I just wanted to check in and say a public farewell to a trusted friend.
We sold our 1997 4WD 4runner today, a vehicle that we bought new and truly loved for the last 10 years. It was a reluctant sale as we actually planned to keep it forever, but we accumulated too many toys, too much to maintain and ran out of garage space etc. In 30 years of car ownership, the '97 has been the most reliable vehicle I have ever owned. It never failed to start or left us stranded and became a trusted friend that we could always rely on, no matter how far from home. The truck was babied and garaged, and upon it's sale the interior and exterior looked like a 2 year old vehicle at most. When my wife took people to lunch they would often ask her if it was a new car!
After 10 years and 90,000 miles we had made only three repairs: 1) new starter brushes, 2) a/c compressor (due to wobble of the pulley bearing on the nose cone, not an internal failure) 3) and new Tokico Trekmaster shocks, which were more of an upgrade than a repair.
Even maintenance items were few: we never had to replace the brakes, timing belt or water pump, and we were only on our second set of tires. (55,000 miles on a set of Michelin LTX's and still not down to the wear bars!) Counting all maintenance and repairs, we averaged only about $150 per year. We bought the truck new for $30,000 and sold it for $10,500, which works out to approx. $2000 cost + $150 maintenance per year, or $180 per month to own the truck over it's lifetime. (<i>not counting the time value of money</i>). <b>Try that with a new car lease!</b>
So why did we finally sell when the Runner still ran and looked like new? We needed a V8 for our increased towing needs, at 6'2" the seating was never ideal for me on long trips, and with everyone now talking on their cell phone (or Crackberry), instead of paying attention to the road, I wanted side curtain airbags for my wife's daily driver.
We shopped very hard for a new 4WD V8 Sport, but were never able to find one WITH side curtain airbags, but WITHOUT the moonroof. (My head hits the ceiling with the moonroof). Now that the 2008's are ALL equipped with the side curtain airbags our chances of finding our option combo has increased, but it was too little too late as we had already been seduced by another marque - the BMW X5 4.4i. Since this has already gotten too long, I'll describe our decent to the dark side in another thread.
Enjoy those Runner's, we'll see you again when the 2010(?) model debuts!!!
We sold our 1997 4WD 4runner today, a vehicle that we bought new and truly loved for the last 10 years. It was a reluctant sale as we actually planned to keep it forever, but we accumulated too many toys, too much to maintain and ran out of garage space etc. In 30 years of car ownership, the '97 has been the most reliable vehicle I have ever owned. It never failed to start or left us stranded and became a trusted friend that we could always rely on, no matter how far from home. The truck was babied and garaged, and upon it's sale the interior and exterior looked like a 2 year old vehicle at most. When my wife took people to lunch they would often ask her if it was a new car!
After 10 years and 90,000 miles we had made only three repairs: 1) new starter brushes, 2) a/c compressor (due to wobble of the pulley bearing on the nose cone, not an internal failure) 3) and new Tokico Trekmaster shocks, which were more of an upgrade than a repair.
Even maintenance items were few: we never had to replace the brakes, timing belt or water pump, and we were only on our second set of tires. (55,000 miles on a set of Michelin LTX's and still not down to the wear bars!) Counting all maintenance and repairs, we averaged only about $150 per year. We bought the truck new for $30,000 and sold it for $10,500, which works out to approx. $2000 cost + $150 maintenance per year, or $180 per month to own the truck over it's lifetime. (<i>not counting the time value of money</i>). <b>Try that with a new car lease!</b>
So why did we finally sell when the Runner still ran and looked like new? We needed a V8 for our increased towing needs, at 6'2" the seating was never ideal for me on long trips, and with everyone now talking on their cell phone (or Crackberry), instead of paying attention to the road, I wanted side curtain airbags for my wife's daily driver.
We shopped very hard for a new 4WD V8 Sport, but were never able to find one WITH side curtain airbags, but WITHOUT the moonroof. (My head hits the ceiling with the moonroof). Now that the 2008's are ALL equipped with the side curtain airbags our chances of finding our option combo has increased, but it was too little too late as we had already been seduced by another marque - the BMW X5 4.4i. Since this has already gotten too long, I'll describe our decent to the dark side in another thread.
Enjoy those Runner's, we'll see you again when the 2010(?) model debuts!!!
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