Really Boring Stuff Only III: Resurrection

[Alex2507]

I've wanted a truck since I was 5.

Rick has had a Tundra since you were about 5.

That's just wrong.

 

[TheWarrior]

Hurray for portable tool systems! Off to do window trim work today!

 

[KEW]

Yea, I know all the practical reasons I should go with a car or wagon, but I've wanted a truck since I was 5. So I'll be darned if the first vehicle I purchase completely on my own will be anything but.

Get a used Tacoma. They seem to last forever.
As an added value, after divorce, if you have trouble meeting women as a dude, you can cross dress and try your luck! You could totally rock the "butch" look!

 

[Adam]

Hurray for portable tool systems! Off to do window trim work today!

Mental note: If I ever have a daughter, don't name her "Window."

 

[TheWarrior]

Even got the vacuum to help clean up after!

 

[herbu]

Sat in a Toyota Tundra that costs more than I make a year.

Are you determined to get the Toyota? Ford F150 has been the #1 truck since likely before you were born. Great resale, service anywhere, tons of different flavors and prices. (And no government bailout.) You can find 'em for an exorbitant price, but you can also find a real reasonable model/price.

 

[Alex2507]

Are you determined to get the Toyota? Ford F150 has been the #1 truck since likely before you were born. Great resale, service anywhere, tons of different flavors and prices. (And no government bailout.) You can find 'em for an exorbitant price, but you can also find a real reasonable model/price.

I don't think he wants a real truck. The Tundra is as close to a truck as 4/5 math teachers need to get.

... alright, I'm in my happy place now. g'nite

 

[fuzz092888]

Are you determined to get the Toyota? Ford F150 has been the #1 truck since likely before you were born. Great resale, service anywhere, tons of different flavors and prices. (And no government bailout.) You can find 'em for an exorbitant price, but you can also find a real reasonable model/price.

Over the years, I haven't really been impressed with the fords compared to models from other companies. Maybe things have changed since I haven't driven a newer model in about 4 years. Perhaps I'll look into them. I've been looking at the Tundra because I drove one a couple years ago and was really impressed with them.

 

[Alex2507]

A guy in our car pool drives Tundras primarily because of their higher than the competition's towing capacity and they're fast as f^%&. The sun roof I believe only comes with 4 full doors. The back seat is huge.

The electric rear window is useless as whatever is in your bed, leaves and other random rubbish, soon ends up in the cab at pretty low speed. I haven't had an 'informative' rating in too long. Oh if only I could get an informative rating ... sigh

 

[TheWarrior]

Over the years, I haven't really been impressed with the fords compared to models from other companies. Maybe things have changed since I haven't driven a newer model in about 4 years. Perhaps I'll look into them. I've been looking at the Tundra because I drove one a couple years ago and was really impressed with them.

So how long will it take to save up for that house, when you're driving yourself and 5000lbs of burdening monthly payments?

I play devils advocate, free of charge!

 

[TheWarrior]

A guy in our car pool drives Tundras primarily because of their higher than the competition's towing capacity and they're fast as f^%&. The sun roof I believe only comes with 4 full doors. The back seat is huge.

The electric rear window is useless as whatever is in your bed, leaves and other random rubbish, soon ends up in the cab at pretty low speed. I haven't had an 'informative' rating in too long. Oh if only I could get an informative rating ... sigh

My buddy has one, he just keeps it clean! After a day of kayaking, its nice getting that extra 'breeze between the trees'. lol

Oh sorry, informative and disagree are right next to each other ;-)

 

[herbu]

A guy in our car pool drives Tundras primarily because of their higher than the competition's towing capacity

So Fuzz, do you need an exceptional towing capacity? You know that means stiffer suspension and bigger motor. It's why Ford has the 250 & 350 in addition to the 150. Same for Chevy & Dodge. LOTS of dealers for each.

(Note: I have a Chevy Silverado. Bought it right before the govt bailout when Chevy was offering HUGE rebates & discounts.)

 

[TheWarrior]

So Fuzz, do you need an exceptional towing capacity? You know that means stiffer suspension and bigger motor. It's why Ford has the 250 & 350 in addition to the 150. Same for Chevy & Dodge. LOTS of dealers for each.

(Note: I have a Chevy Silverado. Bought it right before the govt bailout when Chevy was offering HUGE rebates & discounts.)

I drove a Ram 3500. Stiff as hell, but was plush and comfortable for road tripping with 1000 lbs of concrete in the back! But there in lies the point: Whatcha gonna do with that thing? My retired neighbor drives a Silverado everywhere. It kills me to think about, honestly. Not an environmental debate, but there is no 'good' return on fuel economy with trucks. Period.

 

[Rickster71]

Over the years, I haven't really been impressed with the fords compared to models from other companies. Maybe things have changed since I haven't driven a newer model in about 4 years. Perhaps I'll look into them. I've been looking at the Tundra because I drove one a couple years ago and was really impressed with them.

I can't believe I'm agreeing with a school teacher, but here goes
My Dad's uncle was a Ford engineer, so my Dad loved Fords.
We learned early on about 'Built In Obsolescence'

I got so used to working on them, frequently changing starters, alternators, water pumps, timing chains, valve stem oil seals, etc. I just thought that was the was it was supposed to be.
Then I got my first Nissan.
From that day forward I never owned another American car and never did anything but change brake pads and oil.
P.S. Ford F150 is number 1 in sales....... Not reliability.

 

[KEW]

Just to cover both sides.
My brother had a 2000 Ford Explorer. He never had any trouble with it. At 280,000 miles his GF talked him into getting rid of it (because it didn't fit her image).
The guy he sold it to (for cheap to a friend) has 340K on it and loves it.
I think this is basically an F150, right?
The arrogance of Detroit in the 70's, when it should have been obvious that Japan was starting to offer better quality, was appalling and I have no sympathy for them, but they have cleaned up their act since.
I am a little jaded on this because I worked for a Japanese automotive company and their culture is to lie about a problem (instead of taking responsibility for it) and bust their butts fixing it behind the scenes.
We have seen this play out in a gruesome way with the recent air-bag debacle.

The Japanese advertise a high level of honor, but part of that maintaining honor comes in the form of not confronting mistakes that would dishonor.
Having worked at a nuclear plant in the US (and you may remember how slow the Japanese were to admit the extent of their nuclear disaster - I don't believe putting emergency systems under sea level at a coastal plant would have ever "floated" here), and later in the US Heavy trucking industry. I was not used to design prints which did not match reality, but we got them all of the time from Japan.
What happened is the designers made a mistake. Rather than call attention to the mistake (and shaming the designer), the Japanese tooling or production group would make changes needed for the design to work. When they moved production to the US, we got the original prints but there was no documentation of the alterations!
It was very frustrating because these were supposed to be mature smooth running jobs (and they were in Japan), but they ended up spending extra money fixing the problems. Before long we learned to evaluate the designs, no matter how long they had been in production.

Don't get me wrong, the individual Japanese people are great. But their culture that has issues in this one area!

 

[Alex2507]

You know that means stiffer suspension and bigger motor. It's why Ford has the 250 & 350 in addition to the 150.

The Tundra is a half ton to begin with unlike the 250 or 350 which ride crazy stiff and the Tundra comes with Bilstein shocks. There's nothing stiff about it and in my co-worker's case, it does pull his trailer which none of the other makes will in the 1/2 ton version. It made sense for him.

Between us there's an F150, Avalanche, GMC Sierra or whatever they are called. That guys Tundra was like 47k. My F150 was 2k ... I put $400 worth of Bilsteins on it plus $200 for speakers and saved the $45,400.

 

[fuzz092888]

So how long will it take to save up for that house, when you're driving yourself and 5000lbs of burdening monthly payments?

I play devils advocate, free of charge!

Eh, I only plan on making payments on the house as long as I live in MD which, with a little luck, won't be to long, then selling. It's a short term (3-5 year) solution to paying out the a$$ in rent. My parents are putting up the down payment and we're paying the mortgage and taxes. When we sell they'll get they money. They have the extra money after selling some property they want to unload before my Mom retires and they see it as an investment since they can always choose to rent it out if and when we move back to NY. With our estimated mortgage and estimated car payment, I'd still be paying less than what we're paying for rent now.

So Fuzz, do you need an exceptional towing capacity? You know that means stiffer suspension and bigger motor. It's why Ford has the 250 & 350 in addition to the 150. Same for Chevy & Dodge. LOTS of dealers for each.

(Note: I have a Chevy Silverado. Bought it right before the govt bailout when Chevy was offering HUGE rebates & discounts.)

I won't need the towing capacity all the time, but it'll be nice when I do since when I go home I always end up helping my old man and he's always got something to haul and his trucks are real POS. Plus as mentioned by Alex I'd rather have the big back seat since I'd be using this as an every day driver.

I drove a Ram 3500. Stiff as hell, but was plush and comfortable for road tripping with 1000 lbs of concrete in the back! But there in lies the point: Whatcha gonna do with that thing? My retired neighbor drives a Silverado everywhere. It kills me to think about, honestly. Not an environmental debate, but there is no 'good' return on fuel economy with trucks. Period.

Not that gas isn't a concern, but with the amount I drive day to day, I can still make trips back to NY to visit and not spend a ton on gas. I think in the last month I've put less than 200 miles on my car.

Just to cover both sides.
My brother had a 2000 Ford Explorer. He never had any trouble with it. At 280,000 miles his GF talked him into getting rid of it (because it didn't fit her image).
The guy he sold it to (for cheap to a friend) has 340K on it and loves it.
I think this is basically an F150, right?

I still miss my 96' Explorer. What a great vehicle. Any of the 2000+ F150's though, they've been ok, but not as good as some of the other options IMO.

 

[Alex2507]

The regular extended cab has enough room in the back to seat three men, no problem. The crew cab that comes with the sun roof has a ridiculous amount of space in the rear. That space gets taken out of the bed and it's not the option I would choose. Also the sound package in the top tier model has a sub. The next model down didn't come with one in my buddy's case. It still sounded pretty good though.

I briefly drove a old Mountaineer (Explorer clone) and thought it handled like a bath tub. Probably all the heavy glass up high makes it wallow like that. My 2001 F150 with new front end parts is much more to my liking. It rides a little smoother than Rick's oldish Tundra as well. I know I'm not doing apples to apples here because of the varied model years but I do like the Tundra best. My Ford is nice with the front end and suspension upgrades. The GMC had some expensive brake problems that the dealer took another co-worker down for like $1,300. Then it just broke again from moisture getting into the ABS electronics. The Avalanche is like a wanna be ricer with all the plastic body moulding and the window regulators keep failing. Plus water always creeps in and I smelled a hint of mold constantly.

I urge you not to discount vintage fofo's. Super classy ride, a chick magnet.

 

[fuzz092888]

The regular extended cab has enough room in the back to seat three men, no problem. The crew cab that comes with the sun roof has a ridiculous amount of space in the rear. That space gets taken out of the bed and it's not the option I would choose. Also the sound package in the top tier model has a sub. The next model down didn't come with one in my buddy's case. It still sounded pretty good though.

I briefly drove a old Mountaineer (Explorer clone) and thought it handled like a bath tub. Probably all the heavy glass up high makes it wallow like that. My 2001 F150 with new front end parts is much more to my liking. It rides a little smoother than Rick's oldish Tundra as well. I know I'm not doing apples to apples here because of the varied model years but I do like the Tundra best. My Ford is nice with the front end and suspension upgrades. The GMC had some expensive brake problems that the dealer took another co-worker down for like $1,300. Then it just broke again from moisture getting into the ABS electronics. The Avalanche is like a wanna be ricer with all the plastic body moulding and the window regulators keep failing. Plus water always creeps in and I smelled a hint of mold constantly.

I urge you not to discount vintage fofo's. Super classy ride, a chick magnet.

The one I looked at did have a small bed because it was the crew cab (5.5'?) It definitely wouldn't be ideal for full sheets of ply, but I'm trying to think how often I really need a bed longer than that. Especially with the tailgate down and a safety gate to extend the bed to 6.5' if/when I really need it. I did briefly walk next door to the Dodge dealer to look at the Ram's. They were alright, but didn't wow. Although I did get to see what a Crew with a 5.5 or 6.5' bed looked like next to the full 8' bed with the extended cab. There's definitely something to be said about the longer bed, and if this wasn't going to be my main vehicle sometime a long long long ways into the future I'd probably look harder at the 8' bed.

Oddly enough, when I looked at the Ford's, the F250 was cheaper than the F150. Although the gas milage was a tad different (12 vs 16 )

 

[herbu]

I got the extended cab, (not the full crew cab), w/ an 8' bed. Was thinking it's a truck, to haul stuff, and 4wd for bad weather. Truth is, I think maybe 2-3 times in 5 years, I've put 8' stuff in it. 99% of the time it pulls the boat or hauls smaller stuff. But 100% of the time it has a wider turning radius and is less agile backing up. If I had it to do again, I'd probably go w/ the shorter bed.