Goodbye silver car

[billvon 2,384]

We donated our 2005 Prius to a local charity today. After 150,000 miles on it it was still running well, and getting us about 45 mpg, but was getting so old in other ways (leaks, rats finding ways into the car, headlight covers almost opaque, suspension shot) that it was time to move on.

I bought this car around the time I got married, and it was shortly after I moved closer to work (5 miles.) At that distance I usually biked, so I thought that the car wouldn't get much mileage on it. That was before I joined a 4-way team at Perris, then started teaching AFF - and found myself driving up there every single weekend for several years. That was, at times, 300 miles a weekend, every weekend. It added up fast.

When I first got the car I spent the usual time fretting over keeping it clean, not denting it etc. That lasted about 3 years. After that it started collecting dings and dents. Since it had a big hatch it was used for Home Depot runs, especially after we bought our current house and started fixing up the old house to rent out. That aged it pretty fast.

To make it a better hauler I put a roof rack and a trailer hitch on it; the trailer hitch was useful to mount bike and cargo carriers to, and more than once it hauled a barbeque grill to a local park/beach for a party. The roof rack has carried over 200 pounds of construction materials without complaint, although the car's roof took a bit of a beating.

More than any other car I've owned it was a skydiving car first and foremost. It was at Perris most weekends, and its big cargo area carried, at times, a dozen rigs for Amy's rigging business. It carried Amy and I (and sometimes Lara and Molly) up to skydive. It went on skydiving vacations and road trips and has been to Eloy at least a dozen times. It even made it up to Burning Sky one year.

After our first kid came it became the kid hauler for a bit, which was nice because we really didn't care much whether the kids dropped raisins on the floor. For some reason it was a favorite with both of them, even when we had a nicer car (the Leaf) to use. "Take silver car!" was Harry's common request before we'd go somewhere.

I also added a tap off the traction battery so I could use the car as a generator. The ~200 volts from the battery went to an inverter that could give us 4000 watts for blackouts. This was used for beach parties far more often than for blackouts, this being Southern California.

And now it's gone from our driveway. It almost went a friend's 17 year old son, on the theory that if you're going to trash a car learning how to drive, this was a good one to do it with. The charity we ended up donating it to typically refurbishes them and resells them, so it may have a bit of life left in it yet - and we might see it one day tooling around the streets of San Diego or Tijuana. I hope so, at least.

[BillyVance 34]

Nice job. I can't see myself using a Prius in that manner, only for commuting though...

My 2001 Toyota Tundra is still going strong. Passed 274K miles last week, and it is beat the fuck up. I can tell you how each dent happened and where. The truck bed door latch broke a few years ago and I never got around to having the hardware replaced, so I just unscrewed the metal panel on the inside of the door and manually pulled the latch wires toward the center to unlatch the door. Pain in the ass but you get used to it.

My goal is to hit 300K on it. I bought it new with 6 miles on the odometer. As my mechanic likes to say, you can't beat a Toyota when it comes to motors. They take a beating and keep on going.

There was an article earlier this summer about a guy who ran his 2005 Tundra up to 1,000,000 miles, all original parts in the motor and transmission. He took it to the dealer, they got him a brand new Tundra and took the old one to shake it down in Research and Development to see how all the parts looked after all those miles.

"Mediocre people don't like high achievers, and high achievers don't like mediocre people." - SIX TIME National Champion coach Nick Saban

[akarunway 1]

Who cares.

I hold it true, whate'er befall;
I feel it, when I sorrow most;
'Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all.

[billvon 2,384]

>Who cares.

Well, you. Other than that, not too many people.

[wmw999 2,116]

So -- what's the next car? Ford Expedition?

Wendy P.

There is nothing more dangerous than breaking a basic safety rule and getting away with it. It removes fear of the consequences and builds false confidence. (tbrown)

[jumpsalot-2 2]

billvon

We donated our 2005 Prius to a local charity today. After 150,000 miles on it it was still running well, and getting us about 45 mpg, but was getting so old in other ways (leaks, rats finding ways into the car, headlight covers almost opaque, suspension shot) that it was time to move on.

I bought this car around the time I got married, and it was shortly after I moved closer to work (5 miles.) At that distance I usually biked, so I thought that the car wouldn't get much mileage on it. That was before I joined a 4-way team at Perris, then started teaching AFF - and found myself driving up there every single weekend for several years. That was, at times, 300 miles a weekend, every weekend. It added up fast.

When I first got the car I spent the usual time fretting over keeping it clean, not denting it etc. That lasted about 3 years. After that it started collecting dings and dents. Since it had a big hatch it was used for Home Depot runs, especially after we bought our current house and started fixing up the old house to rent out. That aged it pretty fast.

To make it a better hauler I put a roof rack and a trailer hitch on it; the trailer hitch was useful to mount bike and cargo carriers to, and more than once it hauled a barbeque grill to a local park/beach for a party. The roof rack has carried over 200 pounds of construction materials without complaint, although the car's roof took a bit of a beating.

More than any other car I've owned it was a skydiving car first and foremost. It was at Perris most weekends, and its big cargo area carried, at times, a dozen rigs for Amy's rigging business. It carried Amy and I (and sometimes Lara and Molly) up to skydive. It went on skydiving vacations and road trips and has been to Eloy at least a dozen times. It even made it up to Burning Sky one year.

After our first kid came it became the kid hauler for a bit, which was nice because we really didn't care much whether the kids dropped raisins on the floor. For some reason it was a favorite with both of them, even when we had a nicer car (the Leaf) to use. "Take silver car!" was Harry's common request before we'd go somewhere.

I also added a tap off the traction battery so I could use the car as a generator. The ~200 volts from the battery went to an inverter that could give us 4000 watts for blackouts. This was used for beach parties far more often than for blackouts, this being Southern California.

And now it's gone from our driveway. It almost went a friend's 17 year old son, on the theory that if you're going to trash a car learning how to drive, this was a good one to do it with. The charity we ended up donating it to typically refurbishes them and resells them, so it may have a bit of life left in it yet - and we might see it one day tooling around the streets of San Diego or Tijuana. I hope so, at least.

All of that and NO PICTURE ...... Where is the love ? I must see this family member.

Life is short ... jump often.

[mx757 4]

Toyota : = The One You Ought To Avoid.

[billvon 2,384]

>So -- what's the next car? Ford Expedition?

That or a Hummer.

[flyhi 24]

Quote

That or a Hummer.

Why not get a classic?

Shit happens. And it usually happens because of physics.

[BillyVance 34]

akarunway

Who cares.

You cared enough to post here.

"Mediocre people don't like high achievers, and high achievers don't like mediocre people." - SIX TIME National Champion coach Nick Saban

[BillyVance 34]

wmw999

So -- what's the next car? Ford Expedition?

Wendy P.

Nah... a Hummer2!

"Mediocre people don't like high achievers, and high achievers don't like mediocre people." - SIX TIME National Champion coach Nick Saban

[BillyVance 34]

flyhi

Quote

That or a Hummer.

Why not get a classic?

That reminds me. I'm in the mood to watch National Lampoon's Vacation.

"Mediocre people don't like high achievers, and high achievers don't like mediocre people." - SIX TIME National Champion coach Nick Saban

[BillyVance 34]

mx757

Toyota : = The One You Ought To Avoid.

Dude, don't knock them. Mine's lasted much longer than any other vehicle I've ever had, and I drive the shit out of it.

"Mediocre people don't like high achievers, and high achievers don't like mediocre people." - SIX TIME National Champion coach Nick Saban

[muff528 3]

BillyVance

***

Toyota : = The One You Ought To Avoid.

Dude, don't knock them. Mine's lasted much longer than any other vehicle I've ever had, and I drive the shit out of it.



Careful now! I have an Outback that's rolling up on 286000 miles. But just when I started bragging about what a great car it is, one of the dash lights went out.

[billvon 2,384]

That reminds me of another car!

When I first met Amy (now my wife) I wanted to spend some time with her, so I took two months off from work, bought a used minivan and drove off across the country. We hit San Francisco, Yosemite, Portland, Bend, Idaho, Lost Prairie, Quincy, Boston, New York, and Colorado before he came back. It was an awesome trip. We jumped, climbed, paraglided and swam all over the US.

The vehicle for all this was a secondhand Previa (see below.) It was a great car for this - with seats removed it fit a reasonably sized bed in the back, and had enough storage for all our crap. We added a tail hitch rack for bikes, and put solar on the top so we wouldn't have to plug in. (It ran a little 12V cooler to keep orange juice, milk and beer cold.) When I got back to San Diego rents had gone up by over 50% and I couldn't justify paying that much for a place, so I lived in the van for about six months. Finally the cops started hassling me so I got an apartment, and a little while later I donated the van to an orphanage in Tijuana.

There were a lot of odd things about that van. The front wheels were under the driver; I wondered what a front-end crash would be like. It was a mid-engine; the engine was under the front seats. When I asked the used car salesman where the engine was he couldn't find it; he kept saying it was under the hood, but all that I could see under the hood was a radiator, the fan and all the fill spouts for various fluids. Oil changes were . . .fun. But it was reliable and we put about 60,000 miles on it before we finally gave it away.

Then a few months ago I saw the new Vacation movie. They had a ridiculous car in it - the "Tartan Prancer." It looked familiar somehow, though, so I looked it up online. Yep, under all that fake trim is an old Previa.

[BillyVance 34]

muff528

******

Toyota : = The One You Ought To Avoid.

Dude, don't knock them. Mine's lasted much longer than any other vehicle I've ever had, and I drive the shit out of it.



Careful now! I have an Outback that's rolling up on 286000 miles. But just when I started bragging about what a great car it is, one of the dash lights went out.

Hey, at least it was just a dash light.

I had a 1993 Ford Mustang hatchback through the mid 90's. Took it off a neighbor of my ex girlfriend when the man of the family died, and it only had 10K miles on it. I drove it up to 90K miles and sold it to my roommate who needed a car bad. His wife, who was in college at the time, used it to commute back and forth about 100 miles each way. She ran that car all the way up to 297K miles and just when she told her husband how close she was to 300K, the engine gave out.

"Mediocre people don't like high achievers, and high achievers don't like mediocre people." - SIX TIME National Champion coach Nick Saban

[ryoder 1,381]

I was speaking to a happy Prius owner a couple weeks ago.
She had ~250,000 miles on it.
I don't recall what year it was.

"There are only three things of value: younger women, faster airplanes, and bigger crocodiles" - Arthur Jones.

[headoverheels 291]

ryoder

I was speaking to a happy Prius owner a couple weeks ago.
She had ~250,000 miles on it.
I don't recall what year it was.

I had a taxi driver with about 230k on his Prius. Original hybrid battery was still good.

[oldwomanc6 38]

headoverheels

***I was speaking to a happy Prius owner a couple weeks ago.
She had ~250,000 miles on it.
I don't recall what year it was.

I had a taxi driver with about 230k on his Prius. Original hybrid battery was still good.

I've got 230,000 on my '05 Vette. Some brands are just meant to be driven, and I'm one to keep my cars a long time.

lisa
WSCR 594
FB 1023
CBDB 9

[billvon 2,384]

>I had a taxi driver with about 230k on his Prius. Original hybrid battery was still good.

Down here at the airport more than 50% of the taxis are Priuses. And about 25% of the Uber drivers have them.

[ryoder 1,381]

billvon

Then a few months ago I saw the new Vacation movie. They had a ridiculous car in it - the "Tartan Prancer." It looked familiar somehow, though, so I looked it up online. Yep, under all that fake trim is an old Previa.

Just watch the commercial video at the top of the page: http://www.autoblog.com/2015/07/25/tartan-prancer-21st-century-wagon-queen-family-truckste/

"There are only three things of value: younger women, faster airplanes, and bigger crocodiles" - Arthur Jones.

[BillyVance 34]

Hilarious!

"Mediocre people don't like high achievers, and high achievers don't like mediocre people." - SIX TIME National Champion coach Nick Saban

[skymama 35]

Quote

So -- what's the next car? Ford Expedition?

I can totally see him in a minivan.

She is Da Man, and you better not mess with Da Man,
because she will lay some keepdown on you faster than, well, really fast. ~Billvon

[Bob_Church 7]

Speaking of Subarus, we have two, one red and one green so it's always Christmas in our garage. When I moved to Athens Ohio in 1975 there was an auto shop named Subtle Bug. It was a couple of young hippies and they only worked on VWs. It's still here but now it's one old hippy and he only works on Subarus. But it's still named The Subtle Bug.

[muff528 3]

He and the Maytag repairman should hang out together. Take up golf or something.