1 Month with my Stinger - I'm in love even if the police aren't

[Cactus]

Hello all, I've just passed the 1 month mark with my Stinger and absolutely love it around town for the work commute, on long hauls for weekend getaways and even on my first trip to the snow! Went for Pearl White as it's what was on the showroom floor, I've since added B+W custom plates to replace the slimlines it came with.

Can't upload images at the moment as I'm a new user but will update.

I've got big plans (more likely dreams) for upgrades, mods, etc. but have settled with just a debadge at the moment after being pulled over twice for a license check as I'm a P plater - the Stinger GT is banned in my state unless used for work puposes - which mine is thankfully.

I've got a few questions for fellow AUS owners -

• Does anyone have experience with the XForce VAREX Catback exhaust?
• Has anyone had a HPF Stage tune completed?

Curious as to how the XForce sounds in person and if the HPF S1 is worth the money.

Cheers!

 

[Manaz]

I am up to two weeks ownership tomorrow.

A bugger on the police attention - but if you have the requisite paperwork, at least they should be letting you go pretty quickly.

I'd be avoiding mods until you're off your P plates - a stock car will be left alone, as soon as they get a hint of mods, you'll really start to get detailed attention of the kind you don't want.

 

[ShannonC]

Welcome, and expect to always have your hand in your wallet customising to personal taste. A nice choice in colour too.
So how do you go if you get pulled up on say a weekend, public holiday or late at night now that you've become an even greater P plate magnet.

 

[crg]

@Cactus I've just had the Varex fitted. I'll get around to doing some recording of the sound (although there are some out there) and link it in the related XForce thread under the Engine/Exhaust section. I posted my initial impressions (from inside the car, which perhaps matters more) there in this post. Scroll up to see pics and the installation saga.

 

[Nasscar]

Lucky to have a car like this on P plates. My first car was a 1972 Ford Escort with a mighty 1.3 litre engine. No idea what the horse power was. (Who would want to know anyway.) Needless to say I didn't get much attention from the coppers. Congrats and welcome to the hive.

 

[DCBStingerGT]

Welcome @Cactus to our stingerforum, Congrats on your Snow White Pearl StingerGT, and what a perfect place to drive it, to the snow..

 

[Flameangel]

Congrats @Cactus on your beautiful car, welcome to the Hive. If your'e interested there is a Kia GT group on facebook which do drives every now and then. They just had one on the 15th of this month from Mulgrave to Mernda. A few of us forum members hope to go to the next one as the weather gets better here in Vic.

 

[Kia Stinger]

Hello all, I've just passed the 1 month mark with my Stinger and absolutely love it around town for the work commute, on long hauls for weekend getaways and even on my first trip to the snow! Went for Pearl White as it's what was on the showroom floor, I've since added B+W custom plates to replace the slimlines it came with.

Can't upload images at the moment as I'm a new user but will update.

I've got big plans (more likely dreams) for upgrades, mods, etc. but have settled with just a debadge at the moment after being pulled over twice for a license check as I'm a P plater - the Stinger GT is banned in my state unless used for work puposes - which mine is thankfully.

I've got a few questions for fellow AUS owners -

• Does anyone have experience with the XForce VAREX Catback exhaust?
• Has anyone had a HPF Stage tune completed?

Curious as to how the XForce sounds in person and if the HPF S1 is worth the money.

Cheers!

Welcome aboard! Thank you for signing up!

 

[MerlintheMad]

the Stinger GT is banned in my state unless used for work puposes - which mine is thankfully.

Banned?! WTH does that mean??
Welcome, by the way.

 

[Coast GT]

Banned?! WTH does that mean??
Welcome, by the way.

It means that as a P plate driver he is a Provisional licence holder and as such there is restrictions on the engine capacity he’s legally allowed to drive until he gets his full licence. Usually assuming you don’t get any suspensions etc, in his State of Victoria, you have a provisional licence for 4 years. They’re split into 2 classes, P1 (12 months) & P2 (3yrs), each class also has restrictions on the speed you can drive at and the number & age of passengers you can have at certain times of day. Most states in Australia have similar restrictions because young inexperienced drivers feature so highly in fatal accidents, the theory was the restrictions would reduce the road toll.

 

[Coast GT]

Hello all, I've just passed the 1 month mark with my Stinger and absolutely love it around town for the work commute, on long hauls for weekend getaways and even on my first trip to the snow! Went for Pearl White as it's what was on the showroom floor, I've since added B+W custom plates to replace the slimlines it came with.

Can't upload images at the moment as I'm a new user but will update.

I've got big plans (more likely dreams) for upgrades, mods, etc. but have settled with just a debadge at the moment after being pulled over twice for a license check as I'm a P plater - the Stinger GT is banned in my state unless used for work puposes - which mine is thankfully.

I've got a few questions for fellow AUS owners -

• Does anyone have experience with the XForce VAREX Catback exhaust?
• Has anyone had a HPF Stage tune completed?

Curious as to how the XForce sounds in person and if the HPF S1 is worth the money.

Cheers!

Welcome aboard.

Just my 2 cents worth but if you’re looking at mods that will increase hp, wait until you’re off your Ps. If the 3.3LTT is already above the hp limit for your licence class then why modify it more and run the risk of losing your licence? If you get suspended you’ll just be on your Ps longer which will effectively mean you can’t drive the car you’ve spent all that money on.

Also taking the GT badge off won’t stop the police from pulling you up and checking on your licence and won’t really trick them into not realising you have a car you’re not licensed for. They have these things in their cars called radios and computers which allows them to do sneaky police stuff like check rego and licence details. Just accept that while you’re on your Ps you’re a magnet for the police regardless of the car you drive because they like to do things like stop young inexperienced drivers from killing themselves and other road users and they do that by stopping you for things like driving too fast and having a vehicle that’s too powerful for your licence class.

Enjoy the new ride mate it’s a beautiful car but you bought it knowing you can’t legally drive it on your licence so you’ll just have to accept that getting stopped by the police is the cost of doing business.

 

[robz32]

Welcome to the party!

 

[MerlintheMad]

Ah so! The State again. Thanks for educating me. I forget most of the time how unregulated our regulations are up here.

It means that as a P plate driver he is a Provisional licence holder and as such there is restrictions on the engine capacity he’s legally allowed to drive until he gets his full licence. Usually assuming you don’t get any suspensions etc, in his State of Victoria, you have a provisional licence for 4 years. They’re split into 2 classes, P1 (12 months) & P2 (3yrs), each class also has restrictions on the speed you can drive at and the number & age of passengers you can have at certain times of day. Most states in Australia have similar restrictions because young inexperienced drivers feature so highly in fatal accidents, the theory was the restrictions would reduce the road toll.

 

[Cactus]

Welcome aboard.

Just my 2 cents worth but if you’re looking at mods that will increase hp, wait until you’re off your Ps. If the 3.3LTT is already above the hp limit for your licence class then why modify it more and run the risk of losing your licence? If you get suspended you’ll just be on your Ps longer which will effectively mean you can’t drive the car you’ve spent all that money on.

Also taking the GT badge off won’t stop the police from pulling you up and checking on your licence and won’t really trick them into not realising you have a car you’re not licensed for. They have these things in their cars called radios and computers which allows them to do sneaky police stuff like check rego and licence details. Just accept that while you’re on your Ps you’re a magnet for the police regardless of the car you drive because they like to do things like stop young inexperienced drivers from killing themselves and other road users and they do that by stopping you for things like driving too fast and having a vehicle that’s too powerful for your licence class.

Enjoy the new ride mate it’s a beautiful car but you bought it knowing you can’t legally drive it on your licence so you’ll just have to accept that getting stopped by the police is the cost of doing business.

Appreciate the input mate, truly.

I understand that the GT badge won't entirely stop the police from pulling me over, that was more tongue in cheek as I prefer the debadged look regardless, and will definitely hold off on the HP/noise mods for the next 3 months untiil I'm on my full license.

I will note that both times I've been pulled over it was for a "routine license check" and the police weren't even sure if the car was restricted as "the database is down". I'm also aware of the reason the rules are in place, the spirit of the rules is great and I don't plan on speeding/hooning/whatever you want to call it on public roads period.

Welcome, and expect to always have your hand in your wallet customising to personal taste. A nice choice in colour too.
So how do you go if you get pulled up on say a weekend, public holiday or late at night now that you've become an even greater P plate magnet.

My job isn't really restricted to 9 - 5 Monday to Friday which helps, however I do refrain from driving on public holidays and weekends unless required by work.

Lucky to have a car like this on P plates. My first car was a 1972 Ford Escort with a mighty 1.3 litre engine. No idea what the horse power was. (Who would want to know anyway.) Needless to say I didn't get much attention from the coppers. Congrats and welcome to the hive.

Very lucky indeed! I used to work for BMW so I've been spoiled by nice cars and couldn't resist getting the nicest one I could afford

Congrats @Cactus on your beautiful car, welcome to the Hive. If your'e interested there is a Kia GT group on facebook which do drives every now and then. They just had one on the 15th of this month from Mulgrave to Mernda. A few of us forum members hope to go to the next one as the weather gets better here in Vic.

Thanks for the invite, I'll take a look at the group!

 

[Manaz]

Ah so! The State again. Thanks for educating me. I forget most of the time how unregulated our regulations are up here.

The rules can also vary state by state, which can be annoying and/or frustrating (particularly for those who live in towns or pairings of towns on either side of a state boundary - what's allowed on one side of the state line isn't allowed on the other.

Victoria also has a reputation for being pretty strict when it comes to enforcement of their road rules. Take their speed limit enforcement for example...

Category: | Herald Sun

 

[CKeeler]

I thought California was bad

 

[MerlintheMad]

Victoria also has a reputation for being pretty strict when it comes to enforcement of their road rules. Take their speed limit enforcement for example...

Category: | Herald Sun

"That means that in a 60km/h zone they wouldn't get booked unless they were travelling at more than 69.2km/h."
"Most states in the US don't book motorists unless they are travelling at 10 to 16km/h above the limit and camera locations usually have warning signs."

So why does Victoria want it's citizens to hate it? That really stinks.

The rest of the world, it seems, lives at bare minimum by the adage: "Nine you're fine, ten you're mine." (I did have that TX cop pull me over last year, and warn me, when I had CC set at nine above, i.e. I was doing 74 in a 65 mph zone; but he just wanted to scope out my new car.)

 

[Manaz]

So why does Victoria want it's citizens to hate it? That really stinks.

There is a concerted effort by all state governments in Australia to tell us that "Speed kills"

We get stupid advertising campaigns like "Every km/h over the limit is a killer", when the limits haven't changed since cross-ply tyres were a thing and crumple zones weren't even invented yet. Road design and build standards have also increased out of sight over the same time period - yet roads have had the same speed limits for 50+ years in some areas.

I'm not some idiot who doesn't recognise that the speed of an impact has a massive bearing on the damage done when the impact occurs - double your speed, quadruple the energy involved (the same goes for braking - double your speed, quadruple the braking distance), but there has been no allowance included in speed limit design for years for the massive improvements in the abilities of cars to avoid crashes and/or absorb the energy involved.

The "speed kills" mentality completely ignores the one thing that probably hasn't improved over time - and that's the skills of the average driver. If we put more money into driver training, we'd have less accidents, less injuries, less deaths, less insurance claims, the list goes on.

I'm not against speed limits - just the zealot-like enforcement of them as if they're the primary issue on our roads (let's not get into the correlation vs causation arguments either, where because a vehicle is speeding they say that's what caused the accident, when the cause was almost certainly a combination of factors and speed, whilst it may be a significant contributor to damage and injury once the crash occurs, is rarely the primary reason a crash occurs).

Focusing on drink-driving, inattention/distraction and driver training (the latter would actually cut back on the first two as well, as people realise the seriousness of the first two during their training) would have substantially better outcomes than fining people for 64km/h in a 60km/h zone will ever have. Sadly though, in an era of 3-4 year political terms and the cash-cow that traffic infringement fines provide to governments, the chances of us actually going down that path are remote.

 

[CKeeler]

That reminds me of a movie quote. I’m sure @MerlintheMad might remember this movie. (Cause he’s an oldie too)
Fifty-five is fast enough to kill you, but slow enough to make you think you're safe. - Gumball Rally

 

[Cactus]

There is a concerted effort by all state governments in Australia to tell us that "Speed kills"

We get stupid advertising campaigns like "Every km/h over the limit is a killer", when the limits haven't changed since cross-ply tyres were a thing and crumple zones weren't even invented yet. Road design and build standards have also increased out of sight over the same time period - yet roads have had the same speed limits for 50+ years in some areas.

I'm not some idiot who doesn't recognise that the speed of an impact has a massive bearing on the damage done when the impact occurs - double your speed, quadruple the energy involved (the same goes for braking - double your speed, quadruple the braking distance), but there has been no allowance included in speed limit design for years for the massive improvements in the abilities of cars to avoid crashes and/or absorb the energy involved.

The "speed kills" mentality completely ignores the one thing that probably hasn't improved over time - and that's the skills of the average driver. If we put more money into driver training, we'd have less accidents, less injuries, less deaths, less insurance claims, the list goes on.

I'm not against speed limits - just the zealot-like enforcement of them as if they're the primary issue on our roads (let's not get into the correlation vs causation arguments either, where because a vehicle is speeding they say that's what caused the accident, when the cause was almost certainly a combination of factors and speed, whilst it may be a significant contributor to damage and injury once the crash occurs, is rarely the primary reason a crash occurs).

Focusing on drink-driving, inattention/distraction and driver training (the latter would actually cut back on the first two as well, as people realise the seriousness of the first two during their training) would have substantially better outcomes than fining people for 64km/h in a 60km/h zone will ever have. Sadly though, in an era of 3-4 year political terms and the cash-cow that traffic infringement fines provide to governments, the chances of us actually going down that path are remote.

Couldn’t agree with you more Manaz, especially since the one and only speeding ticket I’ve received was 105km/h in a 100km/h zone, very well put mate.