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

It's a piece of shit. It vibrates when the truck is idling and shakes a lot when the truck is moving. I had to turn my stereo up REALLY LOUD to get the the original driver's mirror to shake/vibrate. Also, the actual mirror insert itself is obviously different from the OEM mirror on the passenger side. It just looks different.

All this because someone didn't bother to check THEIR SIDEVIEW MIRROR before flinging their door open.

If my brand new HomerTaco grill gets damaged as a result of someone else's stupidity I'm really gonna gonna lose my shit, because that's a custom piece and most insurance companies will probably go out of their way to avoid paying for it.

 

@ColoradoTJ

People wonder why I get so angry when something happens to my truck. None of these incidents were my fault!

Texting driver rear-ending me ($1,200; March 2015):


Drunk driver hitting me ($2,600; October 2015):


Someone opening their passenger door without paying attention ($50-$122 ESTIMATE; April 2017):

 

@Plain Jane Taco
@DustStorm4x4
@98tacoma27
@Blackout14

Here's another multi-part story about growing up with Asperger's, and it's gonna be long but it's a good read:

I graduated from Central Bucks West High School (CB West) in June 2007 at the age of 18. What I should have done was gotten a new learner's permit, and started studying to get my license. That is was biggest SNAFU. I got my learner's permit for the first time in December 2005, about 3 months short of my 17th birthday. I passed the test on the first try, and my dad immediately started giving me driving lessons in his 1996 Nissan Pathfinder SE 4x4. My mom had a 2004 Honda Odyssey EX minivan (then less than 2 years old) and my dad had just bought a 2003 Honda S2000. My dad said that the Pathfinder was basically going to be mine when I got my license, so that's what I primarily drove. It was 9 years old at the time, but it was in great shape. It only had like 80K or 90K miles on it, and it was MINT. It was the perfect vehicle for a teen driver. It had a surprisingly good factory stereo system, which is what most if not all teens want. It was NOT Bose (My dad thought for years that it had Bose, but he tracked down the window sticker about a year ago, and the window sticker confirms that it had a 6-speaker AM/FM stereo with CD player, but no Bose; Pathfinders with the factory Bose system had a double-DIN AM/FM stereo with CD player and cassette). The factory CD player starting having problems in 2003, so by now the Pathy had an Alpine CD player. The Pathfinder also happened to be a very slick-looking SUV. It had heated leather seats, power everything, a sunroof, and 4-wheel drive! Even in the 21st century, a lot of my friends end up with cars that have broken A/C or no A/C at all. Some people I know have broken heat. The Pathfinder had ICE COLD A/C (had to be recharged once in 2003 and was never serviced before or after) and heat worked pretty damn good too.

Anyway, enough about the Pathfinder...

I got my first Pennsylvania learner's permit in 2005 (I've never had a learner's permit or a driver's license, or even a state ID card, in any other state; I got my first military ID when I was 9 or 10, and we moved so much that getting a state ID was pointless). My parents and I were both unaware that a learner's permit was only valid for one year. During that year, my parents and I tended to freak out while driving on busy/crowded roads. In about April 2007, I happened glance at my learner's permit and realize the damn thing was expired. I still continued to practice driving, though. My grandpa's friend took me to a secluded college campus and gave me driving lessons in his white 2003 Tacoma regular cab 2WD 2.4L auto (that truck deserves a post of it's own).

In the summer of 2007, I found out that I'd have to do everything from scratch (reapply, take the written test, etc). What's most aggravating is that you literally have until the day the permit expires to renew it without any penalties (as in they just give you a brand new one that's good for another year; This is indefinite). I wish I'd known this!


I was so pissed I'd let this happen, and it would be another two years before I went for my permit again...

The period of 2007 to 2009 was a dark one for everyone and everything; The government, the economy, people...

I was one of those people...

 

Looking at some of the pics of you driving through town it looks great.Love the architecture of the buildings.Love the look of towns like that.

 

@Plain Jane Taco
@DustStorm4x4
@98tacoma27
@Blackout14

So, here it where it all began.
In my senior year, there was a very pretty (downright HOT) girl in one of my classes. Her parents owned a graphic design firm and were rich. She drove a BMW 3-series, and her dad had a new Aston Martin. I had loved drawing for years, so I figured that this might just be my ideal career!

So, my parents signed me up for a graphic design course at Middle Bucks Institute of Technology to see if I'd like it. I initially did pretty damn good, but then I liked it a bit too much and started putting way more effort into my work then was needed. I fell behind, and in the graphic design business, going past your deadline is frowned upon.

In March or April 2008, I dropped out of that class, and I embarked on what would become one of the most miserable times in my life...

First, here's where I really screwed up... I already had a job at CVS. It sucked but it made money. I should have gotten my driver's license and started going to college. Because I was so embittered and reclusive from about 2005 to 2009, I started living like someone between the ages of 16 and 21 when I was 25!

I didn't really have any friends (one, who was dealing with personal issues of his own) in 2007-2008, and as a result I had no social life. I was glad to be free of the anxiety-inducing burden known as public school, and when I wasn't at work (CVS a the time) or at MBIT, my days were spent up in my room playing video games. My dog Molly was still alive then, so when I wanted to get out of the house, I walked her around the neighborhood...

 

Doylestown is quite pretty - neat history too.

 

Beautiful to look at, but miserable to drive through...

 

Yeah, that house is a mess. I pass it a few times a week coming up Edison-Furlong and always wondered what the back story was.

 

@Plain Jane Taco
@DustStorm4x4
@98tacoma27
@Blackout14

I have integrity, so I'm not going to name names here...

Like I said, my misery started in the spring of 2008...

Each county in the Commonwealth has an "Intermediate Unit." I live in Bucks County, and my IU was Bucks County Intermediate Unit #22 (BCIU#22). The IU's goal is integrate intellectually disabled students into society by teaching them various life skills. The program is good if you are lower-functioning, but if you are a high-functioning and borderline normal young man like I was at the time, you just get pissed off.

The first IU program I was in was located in an old 1970s office building in Newtown. My parents and I drove out there to see the place and meet the staff. The guy who ran it was 26 years old at the time (Born in 1982, so he's halfway to 40 now), and he seemed very nice and cool when we first met him, but he put on a hell of a facade.

One of the most noteworthy details about this class is that it was modeled after a typical corporate office space, and the other noteworthy details is that there students with different levels of disabilities. A few of them, myself included, were pretty much normal. Then, there were the lower-functioning individuals who were on the autism spectrum, and then there was one girl who was mentally retarded. The biggest mistake you can make in any special ed setting, at least in my opinion, is applying the same curriculum to a group of students on the spectrum with different levels of functionality. If you have a class of full of low-functioning autistic students, there's no problem at all. No class is perfect, but there's generally no problem. Start putting high-functioning people like me in programs designed for lower-functioning people, and it just pisses us off. We want to be treated like an individual, not a diagnosis.

I forget whether the aforementioned intellectually disabled girl had mental retardation or down syndrome, but if you put pair someone like me with a "specialist" who's trained to deal with students like that girl, that's a recipe for disaster. We feel as though we're being talked down to, and treated as if we're stupid. It's not an Asperger's/ASD thing, it's a common human emotion! We like to be treated like individuals, not a diagnosis!

So, let me tell you a little bit about this pompous ass of a teacher...

 

@Plain Jane Taco
@DustStorm4x4
@98tacoma27
@Blackout14

This teacher was 26 years old at the time and quite handsome. He was fit, he always used hair gel, and he always wore a button-up shirt, a tie, and khakis. In the interest of preparing the students for the office life, we were all required to wear "business casual" clothing. However, we did have "casual Fridays" where we could wear anything we wanted that wasn't inappropriate.

Anyway, the teacher may have been nice when I met him, but my issues with him began on my first day. No boss likes a disobedient employee, but if you crossed this guy even once, it seemed that you were on his shit list for life (at least it seemed that way in my case).

Incident #1: In high school, all students (not just special ed students) were allowed to listen to iPods and other personal music players in class at the teacher's discretion. I just assumed we were allowed to listen to our MP3 players, and while we were working on an assignment, I pulled out my trusty iPod and put on my headphones. I selected Southside Johnny (Yes, I remember this) and started rocking out while I worked. The teacher just stared at me and I misunderstood him. I smiled and went back to work. The next thing I knew, he came up behind me, grabbed my shoulder, and pulled my headphones off (If a stranger did this to me in public, I'd deck them). He then rather gruffly told me that iPods weren't allowed. What's weird is that while this jackass didn't allow iPods, he had no problem with us plugging headphones into the computers in our "offices" and listening to music that way. YouTube was of course blocked to keep us from accessing inappropriate content. Back in 2008, however, I had A LOT of CDs and these computers had CD-ROMs! I just started bringing my CDs (and some of my dad's) from home and ripping them onto the computer when I had some free time. Before I long I had a nice library of my favorite songs on the computer. It was still aggravating though, since I had a perfectly good iPod!

Incident #2: The second incident that day was another innocent mistake. I got bored while the teacher was talking and just started drawing. The teacher made the mistake of coming up behind me, reaching over my shoulder, and attempting to grab my drawing. My parents, my friends, and even my current boss have learned the hard way that I do not like to be startled or snuck up on. In 2010 or 2011, a friend of mine who works as a zombie at a haunted hayride in the fall kept coming up behind me and yelling to scare me. His excuse was that he was practicing his scare technique...

The first time he did this, I was calm and told him not to do it again. The second time I told him "Don't fucking do that again" but still remained civil. The third time he did it, I jumped up and literally vaulted over the couch. I then grabbed him right below his neck and slammed him up against the wall in my other's friend's basement. The friend whose house it was had to break us up. I told my dad this story, and he said my friend deserved it. Everyone else agrees. You know what? He certainly learned his lesson about sneaking up behind me and scaring me and hasn't done it since.

Going back to 2008, this teacher came up behind and attempted to grab my drawing. All I saw was a hand coming out of nowhere and I went on the defensive. I clenched up, got this enraged look on my face, and growled at the teacher not to touch my stuff. Strangely enough I didn't get in trouble. He certainly learned his lesson about sneaking up on me, but that didn't mean he wasn't still an asshole...

 

I haven't truly overreacted to being startled or having someone sneak up on me in about 6 or 7 years. Here's what happened with my boss...

It was a chilly day in 2016 (maybe 2017). I was parked in one of the manager's spots outside the bar where I work, waiting for my boss to arrive. I was sitting in my Tacoma listening to the radio, and I'm pretty sure I had the engine running so I could have the heat on. I looked in my rearview mirror and saw my boss pull into the parking lot. My truck was parked with the passenger side facing the patio. What I was not expecting was for my boss to walk between my truck and the fence, and then knock on the passenger window to get my attention (HINT: That's exactly what she did). I yelled "Jesus Christ!" and just about jumped through the roof of my truck, and probably startled my boss at least as much as she startled me. She was a wee bit annoyed at me for reacting so strongly, but she now goes out of her way to not sneak up on me.

 

@Plain Jane Taco
@DustStorm4x4
@98tacoma27
@Blackout14

One of my most noteworthy encounters with this teacher was about bathroom breaks of all things...

Sometimes when I go number two, it takes ten to twenty minutes (We all eat stuff that has negative effects on our digestive systems). When I was in this teacher's class, sometimes I did legitimately have to go! Most of the time however, I stayed in the bathroom long after I finished taking care of business just so I could get out of the class for a while. Sometimes I lied about having to use the bathroom to "escape."

One time I ended up in the bathroom at the same time as this teacher. I was sitting on the toilet and he was washing his hands after taking a leak. First off, he was trying to talk to me while I was trying to take a dump (that is a big no-no in my opinion). He said something along the lines of "Charlie, if you get a job and spend this much time in the bathroom, people are going to think you're doing more than just using the bathroom." Almost as soon as he finishes this sentence, he rips this terrific fart. I knew what the teacher was referring to, but I wanted to be a wise-ass. After he let it rip, I asked, referring to the spur-of-the-moment fart, "You mean that?" He chuckles, then says something like "No, your coworkers are going to think you're in here playing yourself."

Shocked a teacher would use that term, I said something like "I'm just using the bathroom. That's all I ever come in here to do." He accepted this and left, but that particular encounter shocked me...

 

@Plain Jane Taco
@DustStorm4x4
@98tacoma27
@Blackout14

I could fill up 2 or 3 pages of horror stories from this guy's class...

My parents pulled me out of his class in the fall of 2008 after he basically questioned their parenting skills...

If anybody wants to hear more IU horror stories, just ask and I'll tell you!

 

I never get tired of driving through Doylestown.

 

My Sony XAV-W650BT, purchased last September with court-ordered restitution money from the career alcoholic who did this, turned out to be defective. I talked to the awesome guys at Crutchfield and they agreed to exchange the Sony even though I'm well past the 60-day return period. Even better, they didn't make me send the Sony back first, so I didn't have to drive around without a radio! I'm sending the Sony back tomorrow (I have 14 days to do it).

So, my new head unit is a Boss BV960NV. I paid $280 for the Sony back in September (well, technically Sir Drinks-A-Lot paid for it), and the Sony has since gone down to $260 on Crutchfield. The Sony DOES NOT have navigation. The Boss BV960NV, which is currently listed at $250 ($10 less than the Sony), DOES have navigation! It also has all the same features as the Sony.

My friend Dave just installed this same unit in his 2005 Lincoln Town Car, and he loves it. He had another Boss double-DIN unit in his Lincoln before, but it didn't have navigation. He bought the BV960NV and sold the previous Boss that still worked perfectly.

Fresh out of the box...





The box the head unit came in...




The box that box came in...




Taking apart the dash to get the Sony out...




And here we go again...




On my neighbor's workbench. The single-DIN unit in the background is my 2013 Pioneer; My neighbor has been considering installing a stereo in his daughter's Barbie Jeep (actually, it's an Escalade), so I just gave him my old head unit in exchange for all the help he's given me...




Getting ready to install the Boss...




Electronic guts...




Connecting the wires...




The finished product later that same night. Note that it's tuned to WMMR (my favorite local radio station). One of my biggest gripes about the Sony practically from day one was that WMMR did not come in every well a lot of the time. By comparison, my Pioneer picked it up flawlessly, as did the radios in my dad's 2013 Honda Pilot, my mom's 2013 Nissan Murano, my boss's Honda Element, and the Corolla I got as a loaner recently...




In GPS mode...

 

My biggest gripe about the Boss is that it won't properly read the music files on my iPod when I have it plugged in through the USB port. On top of that, it just flat out refuses to read older iPods (as I found out with my friend's old iPod Touch while doing a test)...




However, I decided to buy an AUX cable at CVS as a temporary solution, and I was shocked by how good it sounded (Barely any difference between USB and AUX sound quality on this unit!)...

 

Awesome set up and great write up. Makes me wanna ditch the old radio and get one of these.

 

Great writeup. Like your use of many pics.

Not sure I would have gone from a name brand (Sony), to a Chinese 2nd tier brand Boss. I probably would have chosen Pioneer, since you've had good success with that brand.

Best wishes on your choice, and hope for a long life with the unit.

 

I wanted Pioneer in the first place, but none of the Pioneer double-DIN units had front USB/AUX inputs.

 

They used to, but I guess they went with the USB cable installed in the back of the unit. Not sure why they did that, since there's plenty of real estate on the front faceplate for a USB port.

Think I would have gotten a USB port that fits in the front console slots, and feed the cable there.