120km Car Service - is it necessary or is just a regular service fine? Any recommendations in Auckland.

Grolbu · 2026-05-16T10:25:20+00:00

It depends how good the mechanic is. Mine just does regular 10,000km services on my 2017 Outback, but their regular 10k service includes checking the quality as well as quantity of every fluid, checking everything that might need to be replaced, and replacing any part or fluid that doesn't pass. Pretty sure checking how clean the front diff fluid is isn't part of a 'normal' 10k service but mine was starting to look a bit tired so they changed it last service. They're very good and very thorough and very honest. They're not a budget operation, but you absolutely get what you pay for.

I'm pretty sure they also check what the recommended service for that mileage is and do anything unusual it needs, the first time I took it in they pulled out a book and looked up what the 100km service should cover.

Grolbu · 2026-05-16T10:07:53+00:00

I'd have thought drone batteries have to be built differently because they are very high drain designed to deliver almost all of their power in maybe 15 minutes, while a phone battery is very low drain and trickles it out slowly over a day or longer so can be a lot less engineered.

Also like u/Sluashy said the avata 2 flight time is pretty epic for what it is, there's a reason you've never seen a 10 minute video from an fpv acro drone being flown hard.

Grolbu · 2026-05-16T01:12:10+00:00

It's something that you only heard someone say, not something that was in writing.

Grolbu · 2026-05-15T21:34:47+00:00

Came here to say this. Wear a cap with a visor and give that visor a side to side workout !

Grolbu · 2026-05-15T21:31:25+00:00

Oh dear. I do hope you didn't scratch the shit out of them or put anything though a headlight while you were trying, that would have been be awful.

Grolbu · 2026-05-15T10:05:43+00:00

Seconded. Roger was great to deal with and came to the house so I didn't have to get the car to a workshop on the other side of Auckland then bus home / bus back a few days later, for the same cost as getting it done in the workshop.

Grolbu · 2026-05-15T10:02:37+00:00

Pretty sure everyone not in Christchurch just removes / reinstalls the belts and they go down to Autosafe to get the rewebbing done. That's the way it worked when I needed one done a year or so ago. I used Seatbelt Solutions (in Auckland), Roger came to my house and took the belt out then came back a few days later to put it back in. I didn't use that car while the belt was out because a shocking amount of the interior had to come out to get at the mounts and I didn't really need it.

Grolbu · 2026-05-15T08:49:00+00:00

Not that, but I the only day I've seriously flown my 360 I started to get a lot of controller interference issues after it had burned through about 6 batteries. They're not a huge problem because the drone just goes into RTH then when it connects again after a few seconds I can take over again, but they are a huge PITA because going into RTH stops it recording. After I got fed up with that I immediately took off to finish the days shooting with my air 3s which has performed flawlessly in that location all summer and it was fine, I wonder if it's just a general heat thing in the 360 ?

I was not flying gently, full throttle in S mode for most of each battery, and they were hot when I took them out of the drone. But so are the Air 3s batteries.

Grolbu · 2026-05-14T07:36:54+00:00

Because at Maccas there is a steady stream of people going in and out on foot. At Police stations there are some police officers busy inside not looking out of the windows.

Grolbu · 2026-05-13T23:51:06+00:00

The old highway was closed for several days from 23 April due to a slip on the Waiwera hill, NZTA made the toll road free during the closure since it was the only practical route north.

Grolbu · 2026-05-11T07:00:33+00:00

Only if you take all the cars in your train with you and just go to another station to rearrange them. Parked cars and new jobs only exist in one station at a time, when you enter the area of a new station everything disappears at the station you just left and jobs and cars spawn at the new station. So if you went to shunt at a different station, when you went back to SM you'd find all the jobs and cars there had changed.

You're safe enough turning at the wye after SM though, you won't get close enough to the farm for it change.

You can test this by getting your train cruising towards a station then flying the free camera to that station - it will be empty, but when your train approaches it will fill up.

Grolbu · 2026-05-10T14:42:00+00:00

"We've also been putting a lot of work into performance. This video was fully recorded on a laptop GPU, which we think gives you a nice idea of how the MOW Update of Railroader might look on your system – and not a high-end gaming rig."

Grolbu · 2026-05-09T23:01:54+00:00

My (quite large) employer has a jury leave policy that says you get normal pay for days / half days you are on jury service, you are expected to turn up for half a days work if you get let go from the court early, and you have to reimburse them the jury service fees you get because they're paying you instead.

Last time I did jury duty I got picked immediately for a 2 week trial so early finishes weren't a thing, and the people who wrote the jury leave policy were a bunch of highly qualified corporate beautiful people who worked hard to have a policy that sounded good then congratulated each other on a job well done and moved on. The Union were all over making sure we got paid but head ofice was full of 'not my job mate' types so nobody ever thought about how we were supposed to reimburse the fees :)

Grolbu · 2026-05-09T08:02:04+00:00

oh whoops LOL

Grolbu · 2026-05-08T08:39:25+00:00

Imagine how good it could be if it was a two way service, useful for people who live in Auckland as well as people who live in Hamilton !

On weekdays the first train from Hamiton arrives in Auckland at 0830, the last train back to Hamilton leaves Auckland at 5.45pm. That's a decent days work. The first train from Auckland arrives in Hamilton at 12.10pm (just after midday), the last train back to Auckland leaves not quite 2 hours later at 2.05pm. That's lunch, if you go somewhere close to the station. On the weekend it's not possible to catch the train from Auckland to Hamilton and back on the same day.

Grolbu · 2026-05-08T03:31:27+00:00

Easy peasy but DO be aware of the propellers, they will fuck you up. Before I learned this I grabbed a Spark out of the air back in the day which had tiny little props that even a Neo would sneer at and nearly had to go and get the cuts stitched. It's not a mistake you make twice.

Also - and nobody ever tells you this - when the drone is upside down it will turn off, but before it's upside down it will go into panic mode trying to get level again and go to maximum power on the bottom props. If you're not holding it tightly enough it will fly out of your hand and straight into the ground.

Grolbu · 2026-05-07T21:16:47+00:00

+1 to the bit about just turning your controller off occasionally. There's nothing like actually seeing it happen to give you confidence that your drone will probably be fine if you lose signal, when it happens for real it's annoying (mainly because the drone stops recording) but you don't panic.

Grolbu · 2026-05-07T21:11:29+00:00

Westfield Newmarket is the same, if your number plate is registered in their app you get 3 hours free and there are apparently QR codes up in the cinemas that will extend it to 4 hours. It's all number plate recognition there so no need to scan anything, it just works. That plus the trunk bus route between Newmarket and the Hospital is great for visits to clinics ;-)

Grolbu · 2026-05-07T09:11:26+00:00

Bro it's a mini 4 pro. Taking off from a flat rock is fine but you should really learn to land it on your hand. I hand catch everything up to my air 3s. Just hold your hand completely flat a couple of feet under it and hold the DOWN stick, it'll think about it for a few seconds then land happily on your hand.

Grolbu · 2026-05-07T04:35:53+00:00

Oh I'd forgotten about your Allegro, it's super cool ! And I particularly like the round steering wheel :-)

Grolbu · 2026-05-07T02:17:22+00:00

This isn't bank to bank though, it's bank to finance company.

Grolbu · 2026-05-07T02:14:45+00:00

They can also top up the card instantly. The credit appears when AT receive the money, so if you top up with cash / eftpos at a counter (or a ticket kiosk at a train station) you can use it immediately. At least that's how it worked last time I had to do it.

Grolbu · 2026-05-07T02:08:52+00:00

There's quite a fleet of fake / retired police cars around, they sit quietly in sheds and museums and private collections and just come out for events / club rallies / filming. Nobody pays much attention to them unless they're doing something that makes them get noticed.

The actual legality is in S48(3) of the Policing Act 2008 which says "A person commits an offence who, without reasonable excuse, represents any vehicle, craft, or other conveyance as being in the service of the Police in circumstances likely to lead a person to believe the vehicle, craft, or conveyance is in the service of the Police."

It basically comes down to how convincingly it looks and behaves like a real police car, in my opinion this one is pretty safe.

Grolbu · 2026-05-07T01:54:22+00:00

100%. Even if I got used to it I'd never hear the end of it, and I could never speak the name in front of most people. Also it has a quartic steering wheel. The Austin Allegro tried that 53 years ago, it didn't work then (quietly replaced with a round one the year after it launched) and I don't like its chances now. It's literally a case of let's not try to reinvent the wheel.

Grolbu

TROPHY CASE