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

When you make the bumper strong enough to resist more impact than stock, you raise (multiply) the risk of frame damage from a substantial hit. While the bumper itself may suffer little damage, and the offending vehicle suffer more than from a stock bumper, getting frame damage is often the kiss of death.

I'd be inclined to use some form of aftermarket offroad 'armor' type bumper for your request. Just realize it will be a lot heavier (your MPG) and could have a result of damage worse for your truck. It's a roll of the dice.

If it were mine, I'd paint it with www.monstaliner.com and call it a day. Touch it up when it gets bruised and bumped, replace it when it gets seriously whacked.

And quit backing into stuff.

 

Any off road style steel bumper will take that hit like a champ. If your worried about your frame taking the damage. Go ahead and box it as well. That's what I did caged my whole back half and boxed my back frame.

 

Are you replacing the front brakes based on dealer suggestion or from your own observation? If yes, you may consider that they are taking advantage of you.

Unless you drive with your foot on the brake pedal there is no way you should be on your third set of pads at 65K Miles.

 

In mid-2013 when I brought it into the dealer for an oil chance, they said the brakes were at the minimum to pass safety inspection. I DID NOT replace them. I always get my truck inspected by a trusted mechanic, and he confirmed that the brakes were worn and replaced them at the time I got the truck inspected. Keep in mind my dad bought me my Taco when I got my learner's permit and I pretty much learned to drive in it. I was an inexperienced student driver when we got the Taco, so that's probably why the first set of pads had to be replaced at 31,000.

As for the second pair of brake pads, they were not worn out. However, they were making a lot of noise, like squeaking and squealing. The sound was driving me nuts, so I had new rotors and pads put on at the body shop when the truck was being repaired after the drunk driver hit me. Getting new brakes helped somewhat, but the noise did not completely go away until it got really warm out.

 

Funny story about that. I work at a bar as the general manager's personal assistant, and I also bar-back and run errands, among other things. My boss (the GM of the bar) is a petite Asian-American woman who is a few months older than me, and she is the best boss in the world! Anyway, she moved here to Southeast Pennsylvania from Nebraska a few years ago, and I drove her to the local DMV when she finally transferred her Nebraska license to a Pennsylvania license. Prior to our trip to the DMV, one of my boss's biggest complaints about my driving whenever she rode in my truck with me behind the wheel was my habit of "jolting" the truck back to front when braking and moving in stop-and-go traffic.

My boss's out-of-state license had been expired almost a month, but Pennsylvania has a 6-month grace period for new residents with expired licenses, meaning as long as your out-of-state driver's license is expired 6 months or less, you do not have to take a written or road test! My boss only had to take a vision test (required for all new residents) and we were out of the DMV within an hour! Anyway, I asked my boss if she wants to take her first spin as a Pennsylvania-licensed driver (in my truck), and she said yes. I tossed her the keys and she got behind the wheel while I took the shotgun seat.

Those of you own or have driven a base model regular cab 2nd gen Taco know that they have one-piece bench seat that does not have separate adjustments for driver and passenger. Like I said, my boss is a petite 5'3" Asian woman, and I'm a slightly overweight 260 pound, 5'11" guy, so my knees were almost touching my upper chest when my boss adjusted the seat.

My boss immediately felt bad for being so tiny and apologized for squishing me against the glovebox, but I told her it was fine. To date, my boss is one of only two people who ARE NOT blood relatives who have been allowed to drive my truck since I got it in 2009. It's a pretty big deal.

As we're leaving the parking lot of the shopping center where the DMV is located, my boss hits the brakes and darn near lifts the rear end up in the air. Her exact words were "Damn, you have good brakes!" That was almost two years ago and she hasn't complained about my braking habits since.

Also, my boss's daily driver at the time was a 1999 GMC Safari SLE van owned by the owners of the bar and used as a rolling billboard for the bar. I've driven that van before, and it's braking performance sucks compares to just about everything else I've driven (not just my truck).

 

PLEASE READ WHOLE POST!

Also, I guess you could say I do drive with my foot on the brake pedal, but with good reason. I got my learner's permit for the first time when I was 16, but I just wasn't ready to drive and learning to drive went on the back burner for almost three years. In August 2009, when I was 20, I finally renewed my learner's permit (it had expired in December 2006; a Pennsylvania learner's permit is valid for a year and you can keep renewing it indefinitely but if you let it expired you have to take the written test AGAIN!). About a month after getting a new learner's permit, my dad bought me the Tacoma.

From 2007 to 2016, my family lived in a townhouse development with 386 homes and seemingly hundreds of children. The neighborhood-wide speed limited was 15 MPH, and if you didn't ride your brakes at certain times, one of the little brats would run (or ride their bike) right out in front of your vehicle.

We moved to a single-family home this past April, and the neighborhood in which it is located is even worse than the townhome one! Kids have absolutely no respect for the rules of the road or any common sense for that matter. I've lived here for almost five months and have not even come close to hitting any pedestrians of any age. Quite the contrary, in fact... I'VE ALMOST BEEN HIT BY A KID ON A SCOOTER!

I was at a stop sign waiting to make a left onto the main road. This little bastard on a motorized electric scooter comes whizzing by, makes a sharp left turn, and someone squeezes between my truck without wiping out and/or hitting my truck. I had my foot on the brake pedal and was sitting at the stop sign. If the kid hit my truck, he would have been at fault, and his parents would have either been contacting their insurance company or writing me a check.

I work in (and spend most of my time in) Doylestown Borough, a town (well, technically a borough) that dates back to 1745. This is obviously well before cars were invented. Doylestown was on the decline for the longest time, but then beginning about 20 years ago a revitalization started. Now there overpriced houses, plenty of shops, way too many bars, and bunch of other attractions. Basically, this 18th century town can't handle 21st century traffic. Don't get me wrong, I love Doylestown, but driving in it is an absolutely nightmare! I was hit by a drunk driver in Doylestown Borough! Unless it is really early in the morning or really late at night, traffic is INSANE in the Borough. I would like to make it clear that traffic in Doylestown can't hold a candle to Philly or any other big city, but it still sucks.

Whether the traffic is at a standstill or virtually nonexistent, jaywalkers and people who pull out of side streets without looking are a HUGE problem. One nigh earlier this year, when I had to make a last minute run to the supermarket get ice for the bar where I work, a drunk couple almost ended up as a hood ornament on my truck. The bar where I work is located down an alley, and I was making a right turn onto this alley. I was not expecting there to be two drunk idiots standing in the middle of a public road, in a BLIND corner with NO STREETLIGHTS, AT NIGHT! I slammed on my brakes and came to a stop with plenty of room to spare. The drunk woman just laughed, and her boyfriend gave me the death stare, but they got out of my way.

I've had my driver's license for more than 5 years, and I've gotten ONE parking ticket. I've never been pulled over, and I have a clean driving record.

You ALWAYS have to drive defensively, and in Doylestown that means remaining alert behind the wheel at all times to make up for another person's stupidity, whether they're in a vehicle or on foot. Often this means having to stop short.

So yeah, my brakes get a lot of use, but keep in mind that I don't live in the middle of nowhere.

 

I haven't backed into anything since before the drunk driver hit me, and I'm buying a new head unit with a backup camera.

 

Basically, I was a student driver for the first year and a half I had the truck. My dad bought the truck for me in September 2009 when I finally got my learner's permit at the ripe old age of 20. I finally got my driver's license in May 2011. I had most of my driving lessons in my Taco, and I took the actual test in it as well. I failed twice before I passed on the third try. The first time, I failed the test before it even really started because I messed up while parallel parking. The second time, I rolled a stop sign and was going a little too fast. The third time, I passed with flying colors and the instructor said I was the best he'd had all day.

In the early days, one of my bad driving habits was being too rough on the brakes and coming to a smooth stop. I'm 99% sure this is why my first set of brake pads wore out at less than 32,000 miles.

As for the second set of brakes, they did not need to be replaced, but rather they were noisy and driving me nuts. The truck would squeal and groan during low-speed or gradual braking, like when I was stopping for a stop sign or red light, or when I was backing out of the driveway. This almost always occurred when the truck had been sitting overnight, for any extended period or time, or if I'd been on the road for a while with minimal brake usage.

In Pennsylvania, yearly safety inspections are required statewide, and emissions testing is required in many counties for all gas-powered vehicles under a certain GVW (all diesel cars and trucks are exempt, and all heavy-duty trucks and vans, even gas ones, are exempt as well). I live in Bucks County, where both tests are required. In October 2015, I took my truck to my trusted independent mechanic (NOT the dealer) for an oil change and inspection. The mechanic checked my truck from top to bottom, including the front and rear brakes, and found absolutely nothing wrong, other than that the brakes should be replaced in the next 5,000 to 10,000 miles. My truck passed both inspections with flying colors, and at the time of this inspection, it had a little under 60,000 miles on the odometer.

Barely two weeks later, my truck was clobbered by a drunk driver in a Mercedes who ran a stop sign. When my truck finally went into the body shop for repairs in December 2015, I had the pads and rotors replaced. The body shop owner was also a mechanic certified to do safety inspections. With new brakes, the groaning and squealing became less pronounced and less frequent but did not go away entirely until the weather warmed up.

 

I did mine a month ago. Link to the thread

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/aftermarket-cruise-control.425064/

 

Btw the $17 dollar. Aftermarket unit worked no prob. The wire it came with didn't have the ground for the air bag. Had to buy oem from the dealer

This is also a great vid for both cruise and intermittent wiper
https://youtu.be/51qbO6UXAxg

 

The SHORT story:

I practically put my brake pedal through the floor to avoid rear-ending a Tahoe while driving on snow-covered roads. I didn't hit the Tahoe, but at a traffic light about a mile away, my front brakes totally locked up and I had to call AAA for a tow. My truck needed a new master cylinder, and it cost $1,200! To add insult to injury, three red scratches appeared on my truck's hood while it was at the dealer overnight.

The LONG, and I do mean LOOONG story:

Fast-forward back to February 2014. There had been a decent snowfall the previous night, not a blizzard, but big enough that the roads were a mess. I was still going to Bucks County Community College (I've since graduated), and on this particular day, classes should have been delayed or completely cancelled. This was more than two years ago, so they may have actually been delayed, but regardless, the roads were still bad. I was on Swamp Road right near Rushland, and a green Tahoe in front of me stopped suddenly. I slammed on the brake pedal, slid on the slush-covered road, and came to a stop within inches of rear-ending the Tahoe, but I DID NOT hit the Tahoe. I drove through Rushland, with no indication that anything might be wrong, and a short time later came to the intersection of Swamp Road and 2nd Street Pike. The light was red, so I stopped. The light turned green, and the car in front of me started going. I took my foot off the brake pedal and hit the gas. The rear wheels were spinning, but the truck was not moving AT ALL. I floored it, and I could smell rubber burning. If I remember correctly, the girl in the car behind was incredibly patient and didn't beep at me once. I waved for the line of cars behind me to pass while I took a look at my truck. There was no damage and it was not stuck on anything, so I was absolutely dumbfounded. A nice older man lives in the house on the corner of Swamp Road and 2nd Street Pike, and he also happens to own a 1st gen Tundra. Ten minutes after I got stuck, he heard my tires squealing and came outside to investigate and offer his assistance. By this time I'd already called my mom and told her what had happened, and that I had no idea what was wrong. I'm pretty sure I'd already called AAA at this point as well, but all of their drivers were assisting other motorists stranded by the snow and it would be close to an hour before a tow truck would arrive. My mom had a 2008 Acura TL at the time that obviously didn't have 4-wheel drive, so she called my dad who has a 2013 Honda Pilot that DOES have 4-wheel drive. He left work and drove out to meet me.

During this time, my Tacoma is still stranded in the middle of the road, forcing drivers to go out of their lane to pass. The man's Tundra was a TRD with 4-wheel drive and the 4.7L V8, and he suggested that he use his truck to pull mine into his driveway until the tow truck arrived. He backed his Tundra up, and he ran a chain from his trailer hitch to my back bumper. I shifted into reverse, he shifted into drive, and we simultaneously hit the gas, but my truck went nowhere. At some point, he looked out his window and noticed that my front wheels were not spinning at all. I also noticed that my brake pedal felt kind of hard and had little give in it. We determined that something had to be wrong with my front brakes and gave up trying to get my Tacoma off the road. My dad showed up, and a Newtown Township cop showed up as well. A girl in a Scion TC had gone off the road just feet from where my Tacoma was stranded, and that's the accident he was responding to. He took my information and gave me some flares to place around my Taco so motorists would see my truck from a distance. My dad decided to wait with me for the tow truck. The good Samaritan Tundra owner invited us into his house and gave me hot chocolate, as well as popcorn from an antique popcorn maker he had in his living room. He showed me and my dad his collection of R/C aircraft and a vintage VW Bug he had in the garage. This helped pass the time until the truck arrived. It was a huge flatbed. Once the Tacoma was loaded onto the flatbed, my dad went back to work and I rode with the tow truck driver to the Toyota dealer. On the way there, while still on Swamp Road, we saw a tractor-trailer that had gone off the road and end up on its side in a ditch. The tow driver wanted a picture but couldn't take one because he was driving, so I took a picture with my phone and texted it to him.

We got the truck to the dealer with no problem, and that same day, the service department determined that the pushrod had broken and jammed inside the master cylinder, clamping the brake calipers onto the rotors and rendering the truck immobile. The cost for a new master cylinder, since the bumper-to-bumper warranty had ended in September 2012, was about $1,200. I got my truck back the next day, and the service manager told me he'd never seen a master cylinder fail in such a way. The good news is that two and a half years later the brakes have given me no trouble and my parents paid for the new master cylinder.

However, it does end there. I got my truck back the following afternoon and ran a couple errands before driving home. Upon pulling into my driveway, I noticed three red scratches in the hood, from windshield to grille. The sides of my truck get scuffed all the time from contact with various landscaping, and these scuffs are easily buffed out. This was not a mere scuff. It appeared as though somebody had taken a jagged piece of something (obviously red in color) and just dug it into my hood three times. I could not get these marks did not come off, so in a rage, I drove my truck right back to the dealer. This was one of those situations where I made it clear to the dealer staff that I was pissed, but kept my cool. They had no idea how it had happened, and claimed the hood had been covered in ice and snow when my truck came in. Like an idiot, I believed them. Needless to say, the service manager called in some guys from the dealer's detailing department, and they actually did a halfway decent job of making the red marks disappear somewhat. They buffed and scrubbed, right there in the covered valet/service drop-off area, in below-freezing weather. For that, I admire them. This was of course done at no charge, and when I got rear-ended a little over a year later, my body guy completely got rid of the remains of those red marks when I brought the truck in for repairs from the person hitting me.

A few months later, I happened to look at pictures I took of my truck being loaded onto the flatbed on Swamp Road, and one of the most obvious details about the pictures was that my truck DID NOT have any ice or snow covering the hood! NONE WHATSOEVER! The dealer lied to me! I have no way of knowing whether the dealer actually damaged the truck, and I highly doubt they did. They only said the truck had snow on it when it came in to shut me up.

I do not think the dealer had anything to do with the damage because the scuff marks looked deliberate. Accidents do happen at dealerships, but it usually involves someone crashing one vehicle into another or something falling on the vehicle in the garage and denting it. These scratches looked like they were done by someone who knew exactly what they were doing.

I am very well-known and well-liked in my area, and just about everyone in town knows my truck. I'm thinking someone did it just to be a an a*****e.

 

Holy freaking novel man. Not reading even a bit of that

 

Glad I'm not the only one who thought that

 

Tough to follow.... Reminds me of grampa Simpson

 

It was July 1st, 2016. This all started when my boss (who also happens to be one of my closest friends) decided she wanted to go bowling. I asked if I could come and my boss said yes! My boss has a Honda Element, which can technically seat 5 but only has 4 seatbelts, and there were 7 of us. Even I wasn't going, there were still 2 more people than the Element had seatbelts, but I offered to take someone in my Taco. Problem solved! My friend and fellow employee who shall remain unnamed volunteered to ride with me in my truck, while the remaining 5 crammed into the Element. For whatever reason, my boss let her friend, who is a Volvo mechanic and weekend race driver, take the wheel of the Element. He is a great driver, but quite a leadfoot.

Keep in mind this was right before 4th of July, so I had my truck decorated with two little American flags in the windows (specially made for this purpose) and red, white, and blue bunting tied to the front grille. It was warm and kinda humid, but not terribly hot; one of those nice nights where you roll down the windows AND turn on the A/C. This is exactly what me and my friend did, absentmindedly forgetting about the flags. The right flag was wedged in the weatherstripping, but I was going like 30 MPH so it blew right out. I pulled over and turned on the hazards, and without hesitating, my friend tears off his seat belt, jumps out of the truck, and runs back up Main Street to retrieve the flag. Keep in mind that my friend had a few drinks before we decided to go bowling. The next thing I know, he's running back down the hill that is Main Street, holding the flag high like it's the Olympic torch. He got back in the truck and replaced the flag, and it was very humid anyway, so we opted to just roll the windows up and crank the A/C. We made it to the bowling alley without incident. A good evening got even better when my boss paid for the whole thing, including the shoe rentals. My boss and most of her friends are serious league bowlers who all have their own balls (that came out wrong), and a couple of the guys had their own shoes, but this was probably the third time I'd bowled in the last year or so, so I had no shoes and no ball.

The friend who used to be a Volvo mechanic bought the second round of drinks, including one for me, but I took two sips and gave it to my friend who'd ridden with me to the bowling alley. I was driving, after all. I had to drive fifteen minutes back to town to drop off my friend, then turn around and drive ten minutes back to my house (which is right down the street from the bowling alley).

So, it's like 9 or 10 at night, getting dark, and my Taco and the Element are parked directly across from each other. One of the guys noticed a can of beer sitting under my left rear tire. Specifically, it was a can of Rolling Rock, and it had not just been tossed there. It was a full, unopened can of beer that had been neatly placed under my tire with the obvious intention of me noticing it. Some might say that someone was being a jerk and was hoping to cause trouble by giving some random person (me) a flat tire, but I don't think so. If it had been an empty and crumpled beer can, I'd say yes to that theory. However, this was a cold, unopened can of beer. The guys came to the conclusion that someone had been drinking in the parking lot, really liked my patriotic-decorated truck, and decided to leave me a present. All of the guys were telling me I should drink it right then, but I was driving so I insisted on drinking it later that night. My boss told me not to drink it and made me throw it away. Again, this was a cold, unopened can of beer, not an unattended drink at a bar.

My boss's boyfriend decided to ride with me and my other friend rode with everyone else in the Element. All we talked about the entire drive home was why someone left a beer under a perfect stranger's truck.

I bought the patriotic decor at the local K-Mart and took this picture in the parking lot moments after installing it (See if you can find the other 2nd gen that photo-bombed me here!):

 

Put a short story at the beginning for you to read.

 

Put a MUCH SHORTER version at the top of the post.

 

I added a short version at the beginning.

 

How bla bla brakes bla bla bla locked bla bla bla up?

All nicely put and said, just long winded. I retract my statement. Carry on.

 

tl;dr

I think there was something about beer.

jk

Read it, could have also been aliens.