Well I can think of two things. Firstly I'm interested in those pink calipers you mention. They are not available down here. I'm looking on ebay. We really only get what the car companies are putting on their new vehicles. No one is sending cars to Australia with brakes in pink.
And Callisto, everything has to marketable. You still have private enterprise in the US I think, so you should know that there is a big difference between what some dump truck driver is prepared to drive around with in the gravel pit and what owners of new cars want. It is to do with beauty.

 

LOL really you can go to the internet WWW and find much of your information and yet failed to see that PINK calipers is sorta popular in a few places of the world. I jokingly ask my Powder coater today when we met for coffee and he also confirmed having done a few last year.
As for heavy duty trucks using airless tires in your country, should I point out that your previous statement about them was incorrect? Also threw out TIME itself the development of some product were first used on NONE street driven vehicles and then later found a great idea and developed for daily driven cars. I also recall a few Magazine articles last year talking about major tire companies that may be releasing a line of airless tires as soon as this year? Yup they will be going to Australia my friend so get use to seeing them in the very near future!



I would never be caught dead with pink calipers but to each there own....

 

I've painted brake drums, usually either black or red, since the early 1970's. just use high temperature paint. There is actual caliper paint available. Just take it off the vehicle, or paint a new one when you replace it, and you have whatever color you want. Just clean the preservative off before painting. As for painting drums, they run cooler. Rust tends to hold heat more. When you have 4 wheel drum brakes, you want them cool to avoid losing them altogether. Pink? Green? Red? Make like a ground squirrel and gopher it. It's just looks and doesn't affect braking.

 

I jokingly asked my Powder coater today when we met for coffee and he also confirmed having done a few last year.

Hey, what a co incidence, I often have coffee with my powder coater too. In fact since my last post on this thread, we have had a cup together and he admired the little pink skirt I was wearing. I asked if he could do my calipers the same. Fortunately he had a color chart in his hand bag and will be able to match it perfectly.

 

Yes W was one pioneer of the " run flat " scam - maybe scam is a bit harsh / but effectively / you speak the truth - Run flats , ususlly will be damaged after getting to wherever you need to
after air loss/ and many shops just say no repair - only will replace .... - thus the tire often csnnot be patched due to the abnormal wear if you drive on a flat - then you need to locate a match ...uh , ghee cant find that unique , proprietary size ....let me call the DEALER ...yes we have that tun flat in stock
...how msny miles on the current other 3 tires ? Oh ....well we reccomend replacing all 4 to make the vehicle handle properly , then if you do only one ....three wear , and one is good - 3 bad ......cant I just ... etc etc ...anyway -
Mazda gets an award for not chiseling us on NO spare , to save $$ on the sticker , gross weight , and saying it has more cargo space ...cuz theres no spare !!! I was talking to a typical W owner ( meaning zero hands on or technical knowledge of the $90K car they just bought) ...and we were discussing city & fwy driving / I said be careful if you go on a road trip with those " run flats " particularly in the vast expanse of the dessert ...why she said ? You have no spare and they are difficult to source if you get a puncture and often cant be patched - she says , Oh no its fine if
i get a flat I can drive 50 miles without stopping - I said , read the OM , it says " up
to 50 miles " / then she had the lost wallet look

 

I think I would like to go back to the main point I made earlier. When we buy a car we want the most value for money we can get out of a car. So this directly equates to being supplied with five wheels and tires or four.
When I bought the CX5 [for my wife actually as I drive a V8] I asked the salesman if he could at least 'rat up' an iron rim and tire from a lesser model in the second hand yard and I was told that no such thing was available. I then asked how much it would cost to buy a fifth full size spare wheel and order it with the car. I was told it would be over $1200. So what we have on a new car is ether $4800 worth of wheels or $6000 worth of wheels. No wonder the car companies want to deny you that fifth wheel and to rip you off. The wheels are the most expensive part of the car.

 

well lets see.... Take offs from other models and used wheels..... on a new Mazda supplied by the dealership ...OMFG!!!!!~ there is a liability issue, a warranty issue and asking for parts NOT designed in this case a SPARE TIRE/WHEEL combo a BIG SAFETY ISSUE, to come included with some model Mazda's but now read we all can what is a total misunderstanding of the difference between a part that was engineer and designed to be on a specific model car and adding parts that was not an option or come on that model part? Oh and I love the total not grasping the concept of a what a RETAIL cost of a part is when purchasing or adding parts not on the original build model.



NEXT TIME to anyone that can benefit from this statement , do your homework BEFORE you BUY a NEW vehicle instead of bitc*ng about what you didn't get after the purchase. I am will to bet some never completely read the new owners manual either. LOL

 

Now, there you go again worrying about teams of over zealous lawyers filing suit about some trivial departure from normality.
It is like mixing tread patterns and biases we talked about earlier. Who cares? Out here we have as a main part of our verbal psyche, a quote the sums it all up. "She'll be right mate".
Many cars have standard iron rims that come in the entry model and one then pays more for a 'sport' model with alloy wheels.
Like the Kia Rio that my wife had before the Mazda. It had plain iron rims with of course the wheel studs the same. It had a false chrome trim to cover it up.
Just go to a wreckers and buy a perfectly legal iron rim and tire. Chuck the skinny alloy wheel in your shed until the day you sell it and use the iron rim during the time you own the car.

"She'll be right mate"

 

There is group of us business owners and managers that meet for coffee and BS. Most of us are connected together either buying or labor offering within our group. Among them besides myself are owner/operators of the following, Transmission service shop, Custom body and fabrication shop, upholstery shop, Auto Stereo shop, exhaust/muffler shop, Steel fabrication, specialized welding shop, Performance engine machine shop. I would guess the combines years of experience is well over 300 years.
As for your PINK fear LOL .... my now X wife was taught Professional Drag racing from Sherly Muldowney. I wore PInk shirts, hats and even pants one year when I was on the volunteer pit crew when SM was running at SEAR POINT.

Now back on topic.

It is not the difficult to acquire nor is it expensive. I spent about 100 bucks for the whole project to have a spare tire to carry on board when I go out of town. I use one that I had my friend stich up a custom case. The STEEL wheel and tire combo and case weighs in at 22.2 lbs. For you all in Australia that's 22.2 lb = 10.06992 kg LOL This means in or out of the vehicle is NOT going to effect the MPG what so ever, not even a 1/8 point. LOL
Some people place to much on the weight of a daily driven street car regarding things like the spare tire and even the badly mis-understood and often miss used term "upsprung weight" regarding tire and wheels per axle. Thes are daily drivers. Having performed countless test runs using a G force monitors on a 200 foot skid pad on various suspension and weight reduction the results are in the positive but that is also based on pushing the vehicle beyond the normal driving capacity and experience levels that most have without either doing lots of Road Track racing or attending a performance e driving school.

My conclusion about this subject thread is on forums you will always have members that are unsatisfied with the vehicle they bought and are simply IMHO whinners. LOL























For the aviators like myself in the forum. lets do some math..
Gasoline is lets say we will average the lb based on simple numbers instead of accounting for the temperature various and call it 6.7lb per gallon. The MAZDA fuels tank are lets say will call it an even 14 gallon full. (no specific model) .
So 14Gal @ 6.7lb = 93.80lbs. So is we minus my spare package I would only need to fill my fuel tank to rounded up 11 gal which would be rounded up 72lbs. In the end if I were to travel and maintain 32 mpg I would get 311 miles. So I would only lose 137 miles to compensate for the wight difference of the tire & wheel package. LOL
I know it seems funny, but I do simple math equations when we go away for the weekend and estimate the addition added traveling weight and add it to wet weight of our MAZDA. I do this for a few reason and one is more safety driving up in the mountains. I know what my normal in drive flat surface road stopping distance is and can estimate the increase based on additional weight and road conditions.

 

Now I can see by the series of photos that you actually have agreed all along that full sized spare wheels are the way to go. But taking the wheel to the coffee shop to have a cup with the boys seems over the top.
The first thing that comes to mind is the size of your handbag. Further, finding a pink bag to match a pink spare wheel won't be easy.

Now throughout this international, revealing discussion you have alluded several times to my bitching and whining about the car I bought. Harking back to when I opened this thread no one said anything against the Mazda CX5 as a car. In fact I think that it is the best car to buy in it's field. That's why I bought one for my wife. My bitching and whining is to do with the fiendish way that a company as large as Mazda have cleverly been able to manipulate the buying public into accepting that the company is doing them a huge favor by making more cargo space with a smaller, temporary spare wheel. This policy is now accepted as good practice by an unsuspecting public.
Boycotting cars that don't have a full sized spare is becoming more difficult as the other car makers jump on the band wagon

Your wife's achievements in drag racing seem impressive. My wife uses her Mazda CX5 to go to ladies groups and for shopping. She wouldn't be seen dead wearing drag. .