What Did You Do With Your Kizashi Today?

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Ronzuki
Posts: 2382
Joined: Wed Nov 17, 2010 5:33 pm
Location: Lancaster County, PA

Yeah, just drivin'...soon t be a thing of the past if we allow it to happen.

Heard something today about the EU mandating individual vehicle speed control (based upon speed limits) in all vehicles by 2022. Not hard to do now that, little by little by little, 'we' the consumers willingly allow (and willingly pay for) intrusive technologies to infiltrate our existence. Big Brother is a watchin'.
Ron

2010 Kizashi GTS, CVT, iAWD (3/10 build date)
2011 SX4 Premium Hatch, CVT, iAWD (12/10 build date)
2018 Mazda CX-5 iAWD Touring
2014 Wrangler JKUW (GONE, traded :D :D )
1991 Samurai, 5-Speed, EFI, Soft-Top ( :| sold)
KansasKid
Posts: 428
Joined: Sun Mar 31, 2013 2:19 am
Location: Kansas City, Kansas

Yesterday, I busted out the Goo Gone and removed the decal that the dealership put on Kitsune, as well as the dealer license plate holder. After the non-sense I had to go thru to acquire Kitsune, I don't want to be advertising for those guys.

Day or 2 before that I filled up the spare tires in both the Kizashies. The spare in Kitsune was so low, that I couldn't even get it to register on the tire pressure gauge on my hand-held, battery-powered air compressor. Found out my compressor can only fill about 20psi before it starts to overheat and automatically shuts off, so I had to take the pares to a gas station to get them filled up. Before filling them up, both tires had barely enough combined psi for ONE spare tire. Now they're both good to go in case anything happens.
My Cars (Their Names)
'93 Ford Escort (Jorge - Prior)
'06 Kia Optima EX (Sakuya - Prior)
'11 Suzuki Kizashi SE AWD (Azumi)
'09 Subaru Impreza 2.5i Base 5MT(Akari - Prior)
'11 Chevy Cruze Eco 6MT (Erika - Prior)
'12 Suzuki Kizashi Sport SLS AWD (Kitsune)
KansasKid
Posts: 428
Joined: Sun Mar 31, 2013 2:19 am
Location: Kansas City, Kansas

Ronzuki wrote:Yeah, just drivin'...soon t be a thing of the past if we allow it to happen.

Heard something today about the EU mandating individual vehicle speed control (based upon speed limits) in all vehicles by 2022. Not hard to do now that, little by little by little, 'we' the consumers willingly allow (and willingly pay for) intrusive technologies to infiltrate our existence. Big Brother is a watchin'.
I CAN'T WAIT for automated cars to go mainstream. Mass car ownership will probably drop off the face of the earth as most people will just hail Ubers or a particular manufacturer's vehicles via monthly car subscriptions. The consumer car industry may or may not collapse, as well as the associated car maintenance and car insurance industries, but I like to think there will still be a small market of car owners, and it'll be a lot safer for us to enjoy driving for a while, before they outlaw human-piloted cars in urban areas.

It'll be similar to how there are still SOME people who own horses today, after cars effectively killed off the horse industry. I'm actually kind of looking forward to it. Everytime I see someone who can't turn into the correct lane or use their blinker, I just wanna put 'em in da wall. Automated cars will help put an end to all the normies that don't actually care about driving.
My Cars (Their Names)
'93 Ford Escort (Jorge - Prior)
'06 Kia Optima EX (Sakuya - Prior)
'11 Suzuki Kizashi SE AWD (Azumi)
'09 Subaru Impreza 2.5i Base 5MT(Akari - Prior)
'11 Chevy Cruze Eco 6MT (Erika - Prior)
'12 Suzuki Kizashi Sport SLS AWD (Kitsune)
KansasKid
Posts: 428
Joined: Sun Mar 31, 2013 2:19 am
Location: Kansas City, Kansas

Kitsune's title is from South Carolina, so I had to take her to the Kansas Highway Patrol Inspection Office to I can get her ready for registration. As long as you have clear title, all they do is check the VIN numbers around your vehicle to make sure that you didn't cut off parts and put them back together. I was in and out in about 20 min.

The lady that inspected her was reading the title before we walked out to the car, and thought I was trying to get a motorcycle inspected. Then she asked if I had the import documentation to go with her. :lol:

I read the documentation for Kitsune a little more closely, and it turns out she was repo'ed from the previous owner... :shock:
My Cars (Their Names)
'93 Ford Escort (Jorge - Prior)
'06 Kia Optima EX (Sakuya - Prior)
'11 Suzuki Kizashi SE AWD (Azumi)
'09 Subaru Impreza 2.5i Base 5MT(Akari - Prior)
'11 Chevy Cruze Eco 6MT (Erika - Prior)
'12 Suzuki Kizashi Sport SLS AWD (Kitsune)
KansasKid
Posts: 428
Joined: Sun Mar 31, 2013 2:19 am
Location: Kansas City, Kansas

Finalized registering Kitsune with the State of Kansas.

Enjoying the view from my office every day now.

Kitsune is an island of vivid color in a bland fleet of white, black, and grey vehicles on an endless blacktop.
Kitsune-From-Office-Edit.jpg
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Kitsune-From-Office-Zoomed.jpg
Kitsune-From-Office-Zoomed.jpg (202.89 KiB) Viewed 7285 times
My Cars (Their Names)
'93 Ford Escort (Jorge - Prior)
'06 Kia Optima EX (Sakuya - Prior)
'11 Suzuki Kizashi SE AWD (Azumi)
'09 Subaru Impreza 2.5i Base 5MT(Akari - Prior)
'11 Chevy Cruze Eco 6MT (Erika - Prior)
'12 Suzuki Kizashi Sport SLS AWD (Kitsune)
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LPSISRL
Posts: 991
Joined: Tue Jun 18, 2013 12:49 pm
Location: Chesapeake, Virginia

Having a maintenance week since I'm off for spring break.

Changed the oil and filter yesterday. I was at 5100 miles since the last.
Topping off the oil I overshot the fill hole and it spilled on to the drive belt and ran on down. And down. So not only the belt, but the A/C pulley below. No way to clean it and no way I'd start it with the oil on the belt. As luck would have it, I already had the drive belt and a couple of replacement idlers. Word of warning. Getting idlers from RockAuto listed under the Kizashi don't mean that they are the correct part. I could only use one of the idlers and had to put a washer in it so it would actually turn and uses the original bolt. The old drive belt really looked OK. No cracking, splits or anything. 110K miles on it. Took a bunch of pictures of the belt before removing it and drew a diagram. It actually went on pretty easy. The trick was having it go on the tension idler last.

Today, front brakes and rotors. Akebono pads. Figured I'd use those since the originals worked so well for those 110K miles. Except they didn't come with clips so I had to use the outer clips from the originals. Made a big mistake. I compressed the piston and let the fluid drain back into the reservoir. Turns out you can damage the anti-lock system with contaminated fluid. :cry: You're supposed to crack open the bleeder and then compress it. Did it correctly for the driver's side. Also took me less than 1/3 of the time. No problems with the rotors. However, the factories were not worn past speck so I really didn't need to change them. But, with 110K on them and they were sitting on my shelf for months, I put them in anyway. Brakes are more grabby now.
The pads had about one millionth of an inch left on them. :mrgreen:

Tomorrow: Rear brakes and coolant replacement.

Update: After pulling both wheels, the rear brakes had plenty of pad left so I decided that there was no reason to change them. On to draining the coolant and refilling with the same blue stuff designed for Japanese cars. The fluid I drained looked brand new even after 110K miles on it. I did not bother with flushing it. Just refilled it with fresh fluid. Last thing left is to change the CVT fluid. I'll do this come summer when I have 3 day weekends. I need to source the correct fluid for the least amount of $$$ and ready through the posts again for getting the correct filter and seals. You may recall my CVT was replaced with a new one at 76K so it's ready for a change but I don't feel like I'm in an urgent situation yet since it's under 40K since the replacement.
Last edited by LPSISRL on Mon May 20, 2019 1:51 pm, edited 1 time in total.
2011 Kizashi SLS CVT (silver)
2005 Honda Odyssey
Priors:
2009 Suzuki SX4 Cross AWD 5-speed Tech package (vapor metallic blue)
BLyons
Posts: 226
Joined: Sun May 24, 2015 12:22 am

Today I had the sway bar bushings and end links replaced. Was also going to have the bar itself replaced since I thought AWDs came with a 15mm bar, but it was already 16mm, which is a little disappointing because I was looking forward to further stiffening the steering. At least now the clunking noise is gone.
Black 2011 Sport SLS AWD
KansasKid
Posts: 428
Joined: Sun Mar 31, 2013 2:19 am
Location: Kansas City, Kansas

TLDR:
  1. Milky rear diff/transfer case oil is probably a bad sign
  2. Always use a broken down cardboard box when you're changing the fluids in your vehicle
  3. Warm 5W-30 motor oil has basically the same consistency as water
  4. If applicable: Remember to open the container that you're using to catch the fluids that you're draining out of your vehicle.
Did a bunch of work on Kitsune (my red, SLS) the other day; she was just a few miles over 59K . Jacked her up all the way around so I could start with the tire rotation. Fronts are about at the 3/32ths mark, but the backs have a good amount of meat on them. Seems like they should be able to get me through the rest of the summer of spirited driving.

While I had the tires off, I inspected the breaks and the suspension components, but they all looked alright.

Then I moved onto the rear differential fluid change. It looked like the drain plug and fill plugs had never been taken off the rear diff. I got the drain plug off easy enough, and was pleased at the oil that came out was milky (which is NOT a great sign. Also, the buildup of gunk on the rear diff oil drain plug was unpleasant. Then, I had to use BOTH of the 3 inch extensions that I have to reach the fill plug. After wiping off all the crap on the drain plug and filling up the rear diff with Amsoil 75W-90 diff fluid, I moved on to the transfer case.

First thing I had to do was get the underbody panel that was covering up the transmission and transfer case. In the process of doing that, I sheared off the two bolts that were holding it on at the end farthest from the front of the car. So now the cover kind of flops around under my car, which is lovely. Anyways, the fluid out of the transfer case was actually pretty clear. I'm not sure when it was changed, but it seemed like it was done recently. And like the rear diff, the drain plug on the transfer case also had a significant amount of sludge that had to be cleaned off.

After I got the transfer case refilled, I checked the engine oil for the first time in months, and I realized that the goofuses at ARC Auto OVERFILLED the engine oil, and I had been driving it like that for a few months now... I happened to have a jug of Penzoil synthetic motor oil that was supposed to go in my old Chevy Cruze, but couldn't get around to it because I had to take that car to a shop after I stripped the oil drain plug on that car (seriously, who engineers an oil drain plug with a 10mm head?). Since I don't have it anymore, I decided to load the oil that was intended for the Cruze into Kitsune.

I had to drop Kitsune and take her to the O'Reilly to get an oil filter. Got her back home and jacked up just the front side of her. I also decided to try and prevent spilling a bunch of engine oil all over the parking lot like I usually do by diving into the dumpster in the lot where I was working on her, and pulling out a giant rectangular box to put under the oil catch container I have.

I say "TRY" because I failed miserably. It was about 90 degrees F in Kansas City by this point in the afternoon, and the drive to the auto parts store heated up the oil, so when I took off the drain plug, the oil came gushing out with basically the consistency of water. Then, the flood of HOT oil quickly overflowed my oil catcher because I forgot to take the cap off the top of it... :facepalm: Probably 4 of the 5 quarts of oil that was in Kitsune turned into a river flowing down the cardboard channel I was using and out onto the parking lot... Somehow, the river of oil managed to miss the jack I was using to prop up Kitsune, and none of my tools were in the flood path.

After that figured it was time to stop working on the cars for a while. I don't know what it is about oil changes, but it seems like every time I try to do one myself, I forget/mess up one little thing and utterly muck up the entire oil change... *sigh*

On a side note, front end grip seems to have improved a bit now that the tires with about 4-5/32nds on them are on the front wheels.

Next thing on the To Do list is to drop the front bumper and try to repair/repaint the crack I put in it while I was doing some sweet, sweet drifting back in March...
My Cars (Their Names)
'93 Ford Escort (Jorge - Prior)
'06 Kia Optima EX (Sakuya - Prior)
'11 Suzuki Kizashi SE AWD (Azumi)
'09 Subaru Impreza 2.5i Base 5MT(Akari - Prior)
'11 Chevy Cruze Eco 6MT (Erika - Prior)
'12 Suzuki Kizashi Sport SLS AWD (Kitsune)
Tom Kizzie
Posts: 210
Joined: Thu Jan 18, 2018 11:04 am

Tom Kizzie wrote:very nice. hows the gearknob? mine has lost a piece of chrome . It costs 87 euros over here and dont know if it includes our 21% tax
In the meanwhile i wanted to order the shifter knob but the dealer said it was 87 euro for the plastic one without chrome and the leather one with chrome was said to be 180euro!!!!!!!!!!!!! insane in my opinion so i spent quite some time finding one from a wrecker.

Finally found a original manual kizashi shifter knob from a damaged 2014 kizashi. It cost me 45 euro incl "shipping" costs 8-) ;)
kizashi 6mt black
motosonic
Posts: 68
Joined: Wed Apr 12, 2017 7:16 pm

I FINALLY put in the work to remove those door/vent visors from my 2013 SLS. It came with those on the doors and they were noisy since day 1 and just got progressively worse no matter what I did.. It was HARD getting them off. That glue was awful.. but, it's so much quieter without them.. I love it. LOL
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