More car upgrades! Dunlop Winter Sport M3's all around.
Tires Plus said $165 per tire, plus $55 per wheel. Didn't get as far as mentioning the cost of mounting and balancing since they can't get 'em til sometime in January anyway.
Tirerack.com said $105 per tire, plus $50 per wheel, with free mounting and balancing. $30 for hubcaps, $80-ish for shipping. $730 total. That's $150 cheaper than Tires Plus before they even add tax, labor, etc.
I ordered them from Tirerack on Monday (12/20) and got them on Wednesday. Installed 'em on Thursday before my X-Mas road-trip. Didn't need them for the trip but I was happy that I had them just in case the roads got dicey. Since the car still has less than 6,000 miles on it I'd prefer to avoid any extraneous sliding (into things).
Tomorrow, perhaps, I'll post about "The Taco Bell Incident." Wherein we learn that Taco Bell hates my car, and what you should do if you happen to be hit by their building.
These are some pretty decent speakers. If I can find my receipt from Comp USA I'll get $20 or $30 back. (Receipt search not going so well...)
To say that they're a upgrade from my previous computer speakers would be a huge understatement. They're actually an upgrade from just about all the other speakers in the house.
The subwoofer is bigger than my car. Well, that's an exaggeration. The subwoofer is bigger than my car's subwoofer. Which really means that I need a proper subwoofer in the car, as opposed to the "factory" subwoofer.
I am, however, pleased by how the car stereo upgrade (stage 1) has turned out. I put a Pioneer 8600 and four new speakers in. Took freakin' forever to install the speakers, btw. The nice thing with the 8600 is that is has a built-in 13-band EQ and a calibration mic. After you calibrate you can tweak many, many more things. I haven't really begun to fine tune it, but it already has moments of greatness.
Car stereo upgrade, Stage 2, will involve multiple amps and a proper subwoofer. I should have gone for more expensive speakers, I suppose, but I don't have an immediate desire to replace them. The head unit doesn't have quite enough power to push them properly, which is more of a problem than the slight brassiness. I think I can tweak that out, given some time.
The speakers were the only ones that Crutchfield said would "fit." Which basically means the depth is not so great that you have to use heroic measures to install them. It still took drilling new holes and some fancy Dremel work, and several hours time, to get the speakers in.
At this point I can practically dismantle the entire interior in a few minutes with a phillips screwdriver and a butter knife -- since I've installed speakers in all four doors, the subwoofer, a new head unit, alarm system, and the auto-dimming rear view mirror. The only thing I haven't installed is the extended armrest, because I haven't decided to get that yet.
Back to the THX computer speakers... I only got 2.1 due to the lack of any real 5.1 support for my computer. I can get a 5.1 audio card but it appears the fancy surround stuff only happens with the PC drivers. Plus the card would add $100 to the cost, and the 5.1 speakers are $100+ more expensive too. Good stereo speakers with a subwoofer work fine for me.
The first thing I listened to with the new speakers was "The Legend of Earthsea" on SciFi (as my computer is acting as my only functional TV). The movie had much rain and thunder, which sounded spectacular with the big subwoofer. It's really kicked ass on the DVDs I've watched too, and music sounds mighty fine as well.