2005 CH VRX Wagon Questions

So last night I picked up a new (to me) 2005 VRX Wagon - completely stock, one owner -and so far I'm really happy with the car, even though it's only been one day, lol.

It's proving to be a hoot to drive and although a different beast to the 2002 AU Falcon it's replacing I'm already convinced that it's a much nicer car. And looks better of course



Due to family/money I left the Ford standard, but I want to do some things to the Lancer to individualise it a bit so, I have some question re the car and modding it

1. Will any standard 2 Din CD player will fit? I'm wanting to upgrade to something newer with bluetooth etc..

2. I'm finding the dash a bit harder to read at night with the orange glow - is it easy to switch the globes out to another colour or install leds? Will it make a difference?? Yes, I'm old

3. Will 18" VRX wheels from the current Lancer series fit without too much work? If so is their any downside to fuel consumption etc?

4.It's an auto (the wifes only stipulation on the car) - is the writing near the actual gear stick meant to light up when the lights are on? It did on my Ford and I know it shows you on the dash the gear but it seem sstarnge that the cigarette lighter lights up but not the writing.

5. Are all external badges just glued/stuck on? I want to debadge it and would hate to pull one off to find that it's not just stuck on.

And that's all I can think of for now.... any other suggestions/mods are welcome

Gidday Bassmaniac69

Welcome to the club, hopefully all your questions will be answered or have already been answered in the forum's, and by the way it looks good in black

I have the Ralliart body-kitted 2004 vrx wagon in white, and yes they are a bloody good car, i have had mine since new, its done 160,000 klms and all i have replaced in that time(other than the service timing belt) is 1x tailight bulb and 1x battery, and you will be surprised what you can haul in the back!

In answer to your questions:

1. Should be no trouble fitting a new double din cd/blue-tooth player in, seeing you are one of the lucky ones who has a double din, you can buy the radio harness adaptor plugs at most car accessory shops
2. I also had trouble at night reading my vrx dash, the red gets blurry at night (yes i am old too!) cured mine with some new bi-focals driving glasses from specsavers , but failing that you could try replacing the old bulbs with some brighter led's, it should help a bit up to a point.
3. I have some good news and bad news about the wheels.

• The cj vrx wheels you are talking about i guess are the 18"x 7J rims with an offset of 45P running a 215/45 R18 tire with overall diameter of 651 mm
• The current wheels you have are the 16 x 6.5j rims with offset of 37P running standard 195/50R16 tires with an overall diameter of 602 mm

In QLD, not sure about other states, but in QLD you are only legally allowed by the Queensland Transport for a passenger car, passenger car derivative or ‘soft roader’ (an all wheel drive vehicle that may be certified as MC ADR category), the overall diameter of any tyre fitted must not be more than 15mm larger or 26mm smaller than that of any tyre designated by the vehicle manufacturer for that model.

So in other words if you change over these wheels for the later ones you will be increasing you overall wheel diameter by 49 mm and your offset will be about 8P (positive) greater. This will be illegal and cause problems with insurance (if you have an accident, they tend to look for ways not to pay you out)
Now the speedo reading will also be out, with you current 195/50 16's fitted if you are travelling at 100 kph your tire will be doing 878.48 rev's for every 1.6 klms travelled and with the new 215/45 R18's fitted you will be doing 811.91 rev's for every 1.6 klms travelled, thats a difference of 8.2o %, most sites recommend no more than a max 3% variance.
So if you changed to the cj18's your speedo will be reading 100klm per hour when in fact you will actually be doing 108.20 klm's per hr.

You may have problems with clearances as well because you are increasing height( overall diameter) by 50mm and gaining 8P pos offfset, so you may have guard clearance problems.

4/. Not sure about this one, i have never had an auto in my life, you would think it should light up as well, i'm not sure, maybe someone else with an auto can enlighten us (no pun intended)?
5/. No all badges are only glued on with 3m quality tape, just use a heat gun / hair drier and heat up the badge from a distance of about 3-4 ", set heat gun to low, use a plastic edge tool to slowly lift up the badge while applying a little more heat, that way you will get all the badge/ tape/glue residue off in one hit hopefully without breaking them

I have 17" rims and run 215/40 17" tires.

If you need any mod suggestions, you can pm me, as i have done a bit to mine.

Hope these answers help?

Cheers

Mate, thanks for the reply. I'll PM you later with some more specific questions but to answer your answers:

1. Great news, I'll start shopping. One thing that I did notice while researching the cars is that some came out with one din and some with 2 din units - there must have been a period/crossover point?

2. I have driving glasses for long distance lol, old age sucks. I've looked into new led kits for the sadh and will get something going soon. Is it a major pain to pull the dash out?

3. Wheels - thanks for the info, it's been a while since I've modded a vehicle and never here in QLD. I assumed there would be some sort of problem with the speedo etc as well. Not that I was seriously thinking of 18's, but now I know. I may look at 17's in the future. For now I think I'll give my wheels a coat of plastidip as I have some spare!

4. The original owner said he never noticed, so I would assume it doesnt light up.

5. Awesome, I'll pull the head gun out tonight!



Has anyone here swapped out the internal globes for led units and if so are there any weird power issues or with the fading of the lights? I did some in my Ford when I first got it but had weird issues so I swapped back to normal globes..

Cheers!

In regards to the lettering next to the gear selector, I believe that it doesn't light up as it's just a solid piece of plastic.

Sent from my SM-G900I using Tapatalk

Yeah they don't light up - there should be a selected gear indicator on the instrument cluster though

Correct on both counts gentlemen, I had a better look today and it is solid plasitc so no light at all. TBH my wife complained about it the first night she drove it, to me it's not really a biggie. The D light on the dash does not light up so I assume it broken, which is not a biggie as I plan to replace them with leds soon