No rational person would want to use the Taliban as a product endorser. But Toyota truck owners probably felt a little bit of guilty pride after 9/11/01 when that video of Toyota trucks bouncing over those rocky Afghan roads was played over and over on our tv screens. But those trucks just kept on trucking.
My old 4Runner has been a great vehicle, and it's not even 20 years old yet. But, things do go wrong. There's the normal wear and tear, but some things just don't age as well as others -- rubber gets hard, plastic gets brittle. And parts are difficult to find. So a simple thing like a pin sized hole in an air conditioner hose can end up costing a bit to get that cool air blowing again.
Keeping the 4Runner running -
Here's a tip of the hat to Xavier Carrillo at Carrillo's Automotive. He's not only a nice fellow, but he's a heck of a mechanic. He has been tremendous help in keeping the old 4Runner running. And I appreciate the way he took it in last week even though he was trying to finish up all the current business and take off for a vacation. But, I have this nagging suspicion that when he saw me pull up he might have called his wife and said “Upgrade to first class!” Just kidding, he's got lots of loyal customers who keep him and his staff busy all the time.
There's bound to be a way to take out the sentimentality and calculate when it's time to sell an old car. But that sentimentality is a hard thing to discount. By golly, the old thing has served me well over the years, and it's going to be difficult to let go of it. It's durable old boat, the repairs notwithstanding. Aw shucks, I think I'll keep the old thing around a while longer. And I'm sure Mr. Carrillo will appreciate that.
I can understand your sentimental attachment, Geo, but I'll warn you now. Don't testdrive the 4th generation 4Runner. I was just curious. Now I'm an owner.
Posted by: Les | July 13, 2006 at 04:31 PM
Well, here's a red letter day, if there ever was one ... I find myself agreeing with you on something ... we bought a new Land Cruiser in 1989, owned it for 12 years and put 240,000 miles on it ... which included plenty of off-road activities in my work, chasing brush rigs in wildfires and following traffiking trails in north Mexico ... probably the best vehicles I've ever driven ... alas, parts were becoming a problem - costly, and harder to find :-(
Posted by: Jeff | July 14, 2006 at 08:29 PM
Okay Les, I'll stay away from them until I'm ready to take the plunge. I stopped trying to keep up with the new features shortly after I bought mine, but I imagine the newer ones must be quite nice. There was that nagging feeling that if only I had waited a little longer I could have had this, that, or some other new feature. But that probably afflicts any buyer of a new car or truck -- perhaps there's even a name for it.
Toyota didn't sell too many of them way back then, so Jeff, you are right about parts being hard to find. Toyota has a much bigger share of the market now, so owners of the newer ones shouldn't have that problem.
Posted by: Geo | July 16, 2006 at 04:56 PM