bitman

in the 80s we had Altec Lansing The Voice of the Highway ; never had anything like that these days...

never had a Toyota Rav 4 then

nice to see another Forester :D

back in Austrralia my 2003 Forester XS auto had a folding out cup holding next the radio , i used it for my 2m/70cm handy talkie as being a licensed radio amateur now here in the UK the cup holder is gone in my 2006 XC auto! please Subaru why did you remove it now i have no place for my handy talkie grrrrrrr but you did give me bigger mirrors as the small ones on the XS were just a joke B)

Codemasters isn't a family company any more but in the hands of investors, people with no knowledge about games but only want their invested money back... this broke the whole company IMHO

first 4 years as network & security admin at on-line with games as; RFO, ArchLord, Lord of the Rings last 2 years as build manager in the Guildford Studio creating the game BodyCount what became a disaster due Codemasters didn't care the ****

no one

i'm in the IT since 80s but my back ground is mechanics / electronics hence licensed radio amateur. after 6 years at Codemasters in the 20s made redundant due Guildford Studio closure and picked up to be a IT contractor again (was IT contractor before Codemasters). popped over to Australia for about 7 months due SWMBO her work and now back in the UK looking for new projects.

185k

i do like the 'new' Forester and she's growing on me B) as i didn't like the 2009 - 2013 model at all :o but i will never own a turbo due the high mpg ;)

nice but not sure if i wanted to do that amount of miles per year as the OP does in a car like that, kidneys?

we also have burn our hands on their total disorginised administration. there is a read-up on the Hilux forum from me and some other members... but they are not allone as many others are the same. they never heard of centralized database systems, email, scanners etc etc like a banana republic. had my current insurance calling me today and yesterday about the same issue while there is no claim so no issue!!! told the guy on the phone that i was annoyed by his calls

yes

was on vodafone (monthly rolling contract) some years back with my business and had a contract in the City as Team Lead so being reachable was very important to me and my staff. well turns out they had no way of reaching me as my phone was of the network for most of the time due to cell tower full, what a junk so that was a quick switch to t-mobile what didn't had these problems hence one of the reasons i'm only on monthly rolling contracts here in the UK i have had all operators now and they are all crap in some way

nah, a train horn will do too

yep, yep, that's why i NEVER take a contract on a phone or other then a monthly roling contract since the analog mobiles came to light (so called bricks) i always bought my own factory unlocked phones without a contract and by the end of they day it's always cheaper and you have the freedom to move around ;)

well i had it the other way around as adrian crux was £150 more then km it goes like the weather IMHO

Oh, Oh, Oh, what a bunch of i have the so called Virgin Media Mobile VIP abo of £18 with them using my own iPhone as i do listen daily to SomeFM Groove Salad (my radio station of choise for about 5 years) since yesterday i got about every 30 min buffering for about 30 till 60 sec (definitely traffic throttling) i though enough is enough so i called those on 789 to asked them what about my unlimited data allowance? oh but you have already used 3.5gb of data and you are now being throttled. so what!? was my answer i don't care even if it was 1tb of data and told them i will have a look at the Three network to see if they have better terms and conditions. well guys guess what? after my phone call i started my radio station again and not had any buffering ever since (3 hours ago)... :o IMHO all ISP's and mobile phone carriers are like the bankers, greedy & more still going to talk with Three as Virgin Media Mobile is just borrowing bandwidth from EE as i'm on a monthly rolling contract with my own phone have fun,

i do find the dipstick a dipstick to be honnest! very difficult to get decent readings. Subaru take note!

@Gambit; excellent write up! the only thing i can add is that i do mine after driving a bit to warm up the oil for easier draining. also have a look if the axle breather is still open / working if installed to save your axle seals ;) and indeed ALWAYS do the fill plug first! coming from the L200 / Hilux / Sorento camp have seen guys who did got the drain plug removed but cannot get the fill plug lose! better the other way around as in the worse case you can always suck the oil out via the filler plug

as it's still cold weather it might take some time for the (thicker) oil to settle? what's the amount of oil in your user manual?

changed the power steering fluid

as far as i understand is that the radio/cd head (probably Kenwood) drives the speakers with it's internal amp. the satnav in the top pod is connected to the radio/cd head and provides the voice routing guide by muting the radio/cd head. when you replace that satnav with a Pioneer box (if it fits) you will have think of a solution to drive your existing speakers. why not remove both satnav and radio/cd head and place that Pioneer in the middle centre? you can use that top pod for some other application like a OBDII monitor etc

friend of my showed me his new pride and joy; he bought a Nissan Leaf 2013/14 :o he does a lot of driving in and out London for work; pays no congestion charge, no road tax, free parking in many places and free charging. now we had a little chat and drive around town so to say till he showed me the accelleration speed of this 'family' car! there is some kind of power setting and all i can say is that it's fast till say the first 40mph... easly blowing away all those Evo and Subbie boy racers at the traffic lights. no gear shifting just in one go bang and off she goes. sure not a race vehicle at all and will of course lose out going in higher speeds and corners etc due to the fact she's just a simple family car but it shows that those DC electric motors generating real torque. B) some YouTube guy talking about them