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Love My 3!! Details and simple mods

1K views 1 reply 2 participants last post by  mattleegee 
#1 ·
I've had my 3 now almost 3 weeks, LOVE IT!! Its an aurora blue hatchback, moonroof, CDx6, AT (the knee won't take a clutch) I got from Bob Kranzler at Sharrett in Hagerstown, MD (301) 739 7700. Bob's a terriffic guy -- It's my 5th car I've bought from him. This one cost $20,119 and the deal took about 4 minutes. I'm an old man now & my back hurts-- never found a more comfortable driver's seat!
It's got way more pep than I need; I'm looking for fuel economy and reliability but gotta have disc brakes x4 and enough zip to get up the Appalachian hills. The first 2 tankfulls got 29 mpg mixed driving. Downside? not much!! A little more road noise than I really wanted but that's a easy trade for the performance. The gas pedal is so soft my foot can't rest on it without inadvertent zoom-zoom; solved this with a puppy play ball under the gas pedal so now I can drive even with boots on. Anyone know if the pedal can be tightened up??
First stop was to Wal-Mart for -- don't laugh-- a Bell electronic compass that is adhesive mounted to the rear view mirror. I just didn't want to spend $200 for a mirror compass I like the old fashioned manual dim so for $28 this thing really works just fine. Next over to Auto Zone for a set of Rhino Blitz 8000 ramps ($38) so I can get 'r up & look underneath. The horn for the 3 is pathetic so I swapped it out for a Fiamm 2 speaker air horn 139 db. It's an easy swap for a shade tree mechanic; remove the left front mud guard from underneath & the horn & bracket come out easy. Follow the directions and schematic from Fiamm, drill out the bracket hole for the new horn bolt and another for the relay and run a new primary wire from the battery --don't forget to fuse it! Dress the new wire in plastic wire conduit just like the factory wiring. Now I sound like a limo!
The rear end storage compartment has plenty of room; I'm out in the stiks a lot so it's got a tow rope, small bow saw, axe, fire extinguisher, emergency dog food and a axe handle for 'animal control'.
One of the main attractions of the 3 was that it's performance & reliability still comes with great fuel conservation-- I just couldn't do a Prius or Fit sorry I tried they just don't have the chemistry. My 3 will get a Protect Our Environment license plate holder from CafePress and another from DrivingGreen.com-- they are a neat way to offset the CO2 footprint of your car ($28) with a tee shirt & window decal thrown in to boot. An '82 Airborne' decal from the old days and the ornithology lab one for the other port window & that's enough!
Tinting the rear windows will come next week so that's about all for now.
If you're thinking about a 3 my first impression: you can't go wrong.
 
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