New England B.S. Thread

My dad had one when I was a kid. Lots of fun with those jump seats; we used it as a field bomber for a little while until the rust got too bad.

 

My family has had 11 Subarus. Only 1 has had engine issues - 2009 Forester that my nephew ran completely out of oil. All of the rest have been or are fine. Wife’s current ride is a 2010 Forester XT. Goes good, plenty of zip, and with Hawk brakes stops on a dime with change left over.

 

I have only seen pictures of my grandfather's BRAT, since the first one rotted away to nothing, and the second was sold just as I was born. I don't think he ever kept the jump seats in his, he just used them as a small, fuel efficient pickup, though I would love to ride around in the back now!

 

The Brat with the Two back seats was to try to get it into the USA as a car and avoid the chicken tax on Japanese Trucks.

 

So. I need new tires. I have quotes from Hot Rock (firestone), the Winged Sneaker and TFT.
All are 265/70/17 for my 2017.

Firestone Destination X/T $1141.00

Bridgestone A/T Revo 3 P-Metri $1184.00

Wrangler A/T Adventure w/ Kevlar? $1178.00

Toyo Open Country A/T III $1145.00

So Price is negligible, so I guess I'm asking if anyone had very bad experience or loved any of these??

If you have a recommendation I'll be listening.

Thanks for you Help.

 

The new Toyo AT III look pretty damn nice. They are the most aggressive of the above. Do any of the others have severe snow rating? I know the Toyo's do.

 

that’s what I put on my 17

edit: ordered from discount tire online.

 

Firestone Destination my Tacoma came with when I bought it, they seemed to do decent for the 2 months they were on the truck. I would look at General Grabber AT though

 

Of those, the only one I researched was the new Toyo and it looks like a great tire.

I went into TFT in August with a preference for one of three tires-Toyo AT3, Falken AT3W, or BFG AT as a far distant third. I was going to add the Duratrac, but I'm done with Badyear after their political BS. Left with the Falkens and have no complaints so far. Not that looks matter, I like the way the new Toyo look better though.

 

When I was down to those three as well when I was looking for new tires. My first choice was the new toyo at3. When I went to go buy them in May, they were sold out.....nation wide with no announcement for any refillment. I have always had a BFG KO2, been driving on them for 15 years, and always had love for it until it was pointed out to me that the traction in the wet (rain) was a little less than stellar. So I started looking at the Falkens. I was going to get the falkens, but for the size that I wanted, they only had an E rated and 57 lbs a tire or SL rated at 50 lbs a tire. I went for the BFG KO2'S again in a C rated at 50lbs a tire. I reallllllllllly wanted those toyos though.

 

Check out Discount Tire. The prices you listed are really high for what you’re getting, the Revo 3’s and the Kevlars are $900 shipped online, the Toyo’s are $680 shipped. I believe their warehouse is in CT also and you can usually save some money if you pick them up. I think they’ll ship to an installer also and you can get a complete, OTD price (might be thinking of Tire Rack). Tire Rack would be worth a look also. Over $1k for modest tires on a Tacoma is a little nutty unless you’re going E rated (which is still nutty to me but different different flavor)

 

I grabbed the E rated Falkens. Overkill for sure. No ill effects.

 

What size?

 

LT 265/75/16

 

I would have made that choice as well with that size. I went with a 285/70 17.

 

Ah, I love a good oil debate.

I have to believe the push for 0w-20 is strictly fuel economy, at the expense (to a degree) of wear. I have no issue running a 0w-20 in my Tacoma especially since it's still under warranty, but I haven't done any UOAs to confirm anything. Jeep changed the spec at some point on the GC in 2016 from 5w-20 to a 0w-20. I just request the synthetic change and they run Mopar bulk synthetic which is purported to be Penzoil Platnium, which always had decent UOAs on the BIITOG forums. With MaxCare, I don't necessarily even care what the oil is, as long as I keep the intervals fair (every 5,000) and have it documented.

The Vette runs M1 5w-30 as that's the recommended factory fill, but the M1 when the car came out versus the M1 of today apparently are different oils, with the old oil being somewhat superior as I think it had more Zinc or ZPP which was for anti-wear. I need to suck it up and get a Quick Jack at some point as the past 3 times I've had the oil done it, I've ended up overfull. It's not a huge issue since the owners manual recommends a quart over if you're tracking it and the LS1 is known to eat a little oil in the upper RPMs, but it's still annoying nonetheless.

Interestingly enough M1 5w-30 is the devil in the turbo Subaru world with a history of spun bearings. The best consesnsus I could come to based upon all my reading was that M1 5w-30 would shear down to a 20 weight by the end of the OCI and cause bad things to happen. It's interesting that both the WRX and STi still require 5w-30 whereas all other Subarus are 0w-20. I used to be a bit nutty with mine and I'd run the 0w-30 German Castrol Syntec at 3,750 mile intervals with UOAs done each change. I never put in more than 1/4 quart during any interval and more often than not would not put in oil. I also checked the oil every single time I drove the car and had oil temp and pressure gauges to monitor and wouldn't see boost until both were in the correct operating range. Yeah, I was crazy. I liked that oil specifically as it had a reputation of flowing excellent when cold, but performing more like a 40 weight when it was hot. If / when I go back down into that rabbit hole ($975 saved thus far!) I'll probably go with either that or whatever Rotella T6 is popular now.

So, enough about the oil.

I ended up bitching out the dealership for using the wrong transfer case fluid on my truck. I was anticipating (and got) the standard well LX is the same as LF fluid and our techs believe there's no difference. I gently asked the question why did Toyota change the fluid spec if there was no difference (LF is a straight synthetic 75wt whereas LX is a 75w85). He didn't have an answer but then came back with "well it would have been significantly more expensive to use the LF fluid had you requested that at the outset). I asked why I wasn't given the correct fluid and the correct price from the outset as I went to a Toyota dealership with a Toyota. So after a bunch of back and forth, he agreed that they'd swap the fluid and I'd pay the difference in fluid as it was "significantly more expensive". Mind you, MSRP was under $5 a liter. Magically a pair of liters appeared and they didn't charge me the change. My dash cam showed the truck went into the shop, up on a lift and down, so I can only assume the fluid actually got changed. I just go nutty sometimes when I'm in the situation where I know more than the person holding the power. In this case, I knew the correct fluids and the service advisor simply didn't. But, he's the one that controls the purse strings. At 60,000 miles when I change everything again I'm going to just suck it up and DIY it. I hate, hate, hate dealing with fluids, but this was way more annoying.

I made an appointment the end of the month to get the frame junk done, which will be interesting as you all know my frame is bathed in FF. I figure whatever they do this time is a cavity wax and not a CRC paint, but whatever happens will simply get coated again in FF. My goal was simply to get the 12 year deal on the frame in case something screwy happens.

Lastly, I put my skid plate back on. What a pain the ..... that was. Yes, it's six bolts, but it shouldn't take me 2 hours to get it connected right. I ended up cross threading a bolt just enough on Monday afternoon I had to get a

$13 M12x1.25 mm Self-Locking Nylon Insert Hex Lock Nuts, Pack of 6

M12x1.25 tap that I couldn't find anywhere local to clean up the hole to get everything to sit right. I had a M12x1.25 die, just not the tap. There is at least a sense of satisfaction getting everything back together.

 

IMO, always do your own fluid changes and try to know more than any dealer you go to.

The OEM gray skid plate does tend to be a royal pain in the ass to re install. With the dumb stuff I did to my front license plate mounts, I actually removed the grill to get at it than the skid plate.

 

Haha 800 miles per quart. My old Mustang I had in high school burned a quart per 300.

Should get my wife one of those, the name fits..

 

The plan was to do it this summer, but with two kids, both getting sick during my vacation week, the heat we had, etc, etc....total excuses but such is life. I have no problem speaking up for what I want. Like I said, at 60,000 I'll do the fluids myself, but then the kids will be older so it will be less of a pain to sneak away for a day to do them. Once I get out of warranty I'll probably consider the spin on filter adapater and the Fumoto drain valve to make things super easy.

The TRD Plate for the 2G was pretty easy to deal with as it was designed to sit on bolt heads as a hanger, but the 3G plate is much larger / heavier and covers more area.