Mazda looks nice
swap the car… the G5 or cobalt is a better car really.
If it’s an insured rental take it to a local rallycross/road-rally.
[quote=“FuzzyFish,post:43,topic:39628"”]
If it’s an insured rental take it to a local rallycross/road-rally.
[/quote]
It’s insured but not through Enterprise… through my own car insurance. I don’t even think road rally or rallycross would be fun in this thing. It just totally numbs the senses, every last one of them.
[quote=“theblue,post:42,topic:39628"”]
swap the car… the G5 or cobalt is a better car really.
[/quote]
I drove a g5 for FIVE weeks in Feb… never again. The G5 I couldn’t get out of my driveway and had to be towed out lol
It should be less than a week now. I told enterprise to call me if they get a Corolla, Focus, Versa, Sentra, Vibe, etc.
I specifically told them to make sure there aren’t condoms in whatever car they call me about though.
Getting 15mpg city sucks though!
pay to upgrade? or just drive by a lot until they are out of cheap cars then they’ll be force to upgrade you for free.
Shitty string of luck, nice little car though.
[quote=“bpipe95,post:46,topic:39628"”]
or you could just shovel your fucking driveway?
[/quote]
plow guy came 4 times in the past 3 days. And I shoveled… which took all afternoon because I’m injured from the accident.
It isn’t fun shoveling heavy snow when your back is killing you
there’s still some ice on the driveway, but I should be ok getting out tomorrow
Even without plowing I don’t have trouble getting out with my car. blizzaks > crap all seasons is the moral of the story. My car should be done monday though, but unless it’s done early in the morning monday I can’t pick it up until tuesday. I’m driving to syracuse tomorrow (in a car with a door that shuts, I’m trading at enterprise in the morning already arranged that) to check out the car and take pics.
basically the only difference with the car post accident is that all the rear badges will be shaved. Not sure if I’ll like the look, but I can always break the six posts off the back of my badges and glue them all back on. I just figured since they needed a new hatch plus paint anyway I might as well have them weld the holes shut first.
Plus I need to make sure they transferred my rear glass, wiper arm, etc over. My insurance co is fighting me about paying the labor to move the glass over (new hatch has glass already), but if they don’t move it over they need to pay for new tint all around (to be sure it matches), an OEM ‘zoom-zoom’ decal (yes I know the mazda part number for it) and my toronto protege club decal :).
can’t wait to see the car again it’s been so long >_<
hey Chris… hope the car is back on the road and repaired soon. 
Brian
so many familiar faces here cool.
shop says the car will be done monday, I’m crossing my fingers. from what my insurance rep said it is all painted so I can’t wait to see tomorrow.
The only original paint now is inside the front door sills, on the front section of the roof, passenger side under the hood, and the firewall 
I traded Friday morning… got a Corolla LE. It has the weirdest options package I’ve ever experienced. Auto headlights (you can’t at all override them), LED gauge cluster (blinding white with red needles, doesn’t match the interior lighting at all), auto transmission… but it’s the LE (not base) trim and has no floor mats at all, and no cruise control.
I gotta say it’s not a bad car at all! I’m just so happy to be in anything smaller. The interior is lower quality than I expected. I was thinking it would be higher quality than my protege but it’s the opposite. The Protege doesn’t feel like an economy car, this does. Then again, I got 37.4mpg (calculated accurately) driving to and from Syracuse to visit my car --without cruise control. I tried to keep my speed steady at 70 but the way it is geared it’s easy to get to 80 without thinking.
As a daily driver I couldn’t ask for more… maybe side airbags/abs/ebd/cruise but that’s it. Since they have been on this gen corolla forever one could probably get a used one for very little money. I’ll just keep my Protege daily driver track car though, I enjoy 95 durometer motor mounts (all the mounts) on a daily driver
Got my car back today! I’ll have to go back to get some things tweaked but overall I’m so happy!
Absolutely great experience at Lou’s Care Care (Syracuse), really top notch. Friendly, helpful, really accommodating to my OCD, and overall they did a stellar job.
yay taller than stock and narrow snow tires 
In that pic take a close look at the rear bumper to see the little issue that’ll have to be worked out. There’s a bulge in the new bumper (it’s OEM, very strange) and along the bottom edge near the left corner there’s a defect. I don’t think the latter can be just fixed, I think they might have to do a new bumper + repaint.
Also they threw away my ‘323F’ badge that I had to have hand imported from the Netherlands (i.e. the person from the Netherlands brought it to me in Canada). I gave them a list of parts to keep and someone must not have looked at it. The other other part I cared about was the broken tail lamp. I wanted it for an LED retrofit project I’m working on. I only have a spare passenger side light, but I can just mirror my work on that and install it one night when I’m done.
I’m so glad to have her back 
I don’t like the way the shaved hatch looks in photos though. There’s a very slight body line that connects to that piece above the license plate, but from most angles in a photo you can’t see it at all, it’s too slight to notice in the reflection. In person I love the way it looks, I really wasn’t sure if I’d be happy with that.
The 6 holes were properly welded shut for $128 (including the extra labor to prep the liftgate for paint after that) not including the paint since that already had to be done.
Now I just need to find a few places local to get some work done. I can get a discount at Krown Lakeshore near Toronto to do an undercoating but don’t really feel like driving that far. My roommate had his car done last year at Delta Sonic but the coverage was really inconsistent when looking at the car on a lift.
Then I want to just hand a shop my car + a new turbo manifold gasket, downpipe gasket (2-piece downpipe) and some new OEM studs, bolts, and nuts and have them fix my exhaust leaks. They go away when the car is warmed up but are annoying (and toxic) until that point. I’ll probably go to CDI for that, even though they’re a ‘euro’ shop. I’ve heard great stuff about their work and my roommate had very extensive routine maintenance done on his Volvo there and they did a great job with it. I think it was like 1500 but it was a LOT of stuff that got replaced, it was a great deal considering.
sorry for the long post just so excited to be back in an exciting car
looks good chris. youll prolly have to have the gasket surfaces touched up so that the new gaskets will seal.
Brian
now I want to go for a drive… but I’m here alone yet blocked in the driveway. my roommate can’t answer his phone (at a play) and isn’t responding to txts. I know he has spare keys but I’m not going to move his car without his approval
oh well I played around with the car in the garage for a while. Took the summer wheels into the basement, vacuumed, even made sure all my light bulbs and such are working
I’m still getting used to the ‘blank’ look of the rear of my car. I think it might look even better if I get rid of the toronto protege club and ‘zoom-zoom’ decal but I gotta at least represent the toronto protege club. It’ll probably look awkward to me all winter. It just doesn’t look stock, on an otherwise extremely stock looking car (winter mode).
thanks for the positive words guys. I’m so impressed with the work the shop did, I can’t say it enough. Last time this happened was an awful experience, but this time, even with the little imperfections (that I’m sure they’ll work out) I’m really happy.