So with any luck my MK4 will be ready for collection next Saturday.
We started looking at accessories from Mazda today and were a little put off by the pricing. We thought mudflaps might be a sensible idea, but our garage is asking for £250 inc VAT for supply and fitting.
That seems a little on the expensive side to us, but we’ve never bought a new car before. Are we being unrealistic, or would we be better off getting some third party ones at some point?
That aerial is going straight on my list of things to get.
THe mudflaps on that site specifically mention not being painted, so I guess £250 for painting and fitting isn’t so bad. I’ve emailed my dealer to check.
The mudflaps on the Mazda website are quoted at £69.32 inc. vat for each pair, a total of £138.64 so the rest of your dealer’s quote is their fitting charge. As I understand it they are left black and not painted, but that could change from dealer to dealer. A bit too pricey for me.
If I had them fitted I would leave them unpainted as they match the colour of the strip that runs along the bottom of the body from front wheel-arch to rear wheel-arch.
In car DAB reception is never going to be great unless you live in an urban area and the aerial is always going to be a compromise as the FM band in the UK is 87.5 MHz to 108 MHz and UK DAB band is 174 MHz to 240 MHz. Aerial’s normally need to be optimised for one or the other.
In the UK, DAB commercial stations tend to use poor bit rates and most of them only broadcast in mono - this is to allow more stations on air. In general the BBC is much better.
Good FM is actually better than DAB anyway and there is no date for radio digital switchover yet. The issue is that many stations only broadcast using DAB.
So the stubby aerial becomes a styling issue with some performance trade offs.
Sorry folks but unless you are changing the car in three years time, undersealing is much more important than any of this cosmetic stuff. There are large areas missed on the Mk4 cars as delivered as is getting the free shipping rubber bungs put back in the car by the dealer to prevent grime in the sills…
I’ve got one of those stubby aerials and it’s great for FM. I don’t use DAB, even on my Hi-Fi system indoors as I find it pretty C-rap. One thing I have noticed with the aerial though is that is base diameter is smaller that the original and leaves a small circle of metal exposed on the aerial base on the car. I made a washer out of black electrical tape to protect it from the elements, works OK.
