Recent content by dlarkin_dc

I drove around on slow local roads to get a feel for the differences... roll, stopping distance, take off, and how I'd have to adjust my driving. Frankly, driving empty with the seats out was a de-light 🤦‍♂️

Tackling the wind noise, yeah 17 years later! The more I work on infiltration from floor and doors the louder the wind noise gets! Okay, it just seems like it. I've seen a couple approaches online - sellers saying to use window deflectors, a YouTube DIYer adding extra weather stripping for...

Son wrecked the front end of Mazda 5... hmm, that does sound very familliar 🤔 If you're going to patch it up yourself, online junk yards are gonna have parts. Even body shops and dealers use these for body repair. You may even get lucky with a color match bumper. A few that came up on a search...

The cavern! Barely any difference... basically felt fine, empty or with 850# load. 🤷‍♂️ If anything it had less roll and behaved better at highway speeds.

Miles? Curent struts? Soft doesn't sound like a good idea for handling and safety as the 5 is already hard on shocks as it's a stretched up tall 3. I've found KYB Excel G are OE performance and better than OE durability/longevity. Extra insulating from road surface is more tire wall. The...

That's my top issue with this trip, the 1183 lb capacity limit. I've got a spreadsheet with the weight of each box, the two passengers, minus removed car seats. I'll make sure the center of gravity stays low and centered. I'm hoping to avoid renting a full size suv for the trip, which'd be...

Thanks! Great to hear its doable. What's a surpise is the weight - it only weighs as much as one of the middle row seats!

Has anyone pulled both rows and can give me an idea of what handling is like? Ihave a trip with a large load coming up and I could use the extra space. I've often pulled one or both middle seats and could feel the marginal difference in weight, but also taking out the rears would feel moreso...

Decades ago I had a relative that was a dealer for Monroe and would fix us up with anything but was very clear that he wouldn't ever use them in his car. The one time I did, I could barely notice the difference with the new shocks from the old leaking ones. That was a low saloon car, I can't...

I think I have those same speakers! Older models but they still sound great. You should get the wiring adapters of you want to pay for them, much easier than cutting/soldering/heatshrink for all four speakers. The harness adapter for the head unit too.

I forgot, with an '07 most of this is a long time ago... Window tint makes for a cool look. All weather mats too. Together made things a little quieter too.

As long as you notice and enjoy it! I was surprised how much difference all-weather floor mats made to the road noise. Definitly got me interested in going further with sound deadening until I fell down that rabbit hole - reading up, watching youtubers, looking into products... and eventually...

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Thankfs for sharing. Always good to have another parts source. Quirk looks a lot like CARiD. It's not uncommon to see different storefronts with same webpages and backend database and stock... but the prices can be different 🤷‍♂️