For now I just need something that works ... which is more than I have now.
Lucky me ... broke down in a parking garage in New York City. Waited more than an hour for the tow truck to arrive, and when it did, we found out that AAA didn't tell them about the garage, and they had sent a flatbed. The driver didn't give up though; he put my van on the loader and towed it out, navigating some very tough turns and ramps. Then once we got outside, he went to put it up on the flatbed, and the winch cable broke. So we went all the way home towing it on the loader.
I have to replace the starter. It looks easy enough, and I started disassembling to get to it at lunchtime today. I have deep sockets, and I have metric sockets, but I don't have deep metric sockets ... off to the tool store.
I didn't ask for this project but I'm notoriously frugal so I'm going to attempt this one myself.
[photo]
I'm now cold and damp and dirty and my hands are all banged up, but after a lot of struggling with stuck bolts I got the starter removed. I hope installing the new one is easier than removing the old one.
I'm now cold and damp and dirty and my hands are all banged up, but
But what does that have to do with removing the starter?
Now I just have to put the battery compartment back together ... and find the tool I dropped :(
It turns out they make aftermarket bluetooth kits that plug into a port that was originally intended to add a CD changer. How incredibly clever! I bought him one for Christmas and we installed it yesterday. I love this! Back in 2002 there weren't really a lot of people using bluetooth for audio, and even if they were it didn't sound very good. Now we've got Bluetooth 4.0 with the aptX codec on a 16 year old car.
The reason I love this so much is because it's just such a clever hack. It works well, it sounds great, and they even send the CD "next/previous track" button pushes back to the paired device. The only visible evidence that it's been modded is the little microphone poking out of the dash.
Oh, and I also have an OBD-II reader now. The same Camry is throwing a "P1135: Air-Fuel Sensor Heater Circuit Response Malfunction" code that immediately returns if I clear it. I have to figure out whether this is something I can fix by replacing a part myself.
As Ragnar once told me ... "you get a new car when you run out of money."
Rather than dealing with a trade-in, I'm going to donate it and take a tax write-off. And then we're going to go for a month or two with one fewer vehicle in the household, which I can get away with since I work from home most of the time.
Sometime this spring I want to buy a truck. I want to go full redneck because rednecks are simply better people than intellectuals.
It will also be my primary vehicle for driving around. I'm avoiding the term "daily driver" because I currently don't have a daily commute. Obviously that could change, even though I'm not expecting it to, but I plan to keep this truck for a long time.
I know people who drive the Ford, Chevy, and Dodge full-size pickups, and they are all fiercely loyal in recommending them. I feel like I ought to go with one of the big three. On the other hand, auto magazines describe my exact situation when they talk about who should buy a mid-size pickup.
I like the look, the size, and the price of the Tacoma, but everyone says it has a terrible ride.
I refuse to pay the "drive it off the lot tax" and am shopping for something in the just-off-lease range of price/age/mileage. And without a daily commute, I have the luxury of being able to take my time.
The F150 mainly comes with a twin-turbo six. It felt pretty good, but certain situations it felt underpowered. I also thought that some of the interior trim was cheap.
The Sierra / Silverado - the most powerful of the bunch. Had a quality fit and feel. Was the most expensive of the three. If it were a real work truck I'd probably go this route.
The Ram had a much nicer interior than the Ford. With the 8 speed transmission it has low end grunt, while still cruising nicely on the highway.
The newest Ram's have been getting high praise, but you said you're looking for an off-lease. I have to say though, you may want to look at leasing one yourself. They've got amazing lease deals. And it doesn't sound like you're going to beat it. May even be able to get a 10,000 mile lease, which is even cheaper.
You could look into the Ford Ranger or Chevy/GMC Colorado/Canyon, both are compared with the Toyota Tacoma usually. Dodge/RAM doesn't have a midsize truck at this time in the US.
Though I am not sure the price savings is there for the Midsize trucks. From what I looked into the average price wasn't that far off from the full size trucks, but the upper end was WAY lower on the midsize versus the full size.
I drove a Colorado for a week in Texas.
Unless you are worried about parking or gass mileage, I'd just get the larger truck.
F-150 from 2015 onward is about 800 pounds lighter than the older models, since they changed some of the body to aluminum. That gave it about a 4 MPG improvement.