Just bought 1991 V8 5 Speed. (fwd)

[Eliot Lim <eliot@u.washington.edu>]

>     1. The lattice BBS wheels are quite pitted.  The dealer said his guy
>     can refinish for $400. That sounds cheaper than a new set, but I could
>     coerced into a new set. Any recommendations?

i have 17 X 8 inch BBS RX wheels on my v8.  the visual improvement is
tremendous.  i've had my car 6 years and nobody's ever complimented
it for its looks ever.  now everyone, from complete strangers to the
mechanics at the dealer would compliment it.

15 inch wheels seem too small for the car, which was dressed to look
bigger than a 5000/100.  17 inch wheels restore the proportions, in
my estimation.

as for handling i can definitely feel a big improvement in high speed
sweepers compared to before.  ride has not suffered one iota, much of
the credit goes to the incredible pirelli p7000 tires that can take
lots of air and still ride nice.

the only catch is that if your car has UFO brakes you may not be able
to get any kind of aftermarket wheels for them.. (i hope that you
did consider this item when you bought the car.. i.e. brake conversion)

>     2.  The factory stereo (Blaupunkt Audi/Bose) is lacking a cd player.
>     The stereo shops I talked to are afraid of the proprietary Audio
>     system. They will only recommend adding an CD changer through RF. How
>     bad an idea is this. Any recommendations?

i installed a in-dash CD player (sony ES-something) in my car,
connected directly to the bose speakers, amplifiers and all.  the shop
people were reluctant to do the job and had to try connecting a bunch
of different noise filtering thingies before they could get clean
sound.  but there you have it.  great sound for a small price.  i hate
RF CD changers and would not recommend it to even to enemies!

prior to the sony CD i also had a Nak 460 in there.  the installer did
not do as good a job with noise reduction as i would have liked but
nevertheless it worked until that deck tragically got lost....

i would suggest that you look for a store that has a less conservative
approach to getting stuff to work with bose crud...


eliot