PennSilverTaco's "Perfect 5-Lug Regular Cab" Build, Aspergers, and General BS MegaThread!

This house is located between the two newer Victorians...

 

BRIEF BREAK for a trip down memory lane...

Back in 2006, my parents and I went to Barnes & Noble to shop around. This was not long after my dad had purchased a 2002 BMW 325Ci from his brother in Florida. I'd been riding around with my dad in the BMW, and we met my mom at the bookstore...



My dad bought some CDs at Barnes & Noble that night, and he was so excited about one of them that he tore off the wrapping before he even started the car...

I wanted to listen to one of my CDs, but my dad is like "No, no, let's listen to this." He put the CD, which ended up being a Lou Christie CD, in the CD player, and selected this song...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4-nCfoIIEQ

As soon as it started playing, I was hooked!

Did I mention my dad's Bimmer had the upgraded Harman/Kardon sound system? It unfortunately did not have an iPod hookup, but that system absolutely cranked...


All E46 3-series models had the same "BMW Business CD" head unit standard from like 2001 to 2005 (2006 for the M3), but the Harman/Kardon speakers were one hell of an upgrade over the standard system...

As we're hauling ass on Route 611 with the top down and Lightnin' Strikes blasting, my dad is like "This song rocks, doesn't it?" I responded by hitting the repeat button on the CD player...

 

My wife would love this house!

She has a thing for shutters

 

@Plain Jane Taco
@98tacoma27

This happened in 2007 or possibly 2008...

My great grandmother lived in a trailer park in Orefield, Pennsylvania for a few years. My aunt lived in the single-wide with her to take care of her.

Our family vehicle at the time was a 2004 Honda Odyssey EX, and we used it to tow our motorboat. Once, while attaching the trailer to the hitch, my dad managed to ram the part that goes over the hitch ball into the back bumper of the Odyssey. This left a nice little crack in the back bumper that we never got fixed.

I know this was after February 2007, because that was when my mom was involved in accident. My mom was waiting to make a right on red, and this woman in a Toyota Sienna got impatient and tried to drive around my mom on the left for a reason that even she had trouble explaining to the cops who responded. She didn't have enough room, and the right front of her minivan clipped the back left of ours. The result was about $1,600 in damage, paid for by her insurance company, and the back bumper had to be replaced. I remember thinking "Now our new bumper that someone else's insurance paid for is damaged," when my dad ran the trailer into the back of it. That was in the summer of 2007 or 2008...

I know the incident I'm getting ready to tell you about took place after this because that crack in the bumper plays a huge role in the story...

Me and the parents were visiting my aunt and great-gram. Their single-wide was located on a cul-de-sac, and none of the properties on the cul-de-sac had driveways. Instead, residents and their guests parked their vehicles in parking spots in the cul-de-sac. If I remember correctly, my dad had backed the Odyssey into one of the spots right outside my aunt's trailer.

I inevitably got bored while waiting for dinner to be ready and went outside while the adults were talking.

I knelt down behind the Odyssey and started absentmindedly playing with the crack in the bumper. I guess my goal was to line up the two sides of the crack and make it less visible...

I spent a few minutes doing this, kind of in a trance. All of sudden, I hear someone bellow "Hey! What are you doing?!?!" I look up the street and see this 30-something bald guy in a wifebeater standing in his yard, hands on his hips,looking like he wanted to throw down.

I look at him, and in a very snarky and wiseass tone of voice, say "This is my van..."

He responds with "Where do you live?!?!"

I point at my aunt's single-wide and say in a voice that's calm but makes no effort to hide my annoyance with the guy, "That's my aunt's trailer..."

I then get to my feet, turn around, and go back inside the trailer without another word...

My parents said that I did absolutely nothing wrong but that at the same time this guy was probably just being a good neighbor...

I can understand that, but in my experience, people need to assess a situation before they blindly go in swinging, literally and figuratively...

Growing up, I was horrible at doing just that; Hell, I still kinda am, and I will freely admit to this. However, I've been steadily improving, with these "incidents" becoming less and less frequent. I'm still not even 30. This guy in the trailer park was in his 30s and possibly even 40s, probably didn't have Asperger's, and went in hot from the beginning. I, on the other hand, tend to be very agreeable at first. It is only when people are either extraordinarily aggressive and/or just won't back down that I become very defensive.

@Plain Jane Taco , you hit the nail on the head when you said that people with Asperger's have a tendency to come off as being a dick without meaning to or even trying to.

 

@Plain Jane Taco
@98tacoma27

Another incident occurred in March 2009. We were visiting family in California, and my cousin and her soon-to-be husband were living in San Mateo at the time. Their house was not in the greatest neighborhood. Their neighbor, this middle-aged Hispanic guy I remember only as "Caesar" or something like that, had an early 1990s Corolla wagon.

One day when we were all getting ready to drive to my aunt and uncle's house in Monterey, I just happened to be standing next to this guy's Corolla, which was parked on the street right outside my cousin's house. If I remember correctly, the car was stuffed so full of random stuff that it rivaled my bedroom in terms of messiness. It also may have had a really nice head unit installed. I would like to point out that I'd never met this neighbor in my life prior to this incident...

I was standing on the left side of this Corolla, and it's not like I was pressing my face against the window or anything, but I was just staring down into the interior through the window. I would also like to point out that I'd spent a consider amount of time wandering my cousin's neighborhood and taking pictures. Nobody seemed to notice or care, but I spend a minute or so standing next to a car parked in front of my cousin's house and absentmindedly staring at its messy interior, and the shit hits the fan...

The way my cousin's neighbor reacted, you'd think I was in the process of trying to break into his car, or had already succeed in gaining entry to the car and was ripping his stereo out...

This huge and muscular Hispanic guy rips his front door open, steps out onto the front porch, and is like "Why are you looking at my car?!?!"

I don't even think I bothered to explain myself. I was so scared of this guy that I just turned tail and bolted into the house...

I got the "you weren't doing anything wrong, but this isn't a car show" speech from my parents.

My cousin's husband later explained to me that the Corolla owner was a good neighbor and in fact a very nice guy. He'd apparently had problems with people breaking into his car before...

 

Ah... Cool

 

You said Corolla wagon and it made me think of the coolest wagon Toyota ever made. Remember the the Tercel 4wd wagon of the 80s? It was a true part time 4x4 system and only available with a manual transmission.

Love 'em.

 

Is that a 2wd Taco? Probably isn't but trying to find someone else like me

 

A speech therapist my parents took me to back in the early 1990s had one of these. Her name was Susan, she had a son about my age, and she ran her therapy practice out of her home in Montgomery County. When I first started seeing her in about 1992-1993 (I think 1992), she had a blue Toyota Tercel 4WD wagon. I believe it was a 1985, which would had made it less than 10 years old during the time I was seeing Susan.

One day in 1994 (or perhaps late 1993), my mom drove me over to her house for a therapy session, and I immediately noticed a brand new dark green Dodge Grand Caravan sitting in Susan's driveway. The blue Tercel was nowhere to be found. My first question upon seeing Susan that day, and I remember this almost perfectly, was something like "What happened to your Tercel, Susan?"

Yes, I was on a first name basis with my speech therapist...

I remember Susan telling me that the brake in the Tercel had failed, or something. I'm sure there's more to the story that I'm not remembering (I was 4 or 5, even my memory isn't perfect), especially since this was one of the greatest vehicles ever made by Toyota and it wasn't even 10 years old. I seem to vaguely remember that rust may have played a part in this as well. Keep in mind this was Pennsylvania, where roads were just as heavily salted then as they are now. If I had to guess, I'd say the brake lines rotted out, the car wouldn't pass safety inspection, and Susan decided that it was more cost-effective to buy a new vehicle. Though the Tercel was newer then than my Tacoma is now, I'm guessing it had over 100K miles. Also keep I kind that Susan had a preschool-age son, and as we all know kids are hell on vehicles both inside and out.

So, she bought a brand new (or almost new) Dodge Grand Caravan, which I'm pretty sure also had all-wheel drive. She bought the van in late 1993-early 1994, which by default would make it a 1993 or 1994 if it was new. However, production of that generation of the Chrysler minivans started in 1991, so it could have been a CPO 1991 or 1992. I seem to remember Susan telling me it was new, and that was one hell of a nice van!

About 2-3 years ago, I did a search on my former speech therapist and found out she was still in business. I sent her an email and included a current picture of myself (with my truck). She responded back and said ahe was glad to hear from me. I'm going to see if I can contact her again and find out exactly what happened to the blue Tercel...

 

Read my signature!

I am proud to tell you that, yes, I do have a 2WD Taco! It's not a PreRunner though...

 

Just under two weeks ago, I got a set a of brand new Michelin tires at BJ's. I love the tires!

The customer service? Not so much...

More on that that later.

As soon as I got in the truck, I noticed that the tire pressure warning light was on. I thought nothing of it, as this has happened before. Whoever services the truck often goes by the factory PSI on the sticker and doesn't take into consideration the fact that my truck has aftermarket 16-inch rims and thus bigger tires...

I put air in the tires and the light didn't go out.

Then, the light started blinking for a minute after the truck was started. Annoyed at having this light on, I went to TW for help a few days after getting the new tires installed. The symptoms were indicative of a fault in the system, so two days later I made an appointment at the dealer.

I was expecting that one or more of my sensors had just completely failed. Shit happens, you know? The service manager called me up this afternoon and told me that the sensor was actually broken!

It gets better...

The service manager believes that the BJ's tire guy broke the sensor at some point, and just shoved it back into place.

This is all that was left of my right rear sensor...

These pictures were all taken at the service desk when I went to pick up my truck earlier this evening...





The tires were a present from my dad, who is a BJ's member. He is going to BJ's with the bill from the Toyota and is going to attempt to make them pay for it...

 

@Iamraiderpower

It was a Sunday, and there was only one guy working. I drop the truck off, and after being told it'll take about an hour and a half for the job to be done, I go shopping in the wholesale club.

Almost an hour and a half later, I get a call from the tire center, expecting my truck to be done. Instead, the guy tells me that the rims require a special Allen wrench to remove. He does not have this Allen wrench, and wants to know if I have it. I was a understandably a bit pissed because an hour and a half had passed and he hadn't even gotten the tires off yet! I hadn't seen the wrench in years, and every other place I'd gotten my truck serviced at (Toyota dealer, STS Tire, Butch's Body Works) had possessed the correct Allen wrench to get my wheels off.

After a bit of back and forth, I called my dad and asked him to bring his set of hex keys. By the time I checked out and made it from the main store to the tire center, he'd gotten my wheels off...

I took out my phone and attempted to take a picture of my truck on the lift with the wheels removed, from the customer waiting area. The tire guy was less than happy about this, and started going of about "legal issues" and "no photography allowed."

I politely explained to him why I wanted to take the picture, and took the picture you see below...



I've never encountered this problem before. Just look on my YouTube channel, and you'll find a video of my truck being repaired after I got hit by a drunk driver, shot inside the body shop with the owner's permission. STS Tire Center and the Toyota dealer also have never cared about photography, as long as I don't go into restricted areas...

The guy at BJ's continued giving me shit, so I finally got mad and said "It's my fucking truck, and I'll take pictures of it if I want to."

My parents showed up with the now unneeded hex keys and I explained the situation to them. With my dad present, I apologized and explained how I have Aspergers Syndrome. I also tipped the guy $5 as an extra "I'm sorry."

 

Here's the invoice the from getting my frame coated...

 

Here's a picture of me wearing one of the blue vinyl aprons, prior to juicing lemons and limes...

 

@Plain Jane Taco
@98tacoma27
@tcBob
@Salty_Dog

Every once in a while, you either witness or hear about something that really makes you want to cry.

It all started when I picked up my boss's dog from the groomer and walked her back to the boss's house. It was cold today, and even though it's a short walk, normally I'd put Tully in the Tacoma and drive her home. However, today I didn't have the Tacoma. My Taco was at the dealer getting its TPMS system repaired and I had a courtesy loaner, a 2017 Camry SE. I had to sign a contract stating that I would not bring any pets in the car, so I walked Tully home.

On the walk back to my boss's house, the Toyota dealer called me and I was talking to the service manager. As I walked along my boss's street, I saw a man with a Boston Terrier and stepped off the sidewalk (Tully loves people but DOES NOT typically get along with other dogs). As I'm trying to keep Tully reigned in and talk to the Toyota guy at the same time, this guy starts asking me something about where he can take his dog for something-or-other...

I couldn't understand a word he was saying, and I said "Sorry, I'm on the phone with the Toyota dealer. He waved and I continued walking...

 

@Plain Jane Taco
@Salty_Dog

A short time later, my boss sent me on a work-related errand that was within walking distance. While walking, I encountered the man with the Boston Terrier again. He was talking to a couple of locals, and I walked up to him and apologized for brushing him off moments earlier. He was very understanding, and then he told me the story of this adorable dog...

The dog's name is Johnny and his owner's name is Bob. They are from Boston (as in Massachusetts), and I honestly forget why exactly they came all the way down here.

Anyway, Johhny is 14 years old, and Bob informed me that he is in extremely poor health and would more than likely be put to sleep in the next day or two. My Black Lab not only had to be put to sleep at the age of 15 due to failing health, but she died in my arms at the vet's exam room, so this really hit me in the heart...

After the couple he'd been talking to continued on their way, he told me he was looking looking for a place where he could have "one last drink" with his dog before he put him to sleep. That's what he wanted to ask me earlier...

Puck, the bar where I work, allows well-behaved dogs the patio and also employees a staff of animal lovers. What sucks is that after Labor Day Weekend, the patio is only open on Thursdays, Fridays, and weekends. I told him where I worked and also that he was welcome to bring Johnny by, but he had doubts about whether the little guy would be alive tomorrow.

Bob then noticed how much Johnny seemed to like me, and how much I seemed to get him excited. Seeing his dog acting like he wasn't dying really made him happy, and he asked if he could take a picture of his dog with me, truly enjoying himself one last time.

Dogs are probably the one thing I love more than my truck, and encountering someone who loves dogs as much as I do, well...

Did you really think I'd say no?!?!



Of course I told Bob about Tacoma World and asked if he could send me the pic to put on my thread...

He was all too happy to oblige...

Here's to you, Johnny Boston!

 

I missed the signature ‍♂️

How is a 2wd taco in the snow? I have a 2wd first gen (though it is a PreRunner) and I'm not sure how well it's gonna do in the Northeast snow.

 

The older homes are nice.