Moving to Dallas next month - Advice? Mechanic?
 

My wife and I have been wanting to get out of Bakersfield CA for years now and have finally decided to finally pull the trigger since my company is allowing me to working remotely on a permanent basis. My wife already has her sister living out in the Dallas area and my brother is also thinking of relocating there from Indianapolis.

Our house here is currently in escrow as of yesterday so hopefully we will be wrapping up the sale in about 30-40 days. The new owners have actually purchased all our furniture as well so we literally have one mattress (too expensive to sell) and a a computer desk for my work in terms of furniture to haul. Thinking of just shipping my wife's car and renting a smaller Uhaul trailer to haul behind the 4Runner. Other option is to ship both cars and just have a POD container dropped off and shipped.

Will be flying out to Dallas tomorrow for a family event so hoping to take that time to look for a nice rental house or townhouse/condo for rent.

- Any recommended areas to live or areas to avoid? Wife's sister lives in Southlake Tx so trying to get a place within 30 mins or so of that. Wife will also be working remotely so we don't have any work commute requirements.

- Will also be looking for a good reliable mechanic if anyone knows of one in the Dallas Fort Worth area that can be trusted to work on my precious 4Runner.

Do not live in Dallas County. City of Dallas has defunded police and crime is up.

Southlake is a great place to live. Collin County isn’t bad either. West Tarrant County is fine too.

Pat Lobb Toyota of McKinney is where I take my 4R to and haven’t had issues there.

Remember when you get here to take the red pill.

Just left Dallas late last year after living there for 9 years.

I wouldn't live in the Dallas city proper, but the metroplex has a lot of good areas that are fairly close to everything, but be prepared to have to take tolls if you wanna get anywhere in a reasonable amount of time. Sprawl is real there. SRT (121) is a toll for the most part (north of Coppell) and 635 had an awesome underground tollway section, but it's expensive, although a huge time saver when trying to get in/out of Dallas pretty much any time save for late night. Because the toll section of 635 is underground (mostly), people are flying through there - if you're not doing 90, you will get passed in the left lane. There are no areas for cops to sit in that section, thus the hoonery. When I was commuting to Dallas from Coppell on my motorcycle I was very guilty of undisclosed speeds there :)

Places that are good and are close to Southlake:

Coppell - where I used to live. Awesome HS if that's a consideration for you. There's a mix of super wealthy areas and average apartments, but in now way that detracts from it. Overall a very centralized area with easy access to 635, 35, SRT. Those 3 will get you anywhere you want pretty fast. The ONLY downside to Coppell is the cross-traffic -- the people using Dentop Tap road to cut from SRT down to 635. This has created a traffic issue in Coppell, which has been somewhat addressed by widening Denton Tap in some places (widening turning lanes especially), which is better but not great. You WILL pay the 'nice school' tax here because a lot of folks want to live there due to the school, and so home prices reflect that, along with its centric location.

Grapevine - pretty much in the middle of Coppell and Southlake, nice town. Good areas and great access to Grapevine Lake from the south. Grapevine Lake gets pretty busy, especially with increasing populating in the last 10 years, but it's still an awesome place to walk/hike/bike trails or boat/swim.

Flower Mound - very nice area, expensive. About as expensive as Southlake, more expensive than Coppell and Grapevine for the most part. It's on the northern side of Grapevine Lake, which I consider the 'better' side due to less crowding and more quiet trails that are accessible from the backyard, depending where you live.

Roanoke/Trophy Club and Westlake are an option. I used to date someone from Roanoke and it's a pretty nice, quiet suburbia. Kind of a haul if you want to go to Dallas, though.

Keller is kinda similar to Roanoke I think but I don't have much knowledge on that.


There aren't necessarily areas to avoid here on the north side of Dallas, but you will see a difference in infrastructure maintenance level, lower median income levels, etc. in the following, although there are 'good' pockets in each:

Bedford, Euless, Irving, Lewisville, Carrolton are such examples; more blue-collar. The exception to Irving is the Las Colinas area - very nice locale. I'd recommend it, but that's getting more south of the airport.


One thing to keep in mind is that areas near the airport are often in the flight path of the aircraft. Living in Coppell, I was right to the south of the Coppell Highschool -- literally the back alley ran along the school grounds fence. I could hear planes overhead frequently through the day, but I didn't find it an issue, though some might. If looking at a place, hang out there for an hour or so if you can, and you'll have an idea whether it's an issue or not.


Outliers - Plano, McKinney. They are further along SRT, but within easy drive to Southlake. Both towns have great schools and have been booming. No idea how that reflects on home prices, but neither will be cheap, for sure. Also Denton - farther north and I35 is a bastard. No way around it, but, there are upsides. It's quieter, nice homes, great areas. Had a good friend living there and I really enjoyed it. It's close to Lewisville lake, which is a plus if that's your thing. There are great pockets of woods there with trails made by the locals, that aren't known to most people around. Those were my favorite spots for a quick day hike with the dog.

See my other post about areas to live, but I wanted to add specifically in regards to a mechanic. There are a few shops that are well-known:

- Smith Offroad in Carrolton. They did my King setup and I was happy with the work. It's a small operation with the owner doing most the work and his wife mainly manning the desk. Knowledgeable guy, though not always the most personable -- busy, I'm sure. He's big into Jeeps and buggies but does everything, including many Toyotas. He's also certified to rebuild Kings and Icons, if that matters. This can be hard to find.

- BAERTRAX has been well-recommended but I never went there. No personal experience.

- Gary's alignment in Las Colinas is the only shop I would go to for alignment. They will do custom settings and they will do it right -- no "set the toe and let her go" here. They did a great job after my lift and a few subsequent changes. Small shop but they have good, new equipment and look like owner has invested into quality.

If you need a barber look up Frisco barber shop
Good friends of mine
More classic cuts and one of the owners is a former marine so that probably tells you what kind of cuts they do
Majority of the time it's by appointment only since they're pretty busy

Frisco and Prosper are great communities with terrific schools but may be 40 minutes from South Lake. Determine what’s important to you and find a good realtor to guide the decision. Homes are selling fast so be prepared when you find the one you want.

Welcome To Texas

Thanks everyone. Just got back from the Dallas Trip and pretty much looked at most of the surrounding suburbs.

Put in offers on two small homes. One near Frisco and one in north Fort Worth near Keller. Fingers crossed we get one at least. Real estate market is so crazy even in Texas. I would find a house in the morning and schedule a showing and it would be under contract by the time we would get to the showing.

Congrats on finding a couple homes to bid on and pray one of them works out for y’all. As I said previously, “Welcome to Texas”

H4L

If you land in the N. Fort Worth area there's a good shop for mechanical, alignment., etc. in Euless. It's called TLS Auto Specialist. TLS stands for Toyota-Lexus-Scion. It will be about 30 minutes away. Fred, the owner, has a quality shop and does excellent work. For off road I use Baertrax in Dallas. Mike will fix you up with whatever you need.

If you end up buying near Grapevine then u can't go wrong using Concourse Automotive in Grapevine. They did alot of work on my Tacoma when I lived nearby and I was always very satisfied.

Top 5 Shops in Dallas for 4Runners and Toyotas that won't rip you off.

No Particular Order

1. The Tread Depot - Mansfield, TX - Oscar Flores
2. Overland Bound Sales - Roanoke, TX - Randy Grubbs
3. Overland Expedition Outfitters - Denton, TX - Jake Abbot
4. Family Toyota - Arlington, TX - TJ Hamilton for Service. Richard Bui for Sales.
5. Toyota of Dallas - Dallas, TX - Reggie Marquez for Service.

BaerTrax is not a Toyota Specific shop. They have some poor reviews among the local Toyota 4Runner community. The 5 Vendors I have recommended here have multiple glowing reviews from real customers in the local FB Groups.

UPDATE: So back in July, we had placed bids on two homes of which we got NONE cause of the crazy market.

Well our offer on another house in North Fort Worth (near 35W x 287) just got accepted and we are due to close on the property end of September with move in around mid October (letting current owners stay extra two weeks till their home is ready).

Super stoked for this move and looking forward to having a 3 car garage :)

Question: I will have to register my 4runner in Texas within 30 days of getting there. However I want to also get vanity plates there too. Can I order the vanity plates ahead of time so they are ready by the time I need to register it or just do it later on?

Vanity Plates takes about 30 days to come in usually. I ordered mine on June 12, and they arrived July 10. You will have to go to your local tax office. If you are coming from out of state, just know that Drivers License and Vehicle Tags are handled by 2 separate entities. You wil have to get a Drivers License at the DMV, and your Tags at the Tax Office.

Welcome to Texas. I'm in Dallas and we organize a Bi-Weekly meet for Pizza in Richardson. The Ft Worth Meet is starting up soon!

Join the Texas 4Runners and Toyotas in Texas group on Facebook, or Follow me on Instagram - 4RunnerShow - for more info on Texas based events.

Feel free to PM me if you have any questions about living here. I grew up and have lived here for 37 years!

Appreciate the help. I might just place an order for a vanity plate ahead of time.

- Are vanity plates ordered through myplates.com, rather than DMV or Tax Office?

Two places to get plates in Texas.
I got the DPW camping one from here.
Conservation License Plate

This site has the more official looking(boring) TX plates.
My Plates