mods

[hdshawks]

Jeez, looking at the pictures and such. How do you afford all these parts and mods to your vehicles. Is it all credit or??? I know some of you do have the funds available but how do the others do it?

 

[techno]

Most of us are small time drug dealers. There's tons of dough in dealing drugs. And you can pick and choose your own schedules.

 

[hdshawks]

Too funny, that does make sense. Guess I put to much into my firearms.

 

[techno]

But seriously, I make decent money by working hard, but I saved up $600 for suspension work by simply saving every $5 bill that I got in change from places. Took me a year.

 

[weeeee]

Too funny, that does make sense. Guess I put to much into my firearms.

Then you'll get really screwed when you pour money into your guns AND truck.

 

[Crowcifier6]

"I got it one piece at a time" - Johnny Cash

I'm slowly rebuilding my suspension. Accumulate the parts you need for the project, and then dig in...

I usually alternate guns/truck parts, two fun money pits.

 

[NWFLBowhunter]

I don't do anything on credit. I work Saturdays as extra money for mods. Monday-Friday $ goes towards grown up stuff, and Saturday is play money.

 

[PWD4R]

Jeez, looking at the pictures and such. How do you afford all these parts and mods to your vehicles. Is it all credit or??? I know some of you do have the funds available but how do the others do it?

Kind of a personal question. I mean everyone takes different life choices and asking how people can afford $1k here and $4k there is a little nosy. Some people make good money and manage it well. Some people put things on credit and say F it. While one person making $50k a year may struggle, another making the same may be able to save over a grand a month because they live a lifestyle that is inexpensive and they budget well. How people get to a certain goal is irrelevant; the only thing that should matter is the outcome of what they accomplish.
Then there are the ones that determine what they CAN afford vs what they WANT to afford. To some people their 4Runner is at the top of their priority in terms of budget. They'd rather put a mod on than spend that same $40 getting drunk this weekend. To others their 4Runner may be the last thing they are worried about because they live a different lifestyle.
How much money people make is irrelevant to what a truck consists of.



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[BlackWorksInc]

Too funny, that does make sense. Guess I put to much into my firearms.

Honestly it comes down to managing your money and "making lemonade from lemons."

I have had my bank account pull $100 from each pay check (I get paid twice a month, so $200 goes to savings each month), honestly I've become so used to it now that it doesn't affect my budget at all, but at the end of the year I have $2400 saved up to do whatever I want with. Aside from my 4Runner, I haven't ever spent more money than I have in the bank at any given point in time, even when I use my credit card I do not exceed what I can pay off at the end of the month; I've found that working within the constraint of not owing people money tends to help me plan things better financially (granted it severely limits me in what I can spend, my father who's a broker and real estate agent is well versed on taking advantage of credit and making it profitable for him, I can't bring myself to have debt, even if I'm working it to my advantage and will pay for itself in the end), my next big loan will probably be a house whenever I decide to buy one... which I'm not looking forward to.

For example I work as a Toyota Technician, so in my off-time I work on my vehicle. That cuts down cost a lot since labor is my own free-time. I have experience in design, welding, machining, and wrenching which also helps. I used to be a teaching assistant/department assistant for my college's industrial department for a few years and that gave me access to equipment as well.

Some things like the "new" reinforced rear links on my 4Runner are repurposed "junk parts"; I got the links from 2014 FJ with 20k on it when the owner had me install MetalTech rear links and he didn't want his old ones. So I welded 1/8" angle iron to the links, painted them, and they're now stronger and newer than my old 10+yr & 120k old ones; those will keep me going a bit until I get beefy adjustable rear links.

Other mods such as the body lift were taking advantage of my expertise and friends/connections. I designed the body lift and steering wheel spacer, asked my friend who works as a machinist (this was just last year, I haven't been working at the college for a long time so I didn't have access to a lathe and mill to do this myself) and he was nice enough to machine them up in his down time as long as I got him raw material.

Some mods are situational, for example 2 weeks ago I failed to give myself enough clearance to avoid a log on a trail dong about 25~30mph and took it in the passenger wheel. Bent the spindle and put the 4Runner out of commission for going on 2 weeks now. Insurance covered it and cut me a check for the damages, I decided to ask my boss if I can work on it in my own time saving a ton of money on labor and then use my employee discount to get brand new Toyota parts (insurance wanted to put a Napa Steering Rack, I said no). Out of the left over money I pulled some funds from my savings account and decided to take advantage of the downtime and buy two new spindles, reinforce them with Total Chaos Spindle Gussets ($80 shipped to my door, $5 for VHT Chassis paint, and about 2hrs of prep/welding time to burn the gussets on the new spindles), and buy Camburg Kinetik UCA to replace my banged up SPCs. This is a mod that I would have done eventually, but probably not anytime soon since I didn't want to spend $1400 in just aftermarket parts and have the vehicle un-drivable for a day or two; but since insurance took care of 95% of the cost and I had to replace those parts anyways, it ended up working out (will hopefully have her up and running tomorrow night!)

Oh and I hear you on the guns... I just picked up a beautiful LWRC REPR in 16" Spiral Fluted with mags and ammo, I've been saving up for years to buy that rifle and now I need to save up for a good scope to go with it.

 

[3wbdriver]

Guess I put to much into my firearms.

My gun collecting took a big hit when I got the 4Runner, but I have most of my "must haves" already anyway. And of course I was in the drilling industry when I bought mine in 2014. I got a bunch of the work done before the bottom fell out and I was laid off in 2015. The rest has been tax returns, Christmas, birthday, or just plain pleading with the wife. And God love her she's a keeper! I am providing my own labor again now, and you wouldn't believe how much that can save. :becky:

 

[MeefZah]

Small mods I pay for, larger mods I put on credit and then hammer out hard in a few months with overtime.

I have savings but I don't like to touch them. I'd rather pay a little bit of interest for 2 months than dip into savings.

I think I'm pretty much modded out at this point though. Ha! A lie I believe until the next order...

 

[T4RGold]

Jeez, looking at the pictures and such. How do you afford all these parts and mods to your vehicles. Is it all credit or??? I know some of you do have the funds available but how do the others do it?

I use cash as much as possible and all change goes in to a container. At the end of the year it can be as much as $600.00.

 

[mckennar]

Army Reserve. One drill weekend as an O3E w/14 years in = $650 after taxes.

 

[CF_Machete]

Paypal credit, 6 months interest fee financing. I never buy anything that I could buy in one shot, but if you don't have to pay it all in one shot, why tie up your cash

 

[LandCruiser]

Too funny, that does make sense. Guess I put to much into my firearms.

Well, you now got the gats, now you can sling some dope in safety.

Fring's Back.

 

[kyle_uran]

This question is kind of like asking "how much do you make?" I don't think it's any ones right to know how people pay for stuff.

However, i don't mind sharing how i pay for it. My wife and i don't make extreme salaries, we have a mortgage, some c.c. debt, and a few small hospital bills. We put money into savings, have retirement and investments.

When i spend money on regular maintenance or regular repairs, i can often times expense that for work since they don't provide a company vehicle. But modifications for recreation, i pay for myself. If it's cheap enough, i put it in the monthly budget. If its over several hundred dollars, i'll take it out of a small savings account, and then over a couple paychecks, add it back into savings. I don't like paying for them on credit card as then i'll pay interest and since i don't need the money for savings, and knowing i'll sock it back in, i'm not to concerned.

I do have friends that have no problem spending thousands of dollars on parts as they make more than i do, don't have kids, a spouse and live different lifestyle than i do. I don't think how anyone one pays for anything should matter.:fish2:

 

[jrm]

Living within the economies of scale

Living in the 2nd most expensive place and making regional median income doesnt help but i can still afford stuff here and there. I just spend within reason and only buy on credit what i can pay off @ the end of the month from savings. The mod budget is going to take a hit once i find a house but thats cool. I need to make that long term investment.

Some spend $$$ on guns i spend mine on bicycles AND my 4runner:hurt:

 

[nb rob]

No kids,
no spouse,
no debt,
Workaholic.