kevinb120

The explorer's control trac is no joke either, I think it works better then Range Rovers default AWD system for snow on roads. But the Haldex-based AWD systems Ford has adopted are amazing in car-based platforms, its a system akin to $50k+cars(the same as 4MATIC in MB's(also Haldex based).

I'm just saying I'm sick of sports cars. And I've never gotten a dime from anybody since was 16(1985), well except $40 from grandma on Christmas FWD is fine overall, but after driving hypersensitive RWD cars in a four-season state, I wants my AWD this time. And I don't see much wrong with putting 2-3 new American cars on the road each year myself, not to mention the 150-200 new Fords I sell, I could of just as easily bought an X3 and make more money selling Toyotas... And wtf is the 'poor little rich kid' shit, this isn't a Ferrari forum, its a $35 per month, $1.15/day option.

It starts to get to be a chore installing 4 ballasts :wacko: edit: the vvme kit is 60+30 shipping so its $90, I thought it sounded cheap as I had paid about $100 a year ago for the same kit.

This is my 34th car(not including bikes and boats), I get used to everything(not to mention driving at least 20,000 other vehicles working in the car business for years)... Just this year alone, I have owned a 2006 mustang/2007 mustang/ and the 2007 edge. Being single and getting sick of being followed around by LEO's for no reason whatsoever(at least when they are behind me), I decided to get a do-it-all vehicle for a while. Plus, endless modding and still getting bored each year with the car was getting old as I'm wasting too much time tinkering with the car. Hopefully the moonroof and awd will keep me interested for more then 10 months this time around. Its nice and stylish, and very functional, without being expensive. It also keeps me humble in traffic, with the $2000+ speeding fines in VA thats all I need is yet another reckless driving ticket. It 'naturally' cruises around 60-70mph, where I would just be shifting into 3rd at 70 in the Mustang, 4th at 110....I had to sell the bike for the same reason. And I can take home anything on the lot, used Range Rover, Expedition EL limited, whatever. But 3 years with no tickets for a change is a new record for me, I need to keep a low profile a while, and I had just ordered a Bullitt for myself two weeks ago....

The AWD model definitely drives better then the FWD. Its not just for snow, just making a right turn in the rain from a stop(or any fast start on wet roads) is a bid difference in the AWD. Its an incredibly competent system being able to divert all of the power to any one wheel at any time, and much more sophisticated the the the tradional 4WD systems. Any time the ground is not dry, AWD is superior to the FWD, and its not hard to make the FWD model feel particularly 'FWD' in the dry either. I only got one chance to drive it in a little snow so far, and its fantastic with AWD and the Advance Trac. The only thing you have to worry about in the snow is avoiding other idiots. I drive them all the time at the dealer, but when I started looking for myself, I drove both FWD/AWD for a few days each, both in the rain as well. Now is it 100% necessary? No, but once you have it, you definitley don't want to go back. Its not great on gas either way, if it were a 10mpg gain I would see it being a big selling point to go FWD. Going from a 330HP Mustang to a CUV this time around(where 1/2" of throttle can induce wheelspin in the rain-forget snow), no way in hell am I not getting AWD. If im gonna drive a fat, tall vehicle, its going to drive the part as well. On dry pavement, the FWD is noticeably faster however, but you do get a hint of torque steer giving away the drive train, there's no confusion between the two. After driving a razor-sharp car, the AWD is a nice, sedate, and quiet blob of a car that goes through everything without giving you a bit of trouble-snow/sleet/rain/gravel-'no problem, sir, forward we shall go withhout protest'...

If I use them I am going with the VVME H11 kit in 6000k for more light output and less glare that still have healthy touch of blue. I've used two VVME bi-xennon kits in mustangs(as have hundreds of others) without every having a problem, the single element H11's are $60 for the kit. 4300K is OEM-spec and even brighter, pure white light. The whiter it is, the lest glare there is, 10000k for instance is completely obnoxious with very little light ouput. http://vvme.com/catalog/list-s-10145-10146.html

Yea, I'm just going to sell the X2 with the Mustang CAI. They didn't have a lot of calibration codes for 07's so its 'sellable' even with the tune files in the mustang clique.

If you like it, sure why not? It won't be the last vehicle you ever own and obviously you're getting tired of the other truck or you wouldn't be shopping. Check 36 month lease again in detail, as going to 39-your rate goes up and you loose a couple points of residual. It should be roughly the same payment for a 36. I would stick with AWD unless you live in an area that doesn't see bad weather. Why not get a loaded Edge over a base MKX though??

Well there's no money in arresting people such as an illegal alien who commits a minor offense like stealing your car when you can get a big fat ticket in Va for speeding over $2000(of course not one citizen had a say in the enactment of that debauchery-all of a sudden, Va residents can get tickets with 'set' fees of $1000 and up). Hence the local parkway is covered with speed traps. I won't get into all the 'liberties' I see taken by officers in cruisers with local traffic laws. But if you do something to your car that is illegal, whether it's deemed a 'relevant' violation to yourself is moot. Sure, it seems trivial and annoying, but it never would of happened if you had left the vehicle with its OEM parts. Although if I do switch over to something like hids and test it like I did the Mustang and find it to be too annoying to other drivers, I won't use them.

The top of the reflector is squared off and pretty deep, a lot of reflectors don't have this but I see it on Fords a lot. It's one of the reasons the Mustang is not as annoying with an aftermarket hid bulb conversion. BUT they also sit much lower to the ground. At high speeds on a highway, you could actually see through/under the guardrails(stuff you never see with halogens-like the first time you see the NFL in HD) and never feels like you are outrunning the light power-the Edge hits that point at about 70mph. I'm a bit hyper-sensitive to the sides of the road after riding motorcycles for years so I notice just about anything 'different' I see when driving from one car to another. Another thing everybody says is that they notice a bunch more road signs, even on their own street after conversion. The 'test's say halogen is better for reflective tapes, but that is also BS, you can see reflective tape on a police cruiser from over 1/4 mile with the conversion(on the Mustang), and you can tell you are the one lighting signs based on the color for cars hundreds of feet ahead of you. I have a feeling the Edge will be a lot more glaring to oncoming motorists though. I wouldn't try the fogs or the hi-beams either as they are designed to disperse light upward-even more conductive to glare-and in the Mustang's case, they were redundant anyway. You couldn't even tell the fogs were on-at all.

They can talk about it all they want but it depends on the individual car. On the current Mustang, light output excels at least 3 times what the stock headlights and fog lights combined, puts out no more glare to other drivers then an OEM HID headlight(and the glare from HID headlights has a much faster recovery time then excessively bright halogens in many OEM SUV applications for night vision, and many SUV HID's were MUCH worse then these for oncoming glare). Not to mention the ability to light reflective surfaces, such as road stripes even through rain, where you can be all but blind with the stock headlights. And be able to see much further into the woods and up ahead, even at speeds in excess of 130mph. I never got flashed once with them, yet got flashed constantly with the factory headlight/fog lights. Even when driving in packs of friends, everybody said it didn't bother them and liked that my headlights helped them see big time when I was beside them. So say what they want, on the Mustang at least, they are a godsend. And much better overall then the factory HID setup on 08's, which have virtually identical levels of glare viewed from oncoming vehicles(yes I did multiple tests with other cars from mine in both compact cars and suvs as I have access to hundreds of vehicles I can drive and others to drive my car). And there was no fatigue whatsoever, even on 5+hour night time drives. I had them for 9 months. I can care less about what 'tests' say, when I sold a new Mustang and I took it up the street for gas, I would constantly check to see that the headlight switch was even on. They were solenoid tripped for brights and they DO raise the point of focus as a halogen bulb does(not a factor on the Edge), but without high beams it is still plenty of light into the triple digits. Now with the Edge, I haven't seen them with HID and have yet to try it myself. It could be a totally different effect based on the reflector, although it does have the flat 'hood' in the reflector's design that the Mustang's housings have. All I know is the light output and vision ahead with fogs and low beams is by far lower then just the headlights on my Mustang. I feel like I am driving with sunglasses on at night in the Edge, and its better then a lot of halogen equipped vehicles. I will eventually get them and test them with other cars in real time just like I did when I first got the last set. If they look to be a nuisance to other drivers, I will not use them. I would also leave the high-beams halogen(like every BMW and MB or Lexus does), as they take a few seconds to heat up, and most halogen high-beams are more then enough for filling the additional height, especially with a HID low beam. Again, for all I know they may suck in the Edge's setup, for forward vision and/or other drivers, but you have to test them instead of a 'guess-test' unless you are using the identical reflector in question. As far as Stern claims about 'OEM research', the 08 OEM HID setup in the Mustang uses a retracting shield to enable a 'high-beam' equivalent, and it does work, he needs to change his web page. The only difference in the shape of the reflector from the halogen setup is a slit cut in the back to cap some of the upward glare, but again in real-world head-ons, the glare was about the same as the after market one. A good indicator for the maximum glare before becoming annoying is the glare levels of the last-gen Acura TL(pre-03) or Lexus GS, although big SUV's with OEM hids are still brighter to oncoming traffic.

I dont know but here was an off-road H pipe: And we know what happened when an employee snuck fuzzy dice into the parking lot in his Lada coupe: As for deadly cat-backs, I'm afraid to think about it, but from what I have heard many Magnaflow owners need to take that crap off immediately or they too will suffer the same fate as Alderaan:

Meh, someone who will figure it out even it it means they wont get to sell a new tuner every time. NOBODY has tried this with a FWD on a dyno to see what it does first?

I still don't understand the crash with the Semi thing??? FIRST, you need to know what HID headlights actually are in the first place. But other aftermarket stuff is dangerous, here's what I found on the internet: Here, check this out, aftermarket mud flaps, yikes!: Aftermarket shorty billet antenna, not sure if it was natural or anodized black: And THIS is why dark window tint is illegal in some states! The guy never saw it coming!

Those aren't HID bulbs. Hid bulbs REQUIRE balasts, if it uses the factory sockets, its not a High Intesity Discharge system, HID's can not light using a simple bulb socket. Those are dangerous and should NEVER be used, any of the bullshit 'xennon' bulbs on ebay or autozone. Only name brand upgraded halogens like Sylvania, Hella or PIAA have been properly tested. As HID threads tend to breed more HID threads, check out the other one which refers to a proper aftermarket (as proper as putting HID in a reflector housing can be) that is part of an enormous Mustang thread on the VVME kits that hundreds of people have converted to-including my Mustang which were flawless solenoid tilting 6000K bulbs. I may order a set of 6000k H11's for my Edge as I got used to looking at pure daylight from 30-200' in front of my car and the ability to light reflective signs and tape at up to 1/3 mile. HID's use their own protected power sources and are fused at the units and the power supply wire, and run much cooler then normal halogens at 3x the light output. Although in normal reflector housings cause excessive glare to oncomming drivers, some housings worse then others. The Mustang's were no worse then factory Acura HID's, but other designs may be worse.

Its up to what you like. Mustangs are available with the all-red seats and Redfire paint(through 07), it was a popular option and still looks good even without being a perfect match IMO. It would look fantastic with carbon(alloy) but of course they dropped the color. The Fusion with the sport interior in Vapor silver looks very good with the virtually identical setup as the Edge's. My Mustang was Alloy with red:

They probably tried it and found a glare issue. Although the entire dashboard in lighter colors reflecting into the windshield passed no problem in to production, until 08 that is.

Well, the new mail-slot in the rear of the car is a big hit on its best angle. I don't know what Ford was thinking-'uh, we have this plastic box kinda like a handle we could stick in a big square hole'-'sounds good-run with it!' I must be a super genius secret agent man because I have no problems opening and closing the rear hatch on an 07. Other then that, the limited model and the reverse of the panel colors in the camel/stone interiors looks fantastic. The lighter dashes pretty much reflected perfectly into the window(I have the all-black interior). Sync is very cool too, but I make it a point to avoid phone calls when I'm on the road so it doesnt really matter to me either way personally. So all good changes except the giant slot in the tailgate. Its almost as if manufacturers jump to appease the stupid people then making them learn how to actually do something that takes the slightest bit of coordination.

Aftermarket hids made an suv crash into a semi?

Heh, this is why I like knobs I've had remote start on a few vehicles, none with ETAC, and its a piece of cake. Some people must be in bizzaro world as we have remote starts installed ALL the time at the dealer by our techs with no issues.

All decent hid kits require a seperate power wire to run the balasts. Here's an elaborate thread on my Mustang's conversion that has dozens of people buying the same setup with no issues after I put it in(maybe hundreds by now). If you are using a mechanical bi-xennon kit (bulbs tilt up for brights) then you tap into the factory harness to tell the switch to move the bulbs up or down. In the case of an Edge, they only need the single-element conversion as the hi-beams will stay haologen, making it even simpler. the sets sold through VVME.com are excellent for the money. Nobody has ever had a problem with them that I've heard of on themustangsource forums. Find out the bulb type, as they don't list it specifically for the Edge anywhere. http://forums.bradbarnett.net/showthread.p...;highlight=hids Everything you ever wanted to know about HIDs being used in a halogen car is on that thread, dont waste your time with the 'HID elite' that do rediculous crap like spending thousands coverting custom reflectors on $1200 beater cars and HID lighting is their life. Some of them probably never leave the basement of the science building except to have HID partys in parking lots late at night.. -Power requirements are totally different for HID lighting, there is no such thing as just a bulb replacement. -There is no need for a relay to be added(the 'relay' switch included with bi-xennon kits is something different) EDIT: Edge uses the elusive H11 bulb for low beams and fog lights, they do offer HID conversions. Silvania for some reason refuses to make Silverstars in only this bulb type. -They do not work with factory daytime running lights if the DRL's use the low beams. -If it does not have a balast setup, it is not a HID light system. I am still getting used to being back to halogens again, but it may be very annoying to other drivers converting an EDGE as the Mustang was very low to the ground. But Acura factory units seemed to have more glare then my 'improper' setup in the Mustang. Not to start another hid thread as they grow like weeds, but only get 4600K(white) or 6000k(slight blue) 8000K or higher is glare city with poor light output. I may still go to another 6000k setup anyway as the ones in the Mustang were simply incredible.

omfg what a scammer, yea 50hp for 9 bucks... And wtf is with the feedback, there are POSITIVE feedback notes saying its junk?? The rest are all 'fast shippin' as if they run to the computer and leave feedback the day the envelope comes in

I just traded in my hopped up 07 Mustang for an Edge, so you're saying I shouldn't sell my XCAL II JUST YET? :hyper: The 'locked in' part means you can only use it for one car at a time as it saves your factory tune on the tuner and you 'swap' it with one of the custom tunes. In my case, I am returning the GT to stock and I just need to replace the tunes with ones for an Edge.