New England B.S. Thread

My wife has 36k miles on her Rav and the tires are down there. They would be marginally OK for now but not with winter coming up. She has Toyo open country A38. Never liked them. So looking for all season more aggressive tread Rav 4 tire recommendations. Thank you.

 

I have some Michelin tires on rav4 wheels if you want to buy them

 

Thank you for the offer, I'm just not a fan of Michelins.

 

General AltiMAX RT45 are good. I got a set for my mother and they lasted quite a while

 

No worries

 

It looks like a birthday cake

 

+1! Love the look after 2 winters...

 

Any other UMASS Amherst folks here ?

 

Do any of you own or have driven a Telluride or Palisades? If so how do you like it? My wife needs a new SUV later this year and they seem like one of the better deals out there. Cheaper than a Highlander and way cheaper than a 4Runner or Landcruiser. I don’t think I can justify the Toyota tax anymore.

 

UMass Amherst undergrad 2009-2012
Tested the college waters out at UMass Dartmouth 2008-2009.

I wasn’t exactly a strong student in my younger years so I would say the freshman year was a real test to see where I would land on the spectrum of students.

 

It will end up burning oil is about all I know from my family that works at a dealership. Right now my three picks for my wife would be Mazda CX 90, Ford explorer, and Toyota crown signia.

 

The oil burning with a lot of new engines is annoying. Are we reverting back to the time when you topped off your oil while pumping gas? I like the Explorer but am not a huge Ford fan from past experience. We’ll have to check out the Mazdas. The new Passport is on the test drive list too.

 

I was in the exact same situation as you.
I just purchased cooper discoverer enduromax tires for my wife's CRV. I wanted something more aggressive with good siping for winter. They are slightly louder than the Goodyears they replaced. The Goodyears had no siping and still had ~20% usable tread (not legal tread depth). They were dangerous in the winter and even struggled for grip/handling in the wet. These coopers were only $180/tire and were rated very well as a more aggressive CUV tire. They are are 3 peak m/s rated as well. I did see about 1mpg drop all around.

 

+1 on the CX90. I really enjoyed driving it for the couple weeks I had it

Earlier this year I had a Hyundai Tucson rental for a couple weeks. Nothing exciting, but was comfortable and decent on power. TPMS kept telling me a tire was low despite also telling me all 4 tires had the same PSI.

 

We got my wife a CX90 PHEV after two CX-5s. Like it a lot, and I drive a whole assortment of things both less and much more expensive.

 

Anybody purchase a new grill recently l. I need a 3 or 4 burner one. My weber is 11 years old and has seen better days.

Side note, wife's car finally passed inspection. Went and was told parking brake wasn't holding. Got adjusted, went to a different place and was told there were 3 not ready systems. Drove it a couple days and it passed. Nobody disconnected the battery or reset anything. It was weird. But looks like I get another year not having to purchase her a car lol

 

Oof, I was going to recommend open office or whatever it's called.
Excel has tables (I think Google Sheets does now too) and better pivot tables and charts. If I had no option I would use that but I prefer excel too. Word processing it does fine or I use LaTeX, though.

USB C docking station? This is what I use when I work from home.

$40 Anker Laptop Docking Station Dual Monitor, 8-in-1 USB C Hub, 4K Dual Monitor with 2 HDMI, 1 Gbps Ethernet Hub, 85W Power Delivery, SD Card Reader for MacBook Pro, XPS and More

https://www.amazon.com/Anker-PowerExpand-Adapter-Delivery-Ethernet/dp/B0874M3KW4

I forget which one I have it's not that one specifically but they're all kind of the same I think.

They've done a lot of work on their interior and body, but ignored the engine and drivetrain issues. It's lipstick on a pig. It's a nice pig, but still a pig. If you neglect undercoating/cleaning in New England they'll last the same as Toyota/Honda and disintegrate before the engines matter, but if you take care of your stuff, they'll be an issue.

Can I recommend....another Weber?

I love them because of how popular they are, you can rebuild the whole shebang easily.
Yours might be rebuildable for as cheap as a new walmart chinesium special and will be better off.
I have a 2 burner front and back and don't love it, I prefer side to side instead, but hey, roadside find beggars can't be choosers.







Just back from the NMW trip. Went to Canada. Went to the woods to check out more campsites and boot around the woods. Swam in waterfalls. Roasted our balls off in 90 degrees in northern maine.

Would do again.

 

Last year we went with a Blackstone Griddle instead of a grill. We find it to be a game changer for cooking. It offers much more versatility than a grill and you can use it for so many more things. We bought the four burner with the nice, big surface area. You can cook an entire meal on it at one time and it cooks so much more evenly than a grill. I was forever moving food around on a grill to either avoid or find the hot spots. That is not an issue now. I used it this past Saturday to cook pancakes. I was able to cook all the pancakes I needed at once so all 5 people eating had hot food without having to wait. I had wanted to place it in the basement over the winter but never was able to create enough room to move it so it stayed out all winter. This spring when I uncovered it, it still looked brand new, including the flame rails. We also bought a small portable one to take with us when we go to softball tournaments.

 

We have a Blackstone as well. Use it for plenty of meals

 

I’ve had a CharBroil Commercial grill for a while now. Probably 8-10 years. I got it because it was 100% stainless steel. It’s still in great shape and should last a really long time unlike my previous grills that the frames all rusted out.