New England B.S. Thread

Thanks, it's an electrical problem right now, I think the motor shit the bed or there's a short somewhere

 

It's always something.

My wife's '07 Highlander was a couple hundred miles overdue for an oil change, so I made an appointment at a local shop that a couple of friends recommended. I used them about a year ago for the first time to repair the return line on her PS pump. MUCH cheaper than the dealer because they used an aftermarket repair kit instead of the complete assembly that Toyota requires. They also did an oil change at that time. They did a good job on both, so why not use them again?

The appointment was for this morning. Yesterday she said that the brakes were making a "funny" sound. Great. She never seems to tell me about this stuff until the last minute. When I dropped the car off this morning, I added "check brakes" to the list. I knew it needed something.

What it needed was pads and rotors all around and as a bonus the right front caliper was frozen. I just told them to go ahead because even though we're looking at replacing it with something newer, it still needs brakes. Brake work was about $900.00. I have little doubt that it was less than the dealer would want, but still not cheap. My guess is that the dealer would want more, because their labor rate is higher.

Not ideal. My fault because I should know to take her car out for a drive every few weeks just so I can catch problems before they become big problems.

Interesting thing, though. The guy at the counter asked if we'd got a trade in estimate from the dealer because they might want to make an offer to buy it. It has 140K miles on it and I've kept after the maintenance and it's in good mechanical and cosmetic shape for the age. When I picked it up this afternoon, the counter guy repeated what he said before. When I was leaving, the owner pulled in and signaled he wanted to talk. We talked for a few minutes and he too suggested that they wanted to talk about buying the car if we were interested. It's nice to have potential negotiating post when we do look to buy.

Which will be soon. My wife thinks she wants a RAV 4 instead of another Highlander. The current RAV 4 is pretty much the size of her Highlander and since we don't have to worry about hauling kids around, it's a good fit. She has a plan to go to a dealer we have no intention of buying from and doing a test drive. Once she's sure that's what she wants, we can go to the dealer we plan to buy from and start looking at off lease RAV 4s.

I expect that we'll have a new RAV 4 within a month or so.

I'll be at the dealer we've bought from for the last 23 years later this week for an oil change and if the weather doesn't suck I'll walk through the used car lot and see what they have. There is one that they have with less than 30K on it at what seems a decent price. Car Fax shows one accident, so I have to take hard look at that one. Since we don't trade in and drive our vehicles until they wheels fall off, it might work out for us. Of course I will use the crash to try to negotiate a better deal.

Yeah, it's always something.

 

It is a very strange place. Good food. No commutes. Otherwise, baaaaaaananas. It's fun though.

Air down air down air down. There are compressors after you come off the beach. If there's only a few cars there that thing kicks. If you have a bunch of people airing back up it's a normal rate.

But as said they keep the access map up to date online. Last year I kept an eye on it and it was almost 100% red all summer. Just wasn't worth it.

Couple years back it was red because a plane overshot the runway (nobody died, couple people injured from jumping out of the wreckage but "just" wrists and ankles, nothing life altering).

 

I took my '93 and my '13 out there. I had a lot of fun.

Make sure you're in 4WD. If you bring a well meaning but mechanically illiterate friend with you make sure he understands the rudimentary concept of locking manual hubs (*if applicable) before you head out at 9:30 at night or you will put your back bumper on the sand.

Otherwise, have fun! Go slow to get a feel for things and enjoy. You can get shots like this:
DSCN0305-edit by Mike M, on Flickr

 

Follow up to my previous post. Independent shop labor rate is about $40.00/hr less than dealer. I don't blame the dealers, I blame Toyota corporate for the building requirements they impose. That overhead is a killer and new car sales don't come close to covering it.

I was at a different dealer picking up a part for my Tacoma a few months ago. The waiting area had a huge fish tank in it.

I'll stop before I go into a rant. Suffice it say that the independent shop didn't even have a waiting area, let alone one with a fish tank.

 

Thanks for the tips, I definitely don’t want to get stuck with my girlfriend lol. I imagine in June there’s probably some other people around that may help if I do/I would help if they got stuck. The idea of going down to like 10-15 psi seems wildly low lol.
Definitely an awesome picture and something I hope to do as well

 

same here. Only maintenance or mods. Still on factory battery as well(2018), though, I don’t trust that it’ll survive past the first big winch load this year.......

I can swing by anything, or Saturday(will have stinker or bike). Just let me know.

On another note, she is going back to work fulltime(+) tomorrow(been YEARS)
Gonna be an adjustment.. Tues -Sat. Later start/end than I, etc. But, if this next position pans out, I’ll have a career shift, and will be able to be more flexible to accommodate this.

 

Oh, you won't get stuck. Unless you do something stupid.

I just worry more about if you'll even be able to get to the sand. That's a heck of a ride along the cape for "just" P town.

BUT if that happens. Truro vineyard is $$$ but good, we went YEARS ago before 'rona, and they weren't so bougie. We went after the 'rona sweep and they got bougie and $$$. But they're still pretty good, you can get some relatively normally priced bottles.

There's a bakery you'll pass called PB Boulangerie, it's GOOD. Stop there for sure. Parking is a disaster, and there might be a line, but it is absolutely worth it. The baguettes are top notch, like rivaling Parisian bakeries level good.

@mach1man001 I think you were the one I needed to let know about the french bakery? This is the one.

 

Haha yeah we are staying around wellfleet I think. I grew up going to mashpee every year so nowadays when I stay I go a bit further in. Well good to know about the chances of getting stuck. Define stupid…

Is that the Portuguese bakery? My girl wants to go to Martha’s Vineyard again too, no car though probably going to try to rent some e-bikes though.


If anyone is on the cape 6/10-15 let me know!

 

There was four of us, it was 10 PM and fog was rolling in. I got yanked out by a nice old guy in an F-150, I started to move forward and started to dig again and realized something was very wrong. I put a flashlight on my hub, spun it into lock and drove out onto the beach like I was on bare pavement.

I went as low as 11 psi on both trucks and had zero issue on the sand.

 

Air down to 15psi minimum for Tread Lightly requirements. On my 35s if I was going to play in the rocks I'd run 10psi up front and 8psi out back without beadlocks

 

Whatever happened to the tracked bike some of yall bought? Status?

 

Said delivered and wasn’t so I called the cc company and was credited back.

it was too good to be true

 

Last year was the first year in over 15 years that I didn’t get a beach sticker because it was closed so much. I’m still debating on this year. Might go this weekend depending on the weather.

 

Unless you go from a fuel sipper to a guzzler, minimally..so yeah I think we're saying the same thing just I worded it different.

As a teenager/college kid I used to change cars fairly often. In part because I couldn't afford much in the first place and auction buying limited my choices too. Ideally if I could drive the vehicle 6-12 months and get what my investment for purchase/repairs was back I basically got the use of that vehicle free. Perfect world I make a little profit and move up the ladder a tad

Funny you said that, I was getting parts the other day and saw a huge tank with some pretty tang fish (among other things). 20 years ago I know those fish could easily run $100 or more a fish.

 

If you had to go to the service department and wait for someone to come out from the back with the parts, it was the same place.

 

Yup, right near the Collection mall

 

Everyone should own a welder, the rate at which you can break stuff then fix it is amazing.

Broke part of the mower deck off then 20 min later I was back mowing.

Dont judge the welds, I didnt really prep anything...

 

Well y'all I've got a howl now lol. Needle bearing was done around 60k miles ago with bushing and doesn't go away in 4wd. Becomes pretty audible around 35 mph. I'm sure its doing it on highway but with wind noise tough to hear. Very much audible on decel around 40mph. Thoughts? Have not jacked it up yet to shake the wheel but noise also doesn't change while turning and moving load side to side. Bushing went bad? New CV gone bad already?

 

Cv gone bad is usually a clicking noise. Could be a bad wheel bearing