched - pay the car off, buy Volks and use these for winter.
Fast forward to May and my son calls me. He’s hit a pothole on the freeway and amazingly broken the shock on his NA Miata.
I drive out to help and hit a different pothole, killing one of the scabby stock alloys.
My local alloy repair place say it’s going to be 3 weeks before they can straighten, strip and paint all 4 and it’s going to be $190 - $210 per wheel. Not wanting any more debt from buying Volks, I took a risk and bought Advins from Fitment.
They had some pretty bad reviews on line but a car driving for 3 weeks on a wobbling wheel and then a week with the car on blocks, meant I would take the risk. Also, once the cars paid for, I will buy some TEs and put winter tires on these. I checked out a bunch or reviews and YouTube videos about Advins vs TEs and know they would be heavier and not as strong, but not by much.
I placed the order and included everything for a quick tire swap (when I buy the TEs I want a different size but needed to use the existing tires as only 7k miles now) and crossed my fingers.
They turned up ahead of schedule (under a week) in two boxes. Inside the boxes were two more boxes, neatly padded out with folded foam padding.
Inside that were the Advin boxes. Taking a deep breath and keeping my fingers crossed for no wheel damage, I checked out the wheels. They had a thin white foam over them, a stretchy fabrics cover and a plastic rim protector clipped to the rim. Unclipping this and all good. All 4 wheels were in perfect condition and the bolts and hi center adaptors were in one of the boxes - held down with foam and a sticker on the outside of the box indicating that they are in there.
Took the car and wheels to my local discount tire and they mounted them for $100 and reused the TPMS but added new valve stems.
They are on the car now and run great!
I’ll have the car paid off by winter, in time for a set of winter tires for the Advins and then save for spring for some new wheels.
Tl:dr Poor guy bought reps from Fitment, knowing that they would be heavier than stock and risked some of the bad online reviews of Fitment. Was surprised by Fitments service and packing and wheels are great to keep me running at similar cost to have my stock wheels repaired and painted but with no waiting.
I know this isn’t going to be great to some of you ballers, but for my daily, trying to be careful with $$$ it turned out to be a good experience.
For some reason, this amazing song jumped into my mind today. 1987 and not that well known.
An interesting insight into what British car journalists think about the GR Corolla, when they get the Yaris.
I wonder if we can buy Yaris seats here in the US and if they slot straight in on the rails…