Monday, February 8, 2010

Feb 2010 AOC TT

Last night I join the AOC's TT held in the same old place. It was like an anniversary to the very first major TT they held a year ago in the same location. Back in January last year many founding members of AOC gathered at the location and mooted the idea to form AOC. AOC stands for Alphard Owner Club and it is a gathering of owners of Toyota Alphard.


Since then many founding members have drifted away from AOC so it was nice to meet up with them again last night. I have also not sign on the AOC for almost half a year so I have not meet many of the old faces so I am glad I turn up. As usual many new AOC members also joined the TT to get to meet other members and put some nicks into faces.

From 9:00pm onward, many AOC members started coming in and by 10:30pm we filled a long tables with 16 owners chatting away enthusiatically. The topics of discussions again center around what have other done to their giant (AOC members like to call their Toyota Alphad as giant) and how is their ownership experiences. By about 11:00pm, every decided that it is the customary viewing time for each other giants. Everyone marched to the parking lot outside the cafe and gather around each other giants. Some owners showcase their modifications on the exterior while other climb inside to admire the interior of others giant.




Again I had a busy times answering some questions from newer members on certain features of their giant.

Previously I wrote that retroffiting a feature doesn't equal original was evident in one of the AOC member's giant. He asked me a question what is that "extra" button on his dashboard that he never touches before. After experiementing with the button for a while I confirm that it is the button for the front camera.

As mentioned previously accessory shop here can retrofit a front camera for those giant that doesn't come with a front camera but they can't retrofit the button onto the steering wheel to operate the front camera. This giant already has a front camera button on the steering wheel but it doesn't operate the front camera. When you push that extra button on the dashboard to "ON" position, it switch on the front camera and the front camera view appear on the head unit monitor.

The problem with this kind of retrofitting is that the button operate independent of the ignition switch. That means you can turn on the front camera even when the engine is not started. This means that the owner has to remember to switch off the front camera every time he switch off the engine. Otherwise the front camera (and the head unit monitor) will continue to operate even when the car is not running.

One interesting thing that come out of the disussion is that many owner don't know what's the use of the "AC 100V" button. I have previously highlighted what are those buttons in our giant and briefly cover this button as well.

I also had some interesting discussion with the members on the power sliding door. We experimented with one of the member giant and confirmed that once the petrol tank cover is opened the power door on the passenger side cannot be operated electrically. We can manually pull the power door open and then push it toward the back of the car and it just stop short of hitting the petrol tank cover. There is a built in "stopper" that "sense" that the petrol tank cover is opened and the door will not move any further.

Another test we did is to lower the windows on the passenger side power door. It can be operated electrically and again it will stop half way. This confirm my observation that it has built in safety feature. This feature prevent incident where young kid who stick their head out of the window from hitting the rear panel when the power door is slide open.

Another member encountered an issue with his passenger side power door not opening electrically. Since I didn't remember what's the procedure to reset the power door, I was not able to help him on the spot. I did tell him to send me an email so that I can show him the procedure.

Time passes very quickly and by midnight, many members start to leave and only a few remaining die-hard members stay back and chatted until almost 12:45am before they bid goodbye to each other.

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