jrm223

I was just looking around at what's currently available on Amazon and ordered this pair - it's amber with an inline resistor & includes white LED chips with the white being on a separate power wire, so I'm fixin' to hook those up to the reverse lights. So with these new ones, putting the van in reverse will turn on the regular reverse lights AND also activate the rear turn signal housings with white light for extra brightness. I also spent time looking to see if there were any dual-filament 921/W16W-compatible bulbs & sockets, but could not find any - if there was, that would allow me to make the entire clear part of the tail lights light up amber for turns and white for reverse. When these new bulbs come, the whole clear section will light up white for reverse and just the normal turn signal will light up amber. I came across this bulb reference guide awhile back (I think from a digital copy of the owners manual, maybe?) and figured I ought to put it in here for anybody wanting quick info on the various bulbs our Gen-2 vans use and, more importantly in this discussion, it shows the wattage used by each bulb. It's crazy that the little front bulb is 24W and the larger rear bulb is 21W - but, the new amber/white rear ones I ordered have 50W resistors plus the resistance of the bulbs themselves, so it ought to cure my hyper-flash finally. WY21W is aka 7440, W16W is aka 921, W21/5W is aka 7443, W5W is aka T10/194, etc.

Well, I just got the front LED turn bulbs like 10 minutes ago, ordered on Nov 2nd. I ended up putting the driver side in first and it was no problem, then the passenger side was being a PITA just like when I originally tried to put in the barrel LED bulbs that I commented about yesterday. Turns out that I had the holder clocked about 90* out-of-phase and just had to turn it to the right position, lol. That said, maybe the amber barrel LED's actually would fit just fine, but they're at home now & I kinda destroyed the one I tried to put in last time, anyway... When I had tried to put it in, the holder is what was getting hung-up, not the bulb itself - because I was trying to put it in the same position as today, oops. Here's the pics, since they're worth 1000 words, etc etc. Oh yea, the base of the LED bulb has a small notch that lines up with a tab inside the holder, so you can't really put these ones in backwards. They also have a set-screw so that you can turn the LED half if it's not aiming at 3/9-o'clock positions when you install in the housing, but mine were already perfect when I just put them in.

I already have hyper-flash from the rear turn signals, haven't got around to buying resistors for them. Since it's impossible to use in-line resistors on the front, I'm thinking I should eventually order a pair for the back that is enough to fix front & rear together. I can't imagine that the front bulbs use all that much amperage, so it shouldn't take a whole lot of resistance on the back to 'balance' the load to above hyper-flash levels. For the low beams, I'm running these white & yellow switchback bulbs and love them. When I first turn on the lights, they're white - I can shut them off for a second and turn back on, they switch to yellow. Then repeat to switchback to white, again. Most people would just run yellow in the fog lights, but I have an XL without fogs and I prefer running yellow headlights when needed. So when I found these bulbs, I was like "hell yeah, best of both worlds!!" haha. Here's a video of them operating from another purchaser on Amazon I still need to switch the high beam bulbs to LED, but I'll probably just go with straight white bulbs for that.

Fifty, I have these LED bulbs (PWY24W for front) from Amazon on their way in a slow boat from China, haha. Whenever they eventually get here, I'll let you know how well they work out. I originally bought these other LED bulbs, but they didn't fit all the way into the lamp housing, so don't bother with them. Amazon will say that PWY24W doesn't fit the TC2, but when you look at the bulbs they list as fitting, they're all for the rear turn signals (7440/7443) instead of the front - so you'll basically just have to figure out on your own what truly fits the front. Tully, that's a pretty sweet setup y'all have in that van!

If you're worried about tires slipping off the line, I don't think you'll ever want a TC2, haha. Mine has constantly spun the tires since the day I bought it brand new - and I don't do it on purpose. The 2.5L & 6 speed has more than enough torque off the line to spin brand new tires on dry pavement.

I can't stand that E15 BS, either. We're exporting over half of our oil and then importing from other countries, WTF sense does that make?! Oh wait, government never makes logical sense! Anyway, we have E10 here and I've seen rare stations that have options for straight-gas at like 30+ cents higher per gallon... I've spot-checked previous trips to be around 25.5-26.5 MPG at usually 70 MPH with occasional jaunts to 75 MPH when the speed limit allows. Mileage is kind of crap at those speeds already, so I really don't drive over the limit much, lol. I'll have to see if I can find my little fuel book and record the numbers better on this next trip, but up north may already have winter fuel since they're in the 30's already.

My next trip up north to visit family starts in 1.5 weeks, so I just finally ordered a cruise control steering wheel off Ebay. Brand new, cruise & menu buttons (obviously menu will be useless on my XL) for $120 because I used the "make offer" button instead of paying their $135 asking price. For anybody that might want to try swapping a wheel that also has radio buttons on it, there's a used leather one listed for $153 BIN with 1.5 days left on the auction. I wanted to buy that one, but I need to minimize my spending because of the upcoming trip. Here's the leather wheel with cruise, menu & radio buttons My trips up there are about 1000 miles each way and I drive straight-through & alone, so finally having cruise control in the van will be a very welcome upgrade!

Unfortunately I don't even remember now, that was back in the spring and I stopped keeping track of my mileage after I moved to Texas. When I lived in IL, I averaged 26-28 MPG and moving to Texas dropped it to 23-24 MPG because of higher speed limits. Maybe I'll have to do it again sometime - with the gas can IN the van, haha.

Look up SSM 46321 on this page below. I'm one of the people that successfully had the dealer turn off the stupid approach lights after BCM update. Just tell them that you'd like the approach lights turned off because you've had battery drain that required jump-starting - it's just a small white-lie, haha. I have not tried turning mine back on using Forscan, haven't felt any need to.

I'm trying to remember the largest amount my tank has ever taken - might be in the vicinity of 14.5-15.5 gallons after I poured in about 1/2 gallon from running it out at 2am one morning... For reference, the "X miles left" gauge had said 0 miles for at least 30-40+ miles driving between 45-70 MPH. I'm in rural Texas and there's not many options for gas along that route I was on, especially at 2am haha. But, I only had to walk 3 blocks home after the engine quit to get my gas can and the meager 1/2-ish gallon that was left in it. Moral of the story, "0 miles left" still has it's own reserve, but I wouldn't recommend pushing it. With my typical mileage, I'd guess the 0-reserve at around 1.5 gallons or so.

I can say that my 215/65R16's on stock wheels has not affected turning at all, at least not that I ever noticed. Granted, I never did before/after turn radius measurements; but I have never heard any rubbing while turning, so the slightly larger diameter of the tires is not causing problems in the wheel wells of the van. Fifty150, you had asked about getting stuck. With the OEM tires, I did get stuck in my own yard at my project house here in Texas. That was a couple years ago when it was raining almost every day for a month, but I only got stuck the very last day (when I was leaving, of course) after being there for a week. That was also a slightly lower spot in the yard than I had been parking in most of the week, but I had also parked right there to unload when I first got to the house. So far, the Generals have not gotten stuck, even when the grassy ground between my gravel driveway and garage is 3" of muddy soup. One of these days, I'll have more gravel brought in since the previous owner did not fill in that area - she just parked on the driveway, instead.

These are the smallest 'aggressive' tread tires (all-terrain) that I could find, and for relatively cheap - about $110/ea through Walmart. 215/55R16 stock vs my 215/65R16, 5.9% larger via GPS calculated - an 83.9 mile drive showed 79.2 miles on trip-odometer after I upgraded. The only way I found to get more aggressive tread in a short tire is by using ATV/SxS tires and there's still only a handful for a 16" rim, haha. Van weight & PSI would both be a big problem on those tires, too.

I have the 'premium' extended service plan and I can tell you that it covered replacement of my right-front wheel bearing with about 87K miles on my 2015 van just a few weeks ago. But there is a $100 deductible on repairs, too. If I had bought the parts and tools to do it myself, it would have cost a lot more than $100. When I bought the van, I was driving 100 miles a day round-trip, so it would have over 126K miles by now if I had not moved 2 years ago and now have a shorter commute - I'll be rolling 89K within a week or two. I know for sure that windshields aren't covered, but I really need to look again at the list of what is covered; I'd forgotten I even had the coverage until I had to get the wheel bearing replaced.

The first pic is from a thread I made and the second pic is just last night after I rotated tires & got my new lug nuts on, haha. Maybe someday I'll have some better looking wheels to go with the spikes. The thread has some more pics of tire clearance since I'm on stock suspension, they've never rubbed for me.

Lower than my 23-24MPG average? 😞 I even drive like an old man and rarely go over speed limit (which is generally 70-75 on regular roads here in Texas). I used to get 26-28 in Illinois with their lower speed limits and about 45% highway commute. My 1K mile trips (2K round-trip) back to IL to visit family & friends gives me maybe 25-25.5MPG or so and these numbers are indeed adjusted/corrected for tire size.