Category: Automotive

Last night I was thinking that the biggest hurdle with my Wrangler lift will be getting the right tires at the right price. When I posted about my plan to lift the Wrangler last week I also posted the prices of the tires and the availability, simply put I had only 3 options with one of the options costing just too much. I had to choose between either Maxxis or Hankook tires so after doing some research I decided to go with the Hankook Dynapro MT RT03. They are no where near as popular at the BF Goodrich tires in the Jeep Forums but the few people who do own the tires have said they were really great. Two users actually who owned BFG MT tires posted that the Hankooks were nearly as good as the BFG’s offroad but were a lot quieter on the road and cost a lot less too. The thing is there is not BFG dealer in Kuwait, the closest one is in Bahrain and although its tempting to drive all the way there to pick up the tires and come back, thats not really practical.

Anyway I passed by the Hankook dealer (Tel: 884737) today and its a good thing I did. They only had 5 tires left in all of Kuwait and I needed 5 tires so I bought them all on the spot. Even though I haven’t ordered my lift yet and even though I don’t even have rims to mount the tires on it didn’t matter, I needed the tires sooner or later and with only 5 tires in stock I had to get them now. They cost me KD37.500 per tire which isn’t bad at all, cheap even when compared to my BMW tires. Now I need to pass by on Wednesday with a pickup truck and pick up the tires since they didn’t fit inside my Wrangler, the tires are huge!

I can never get enough of watching Qataries drive their Patrols on two wheels. I need to learn how to do this with my Wrangler. [YouTube]

Now that I finished with the audio install in my Wrangler the next thing I am going to do is get a lift so I could install 33″ tires. After scouring the Jeep Forum and doing a lot of research I decided to go with the DPG Ultimate Trailgunner Suspension System which is a kit put together by DPG for Jeep Wranglers and consists of a 2.5″ Old Man Emu suspension system combined with DPG springs, a 1.25″ JKS body lift and a bunch of other parts which I need for the Wrangler install like adjustable track bars, quick disconnects and bump stops, etc.. basically all the parts I need to get 33″ tires installed on my Wrangler. You can check it out [Here]

Now as usual I always try to purchase stuff from Kuwait first but also as usual I get put off by the prices. I found the Old Man Emu dealer in Kuwait which is Naser Al-Sayer (Tel: 4747137) but their prices were more than double that of the US. Even with shipping it would be a lot cheaper and more reliable to order the parts from a specialized place like DPG in the States.

So now that I solved my suspension lift issue I have another problem with the tires and wheels. My current setup is 31″ tires with 15×7 wheels, for my 33″ setup I need to get 15×8 wheels and 33×12.5xR15 tires. I found some really nice American Racing wheels (black steelies) for KD16 per wheel but they will cost me an arm and a leg to ship to Kuwait. So I decided to pass by the American Racing dealer in Kuwait who are Silicon Valley Group (Tel: 4826723) to see how much the wheel cost here. The visit was pretty disappointing, they barely had anything in stock, they had nothing that fits the Wrangler and the employee there really had no clue about anything. They are even the local dealers for Mickey Thompson tires yet they only had one model from the size I wanted 33×12.5xR15 and even worse they only had one tire in stock. The guy told me I could place an order for anything I wanted but that it would get here by August/September. Very disappointing.

For tires I wanted BF Goodrich AT/KO but I couldn’t find a local dealer so I started calling other places to see what they had and this is what I found:

Goodyear Wrangler MT/R
33×12.5R15
KD80 per tire (slow shipping, 2 months to arrive)
KD110-120 per tire (fast shipping, 2 weeks to arrive)
Tel: 884737

Mickey Thompson Desert King
33×10.5R15
KD90 (1 tire in stock)
Tel: 4826723

Maxxis MT762 Bighorn
33×12.5R15
KD42
Tel: 4824256

Hankook Dynapro MT RT03
33×12.5R15
KD37 (6 tires in stock)
Tel: 884737

I also tried Dunlop, Toyo and Yokohama but they didn’t have any in stock or in Toyo’s case no one ever answered the phone. I am extremely disappointed with the state of some of the dealerships in Kuwait. Prices are expensive, they don’t have a large stock and ordering stuff with them takes ages. Gives me less and less reason to buy stuff from Kuwait.

Update: A friend gave me a link to a website of shop in Dubai called Icon Auto who sell and install lifts for the Wrangler. Their price is very competitive compared to the US. For example a 2.5″ suspension lift costs $659 in the States, $800 in Dubai and $1100 in Kuwait. How come we don’t have a place like Icon Auto in Kuwait?? [Link]

The Rolls-Royce Phantom is probably one of the sexiest cars on the market and yesterday a two door version got released and it looks even better. [Link]

If you check the tiny holograms of the Kuwait emblem on the new license plates you will notice they are all upside down. (not shown in picture above)

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I thought I needed an hour more work today but it ended up taking like three. I was experiencing some vibration sounds yesterday so today I removed the 4 speakers and stuff the area behind them with a lot more pollyfill (pillow stuffing). This ended up improving the sound quality and killing any vibrations I was hearing. I also cleaned up the wires in the rear, and fastened my amp and subwoofer into the trunk.

Even though I have the amp and sub installed in the trunk, when the rear seat is folded up there is still a lot of room for Geo to get in, sit and walk around. When the rear seat is down the amp is hidden and there is still some room next to the sub for some grocery bags.

I tuned the sound system a bit but will wait two more weeks for all the speakers to break in before I spend more time tuning things. Although it was really exhausting work it was a good learning experience. Next project I am probably going to try is to install is a suspension lift by myself. I already have the step by step instructions just need to get the right tools.

I woke up at 9AM today morning so I could start work on the installation of my Alpine sound system in the Wrangler. First thing I did was pass by Sultan Center and pick up a cutter and extra batteries for my MagLite. From 10 in the morning until 5 in the evening I was working on the installation non stop without lunch just 2 small bottles of water and gum. I got a lot of surprises, most of the stuff I was expecting to be difficult turned out easy and what I was expecting to be easy turned out to be difficult. My fingers are killing me now and I have a ton of tiny scratches all over my hands from all the work I did under the dashboard trying to get all the cables neatly through.

I am not done yet, I still have around an hour of work work which I will do tomorrow. I still need to fasten the amp and the sub to the car, I already drilled the holes just need to screw them in. I also need to fine tune the sound, currently I got a lot of highs and a lot of lows with no midrange. Also the front speakers are slightly louder then the rear so I can still tell which direction the sound is coming from but thats also an easy fix. I think I did a pretty good job of the install, there were a few moments where I thought I was fucked but those quickly got worked out. Only thing I need to improve on is my soldering technique.

The final item in my car sound system build finally arrived, the Infinity BassLink II. I am not a big fan of Infinity and would rather not have used them in my build but I didn’t have any other option. I was looking for a powered subwoofer that would not take up that much trunk space yet still give me hard pounding bass. The BassLink II has a 10″ subwoofer and 10″ passive radiator inside and is powered by an internal 250watt RMS amp so it should pound fairly well. I will finally start installing everything this Friday and it should take me all day probably since I will be doing the installation myself.

Here are my previous posts on my sound system install if anyone is interested:
My new car stereo
Do it yourself car sound system
Nearly There

A friend of mine emailed me these two photos of what looks to be new Audi police cars for the local enforcement. My speeding fines were probably a down payment.

Update: Here is the picture of the Dodge Charger which was sent in by Khalid. Also I just found out these are test cars and the deal with the government still hasn’t been signed.

They must have upgraded the car-cams that park on the Gulf Road every morning because they now flash. Paid for by my speeding fines.

Today me and some friends including Stallion headed to Abdally with our 4×4’s to do some offroading. It took us over an hour of driving but when we finally got there it was worth the trip. I took a lot of pictures which you can check out by clicking on continue below (yes thats a Camry stuck in the sand). I also have a video of me doing a hill climb in my Wrangler which I uploaded onto YouTube. You can watch that by clicking [Here]

Someone posted a link to Q8showroom.com in the forum the other day and since then I have been seeing their web banners everywhere. The site is still not up but it looks like its going to be competing head to head with Q8car.com. I like Q8car but their website interface is a disaster and all these flashing banners on the main page are bound to give me epilepsy one day.

I called up the phone number on the Q8 Showroom website to ask when they were planning to launch and they told me within 2 to 3 weeks (they weren’t sure). If it was me I would have only started advertising once the site was actually up because I don’t think anyone wants to keep checking their site to see if its up yet or not. [Link]

I’ve had the car for a day now and so far its been surprising. Before I picked up the car I thought the thing I would like the most in the car would be the interior. I had checked the CTS website and I was really looking forward to the “Ambient Interior Lighting”. A lot of cars have it but the CTS has a unique version that uses LED’s that go along the dash from one end to the other. But, I quickly found out the version of the car I was reviewing didn’t have the ambient lighting, I don’t know if its not available as an option in Kuwait or if it just wasn’t an option in my car but I wasn’t able to experience it.

With one of the things I was looking forward to not available I had to find something else to take my interest and I quickly found it as soon as I hit the 5th Ring Road. The CTS has over 300hp and as soon as I slammed on the gas the engine let out a brutal grunt and took off. At high RPM’s the engine gets really loud and aggressive which is surprising because the car gives a civilized impression. Another thing that surprised me was the “Driver Shift Control” which allows me to manually change gears. Unlike most of the ones I have tried before the Cadillac’s transmission was pretty fast and responsive. I’ve been recently trying to cut down on my speeding and the CTS wasn’t helping.

Everything isn’t perfect and I do have my problems with the car. For one thing I found the audio and navigation system sluggish. Firstly the car I am driving only has the European map installed. I don’t know if a local map isn’t offered yet but without one the navigation system is useless. Going from menu to menu and raising and lowering the volume is also a hit and miss affair. Sometimes the system doesn’t respond to my commands or responds after a few seconds delay. After experiencing this issue a number of times I am convinced its a software issue and the system problem needs an update or a reboot. Another thing that I didn’t like was the location of the fire extinguisher, its located in the middle of the passenger side foot area. Nat didn’t know if she should put her feet on top of the extinguisher or stretch them out over it but it was really annoying and uncomfortable.

Those were the only negatives I could find in the car although I would also have liked a reverse cam since its become like a standard but other then that the car is fully loaded. There is a USB socket where you can plug in the iPod and the navigation system turns into a TV although I couldn’t catch any channels but thats a good thing since KTV sucks. The sunroof is amazing because the whole roof is a large glass panel which really brightens up the interior.

I have the car till tomorrow evening so I will still be driving it some more. The price of the car if anyone is interested is KD13,000 with the all wheel drive version costing slightly more.

I was never too sure about the exact numbers but I just found this on the KNPC website:

Ultra (Green): 98 Octane, 90 fils/Ltr
Super (Gold): 95 Octane, 65 fils/Ltr
Premium (Red): 91 Octane, 60 fils/Ltr

[Source]

update: The reason I wanted to know how much octane is in what type of gas is because the manual for my bike recommends 98 octane while the manual for the Wrangler recommends 87 octane.