Hi again! Greetings from Toronto! Here are my new wheels with painted calipers with Nissan logo. I think they look great and exceeded my expectations. They are Enkei Imola in 18 inch, about $160 each on Tirerack. I got mine special order from Simply Tire in the Dufferin / Finch area. He gave me a great price and his caliper painting service is very cool. I have been rolling on the stock 16 inch plastic wheels covers for over 6 months now and it was driving me crazy. This is my first car that didn't come with alloy rims.

I like rims to have spokes going out to the tire - it really does make the wheels look bigger. I will be using the wheels year round so my choice of rim was preferably silver or black painted and not brushed or chrome. I swapped my tpms over and so far there have not been any lights going off.

I am including only a few pics that I took real quick on my iphone. If you can't see them, I apologize because I have only posted pics once. I bought a new camera 2 months ago and will take new pics for you guys. I am on photobucket under dolbydj. There are 15 pics there including my Rogue vs Simply GTR.


I need some help from you guys. Please chime in and post your responses. I check this board and your conversations almost every day!!

Where is the best place to buy the U.S. factory spoiler or reasonable facimile (not oem), painted and shipped to Toronto?

I currently have a debadged rear, what look should I do?

I am looking for a light semi reflective tint (light mirror), what is it called and does it interfere with my radio?
I have been using the overdrive button(turning the OD off) a lot lately and flooring the gas (it feels like a turbo). Is this bad for the engine? I only started doing this after I went to JRP (Johnson Research Performance) out in Mississauga and the manager's wife has a modified Rogue. He said, he only drives the car with the OD button on.







links fixed by moderator

Hello, dolbydj!

The Overdrive function on your transmission should generally be left on unless you need to, "downshift," for harder acceleration on the highway--then you turn if off. Overdrive is simply a taller gear ratio so that on the highway, the engine can run at a lower RPM range to save fuel. It makes sense to leave Overdrive on by default, and only turn if off temporarily for passing maneuvers.

Ever drive stick? Think of Overdrive as your top gear (or in some cases, your top two gears if you've driven tall-geared 6-speeds).

-Ed

dolbydj wrote:Hi again! Greetings from Toronto! Here are my new wheels with painted calipers with Nissan logo. I think they look great and exceeded my expectations.

Wow, I have to agree... they look really sweet. And the price was great too!. Very nice.

dolbydj wrote:Where is the best place to buy the U.S. factory spoiler or reasonable facimile (not oem), painted and shipped to Toronto?

I hate to say it but your best bet will probably be eBay. I'm a big fan of eBay so I wouldn't hesitate, but that's your call. The tricky part is finding a seller (eBay or otherwise) who will sell a quality product, at a low price, and ship to Canada. I did some searching on eBay for you to limit the pain. The best price from a eBay supplier... who will ship to Canada... who offers "painted to match" ABS plastic spoilers US spoilers... and has good feedback as a eBay seller, seems to be this seller:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/PAINTED- ... 439f153a6b

If you haven't already seen it, more info on eBay spoilers versus OEM can be found in this thread:

need-help-with-installing-the-spoiler-t ... ml#5535074

dolbydj wrote:I currently have a debadged rear, what look should I do?

Hmmm... not sure I understand the question. If it is debadged then it means all the chrome has been removed. Are you asking how to put it back on? If so, just go to a local auto parts store and pick up some 3M automotive double sided tape. Cut it to fit the chrome trim you are applying and stick it on.

dolbydj wrote:I am looking for a light semi reflective tint (light mirror), what is it called?

Tinting film carries a slew of different names depending on the manufacturer. Even if I had a name or manufacturer there's no guarantee the installer in your area would carry that brand. Rather than relying on a specific name I'd recommend going to a local installer and ask the same questions. Try to describe the color/effect of the film you want. A problem with trying to give you a name of a film or supplier is "light mirror tint" isn't enough to go on. "Light mirror" could end up being be 70% or 50% depending on the effect you are trying to achieve. Also, "mirror" tint comes in a variety of color shades including bronze, chrome, green, black, copper, gold, silver etc. So.... besides letting the installer know you are looking for a light mirror tint you also need to identify the color spectrum. (Just my two cents, but on Gotham Grey I'd lean towards smoke / black. While the silver mirror film can look cool on sunglasses... it won't match the silver / grey of your car. Anyway, even more important than your discussion with the installers is to ask to see and actual installation. In other words don't rely solely on what they tell you they can do, or what the film will look like once its installed, or by looking at small samples of film. If the installer is any good they should offer customer references so you can go look at and inspect and actual installation from a satisfied customer. Be aware some installers are better than others. If done properly installed film should look like they came tinted from the factory (no fingerprints, no lint, no bubbles, etc.)

dolbydj wrote:Will tinting my car interfere with my GPS, mobile phone, radio etc.?

[/quote]

Possibly. This depends on the manufacturing / coating process of the window film you eventually select. Several manufacturers use metals such as nickel, copper, aluminum and silver to coat the polyester film because of their strong heat reflecting properties. The potential downside is these metals can reflect away radio waves as well, leading to the side effect of weak cell phone reception and/or broken GPS tracking. Your radio should be unaffected since the Rogue uses a roof mounted antenna.

That said... new technologies have been developed that allow film manufacturers to use non metallic coating methods. Multilayer manufacturing processes as well as the use of ceramic and carbon coating methods have similar heat rejection properties as metals, but do exhibit the negative effects of radio signal interference. The hard part will be finding an installer who is knowledgeable enough of his films to answer this question. Personally I didn't worry about it. I simply wanted the look and heat filtering properties the film provides. I picked an installer who did the best work and had the film color I wanted and provided the end look I was trying to achieve and didn't concern myself with radio or cell phone interference. After all... if you find someone who installs the newer ceramic films but the color selection sucks on our car... would you still have it installed?
NET: Prioritize the variables. Is it - Appearance, Color selection, Light transmission, Cell/GPS Interference (NOTE: If your GPS antenna is dash or mounted on or below the windshield then the tint will have minimal impact.

FYI: As luck would have it... I ended up with a Carbon based film so I've had no problems with my cell or GPS. Here's what I have:
Manf: SunTek Window Films
Film Type: Carbon Series
Film Tint: 35%
Lifetime Warranty against fading, peeling, cracking, adhesive failure and delamination for as long as I own the car.

Here's what it looks like:



35% on the front windows - 20% (factory tint) on the back windows

I hope you guys can get this link http://s765.photobucket.com/home/dolbydj
I have changed it to public. I hope you don't need a password.

dolbydj wrote: JRP (Johnson Research Performance) out in Mississauga and the manager's wife has a modified Rogue.

what did she have done to her rogue??? any engine mods?????

Ok, this is my third try at posting pics. I hope it works! I forgot that I didn't get the SD card for my new camera yet so all these pics are from iphone. We just got some sun so I ran outside for these images.

I believe Johnson Research http://www.jrponline.com was going to put on the Sprint Booster for acceleration and drive by wire thing. I think they have the distribution rights for Ontario. I was going to start a seperate thread for "OD button and mashing the pedal" as a driving technique. You should all try it, it really is a lot of fun! This is my first automatic car and between the computer and continuous tranny, it is way faster than my shifting.

The kind of tint I am looking for is very mild, 70%(?), like the ones on 1st Gen Lexus RX 350, or 1st Gen Infiniti QX4. I'm pretty sure it is the glass and not a tint as I have asked around and researched it a little bit. A mirror tint is illegal in Toronto.

Thanks for all your postings and reponses!!

dolbydj wrote:I hope you guys can get this link http://s765.photobucket.com/home/dolbydj

Doesn't look like you made the album public. Read up on photobucket help:

http://www.ehow.com/how_2126783_share-p ... iends.html