New(er) car and the end of the 4Runner.
I love my car. Maybe a little too much. For about as long as I can remember, I’ve wanted a 4Runner. But first, a little history.
My first car was a half rusty 1991 Toyota Tercel. This thing had power nothing. Not even a cassette desk. Just the trusty radio for me. It also was quite possibly the smallest car a 6′3″ Asian could drive. Nevertheless, I loved it like my own, waxing it on a bi-monthly basis. Shame I don’t have a picture of that car.
I had the Tercel for a year before I found out that my mother was planning on trading in her old Camry Station wagon for a new car. I asked how much she was getting for a trade in. “$800″ my mother replied. Well
shoot, I knew I could sell my Tercel for more than $800, so that was a no brainer. I gave my mom $800 the next day and proudly drove it to school. Now this car felt like a brand new Cadillac to me. Power windows, power steering, power locks, even a CD player! Oh yeah, the best part, it had AIR CONDITIONING. Oh, and a rear window wiper. Good lord, I was in heaven. And it only had 206,000 miles on it! Ok, so my mom tends to put a lot of miles on her cars due to her work, but they were all highway miles, so that’s ok right?
I kept that though my junior year at UofM when I decided that 300K miles was enough and purchased a barely driven 1999 Subaru Legacy from an old lady that never drove it. It had a power moonroof, power everything and a CD player that played MP3’s! And it was AWD which was a real bonus. I really had nothing to complain on this car. I got it for a great price, and it had really low miles.
And then.. it happened. While driving around town in my car that I barely had for 10 months, I saw a black 4Runner. Just wanting to take it for a spin, I left three hours later with a very very large auto loan and an unsold Subaru. Well luckily enough I was able to sell the Subaru to a nice couple from South Dakota on cars.com.
This past weekend, the wife and I recently bought a used ‘04 Prius. I love it. Too bad I’m not the one that gets to drive it. It gets between 45-50 mpg so far and is soo quiet. I have my beloved 4Runner for sale now, and am considering getting a Prius of my own. If anyone knows of someone that’s looking for a greatly taken care of 4Runner, let me know!
