General vehicle thread

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Originally Posted by fitz19d

I'd maybe get them to move this to the general information section, will stay on front page a lot longer rather than disappear 5 pages back without a bump in a couple days.

Might be a pipe dream after I saw how bad house prices even out east in severance/eaton were. (trying to find something in the sticks around fort collins but needs to have paved road at least once off property)
But one of my priorities is a true 3 car. (Been seeing some of these 2 cars being advertised as 3 wtf), or ideally just get my first garage structure so I have room to actually do some work on my vehicles in a covered area and store all the bikes. Wife will hate a house downsize but don't need a massive house for 2 people + dogs.

I'm sure way out of my price range, but one of the members here near brighton was a very cool housing area where they had attached garages that were like 1.5 stories high, what I'd call a 2.5 car garage width, but massively long front to back.

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Look at the side x side connex containers used for garages.

Vehicles are PIA.

We went the storage container/conex route for increased storage and shop space.

1 for shed/yard/garden tools
1 for toys and general storage
1 for machine shop/metal fab and reloading/gun shop.

Mrs bo has expressed desire for one more to store tractor and old pickup which I doubt I will live long enough to restore.

Did not make Thanksgiving deadline for completion of project so not sure when I will finally have my wood shop back to wood shop and reloading equipment set up.

I've got an itch for a new vehicle, but honestly I don't want all the bells and whistles the new vehicles come with. SO, with that said, when it comes to my next "new" vehicle, it will be a used vehicle, once again. I've only ever bought one brand new vehicle, and that was my 86 Ford Ranger.

All the new features are making too many people rely on "tech" instead of their ability to pay attention. Too many distractions inside the vehicles, as far as I'm concerned. Heck, just the other day I was walking through a parking lot headed to my vehicle, when a lady started backing out of her parking spot. She not once looked around outside of her vehicle, her eyes were glued to the dash on the back up screen I suspect. Talk about not being aware of surroundings, or unaware as it were. I wonder how many mirrors on new vehicles get knocked off from people backing out of their garages and not paying attention to anything other than the back up screen on the dash?

New Avalanche pickup at work flashes "possible ice on road" every time the temp gets to 33 degrees. Really!!! Last I checked to have ice on the road there needed to be moisture of some sort. Stupid. Wonder how many drivers pay attention to that. And don't get me started about the tire pressure warning. Couple of our work trucks constantly telling us to "relearn tire position", or some crap. Tell me I have a low tire only if and when it's critical, not when it's 1 psi low of recommended. Cold day, low tire pressure, next day is a warmer day and no low tire warning.

I guess it's progress, but I am having a hard time accepting all the tech crap.

One issue is while we would love a tiny bit of land enough to shoot on and have the garage. A lot of options either leave way too much gravel road to get to pavement. (motorcycles), or ideally I think we'd like to avoid being more than an hour away from town as that's our current commute. Fortunately if she is able to xfer both of us would just have to only get to edge of town on prospect/mulberry, hence looking north or east. Kinda concerned weather will be so bad that it is a mistake vs just dealing with the traffic coming up from Frederick.

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Originally Posted by TRnCO

I've got an itch for a new vehicle, but honestly I don't want all the bells and whistles the new vehicles come with. SO, with that said, when it comes to my next "new" vehicle, it will be a used vehicle, once again. I've only ever bought one brand new vehicle, and that was my 86 Ford Ranger.

All the new features are making too many people rely on "tech" instead of their ability to pay attention. Too many distractions inside the vehicles, as far as I'm concerned. Heck, just the other day I was walking through a parking lot headed to my vehicle, when a lady started backing out of her parking spot. She not once looked around outside of her vehicle, her eyes were glued to the dash on the back up screen I suspect. Talk about not being aware of surroundings, or unaware as it were. I wonder how many mirrors on new vehicles get knocked off from people backing out of their garages and not paying attention to anything other than the back up screen on the dash?

New Avalanche pickup at work flashes "possible ice on road" every time the temp gets to 33 degrees. Really!!! Last I checked to have ice on the road there needed to be moisture of some sort. Stupid. Wonder how many drivers pay attention to that. And don't get me started about the tire pressure warning. Couple of our work trucks constantly telling us to "relearn tire position", or some crap. Tell me I have a low tire only if and when it's critical, not when it's 1 psi low of recommended. Cold day, low tire pressure, next day is a warmer day and no low tire warning.

I guess it's progress, but I am having a hard time accepting all the tech crap.

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I love the tech on my new H2 motorcycle, but that's my complaint, from like 37 downwards it starts flashing ICE at me. I can clear it but then it will show back up a few minutes later and covers some of my dash info....

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Originally Posted by Irving

This is a thread dedicated to general vehicle related things. There were some interesting articles in the electric vehicle thread, no need to restrict the subject.

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What, nothing about ladder mounts? [LOL]

After considering a new(er) tow vehicle I have now decided to "double down" on my old (2004) Suburban. It "only" has 180,000 miles on it now and I seem to put between 11,000 - 14,000 miles a year. My plan is to keep it 3 more years until I turn 60 and start drawing my military retirement.

We camp a LOT during the Summer (often every other weekend and sometimes we'll go 2 or 3 weekends in a row) so getting a new vehicle in the middle of Summer isn't an option. Our camping season starts in April and usually doesn't end until October or November (last year our final trip was over Thanksgiving week.)

The cost of new vehicles is high but what really gets me are the tax and registration fees. Over $2500 in taxes & registration fees on a typical vehicle purchase seems to be the norm and that's just hard to swallow. Hell, the only major failure I've had in 3 years of owning the Suburban is the transmission and that was $2k to fix, good as new. Other problems (brakes mostly, from pulling heavy trailers up and down the mountain passes) have been <$1k to fix. Less than taxes and WAAAY less than having a car payment.

For me, a "new" vehicle would be one built this century. I'm semiactively looking for a Nissan Xterra to replace the wife's 195K mile 95 Rodeo, but having a hard time finding one with a manual transmission that the seller doesn't think is gold plated. Also semi-looking for a extended cab long bed pickup to replace my 89 F250. I'd love to have a manual in that as well, but they're rarer than unicorn poop.

On the other hand, I just got done repairing(NOT replacing) the heater blower motor in the 2008 Smart. Known issue, but Mercedes vehemently denies there's a problem, and refuses to do anything.

Today I'm finishing up the repairs to my truck after it lost several lug nuts then 8 studs then portions of the right rear rim, then the rim and tire. In that order. At 60mph. Up hill. Towing a 14k lbs trailer. In the middle of eastern oregon.

For my next trick I'll be repairing a trailer that ran over a tire mounted to a small portion of a rim. At 60 mph

My vehicle is not suitable for what I do.
Although I love what I drive, I might need to get something little more practical for my next vehicle.

Most likely used Santa fe size or similar size cheap and low maintenance would be priority.