My First Toyota

Drove up to Avondale (Phoenix) from Tucson yesterday to pick up this one. Good dealership. No games, no preloads, and some discounts unlike here and very good trade in on my Grand Cherokee. I figured the drive saved me between $4k and $5k. So to those who thought I was a troll, guess you were wrong. I like the ride and power. All the Big Brother features and distracting ding, ding, dings and messages when you do anything had me regretting it on the way home. But today I've been fishing around in the system shutting off everything I can find so maybe I'll get to enjoy the truck now. Too bad you can't shut off the seat belt warning like you can in many other vehicles. I've never heard such an annoying constant loud PITA warning. Hey Toyota, I really don't need a seat belt on after I close the gate on my property and drive 100 yards to my house. I have seat belt extenders on order to remedy that problem.

 

Welcome from Denver!

 

Looking good!

 

Nice truck. Get the Carista OBD scanner on The BigA and you can contol all of the warnings, though I am not sure about the seatbelt one. This unit is highly recommended by many users here:

Carista OBD - Bluetooth OBD2 Scanner - Car Scanner Diagnostic Tool and Code Reader with Access to Diagnostics, Customizations, Service Tools, and Live Data

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BBS73F6J/?coliid=IA4KFQD91AEYY&colid=3JI94VK80YZW9

 

Congrat, don't think you'll regret it.

 

Congrats and good looking truck!

 

Thanks but unfortunately anything with a computer chip and I don't get along. These devices either don't come with instructions, we're supposed to be born with the knowledge apparently, or on the off chance there are instructions, they never work for me or I'd need to buy the latest greatest device that will enable another device to enable another device to work.

 

Thanks. I used to live in Thornton many years ago. Last visited Denver in 2016. Unbelievable traffic.

 

Congrats on your new truck. Looks great

After someone posted this as a sb chime remedy, I got it and love it (I also like the no-tech solution):

 

Amazing how they foist things on the consumer that they don't want then a back yard business pops up to counter act it. Spend money buying something you don't want then spend more fixing it. This reminds me of when they started putting catalytic converters in cars and no one wanted to buy unleaded gas. So, someone made a short hard plastic tube. One end fit in the smaller restricted unleaded gas filler neck on the vehicle and the other end fit over the nozzle of a leaded gas pump. Simply slip in on to the nozzle and no problem putting leaded in your 1975+ car. They sold that for 50 cents. And I discovered it would fit in the filler neck of my 1976 Trans Am with the gas cap on. So I could store it there.

 

Just installed OEM 5" black oval steps and pre-painted body side molding. Weathertech oversize mud flaps should be here soon.

 

Excellent. I bought one of those pet-seat-belt things and use it when I drive low and slow.
I'm in Phoenix - if you have a spread down Tucson way and run up on critters ... Gila Monsters and the like,
I'd love to cruise your place with my Nikon and shoot some images... or clean-camp in my teardrop out there
and use it as a launch-point for other locations.

 

Congrats and how funny. I work like 1 mile from that dealership, and had my Tacomas serviced there for 15 years. When I was considering a Pro or TH last year, I was about to head to Tucson, cause Precision was being straight up while Avondale was playing games. How the tides turn!

 

I was going to buy a Tacoma a couple years ago and contacted Precision. The other Toyota dealership here is an absolute no go based upon prior experience and Yelp reviews. One thing I hate is when dealerships butcher brand new vehicles by splicing in totally unnecessary cheap aftermarket electronic devices just to try to make a huge additional profit. Other kinds of preloads (add-ons) are bad enough but one is acceptable, window tint which as you know is a requirement in the desert. So Since I live way outside of town I emailed them and asked about preloads. The advertise you only pay MSRP. Not quite true. You pay MSRP plus a few preloads which they refer to by another name and they pre-butcher the vehicles with the KARR security system. They are upfront about the preloads and display that info on their web site. But they keep the KARR alarm a secret until you hit the finance manager.
So I have been buying most of my vehicles from the Phoenix valley for decades since I can usually find a dealer with good ratings and who doesn't butcher the wiring or have too many preloads of whatever brand I'm looking for. At Avondale they didn't add anything period. Not even window tint. I noticed they had a tinter working there so I had them tint while I waited when I bought the truck. I like that you only deal with one person through the whole process. All in all a very good experience since I also paid below MSRP and unlike here where every dealership I've ever been to pays well below KBB for trade-ins, they gave me well above KBB for my trade in. So between the vehicle price, trade in and discounts, I figured I saved about $5k for the drive up there. I have noticed over the years that when you say you're from out of town dealerships tend to play fewer games because they know they only have one shot at you. My best experiences up there have been Avondale Toyota and Earnhardt Dodge who actually drove the car down to me when I bought online.

 

I did specifically notice on the way to work this week, that Avondale's lot was utterly full of Tacomas, so it's a buyers market for them. 6-7 months ago, the 2-3 they had on the lot were utter FrankenTrunks, and anything inbound was spoken for, and was subject to forced dealer options still. So happy to hear things are definitely getting normal, and you had a great experience!

 

It’s all done in an app. Plug the dongle in the obd, then change the settings in the app. Seatbelt chime is one of them.

 

The truck looks much better now. I installed the OEM 5" oval side steps, pre-painted OEM body side molding and Weathertech mud flaps.

 

Beautiful truck in beautiful weather! I am happy for you, it looks amazing in that red.