You aint kiddin

 

Yeah I hear ya, I was hoping for smaller more manageable logs, but it is what it is. I have an 18" chainsaw and an axe, it'll be some good exercise

 

 

Now to replace it with an iForceMax 6G

 

So F'ing tempting....

 

Nah, give it a couple years to work any new gen bugs & pick a used one up for full MSRP a few years later

 

That's the plan, I will never buy a 1st year model car ever again. And with second kiddo on coming soon, wife wants a minivan in the near future

 

2 kids, my mom had us in a 1990 Civic Si...
I drove an Ody for a bit and a Routan...aside from the image, they are actually very useful...the sliding doors are a game changer and they are the easiest thing to load big shit into, Suburban included.

 

Coworker is on their [wife's] 3rd or 4th Sienna. They love it for kid hauling.
My wife refuses, fully recognizes the utility of it, but would rather walk.
She's pretty content with the MiniBus [Expedition Max]

Will get our first taste of vanlife this summer. We'll be borrowing a friend's PHEV Pacifica for a few days in CA while we housesit.

 

I am enjoying our Odyssey. Never thought I would!

 

We just have one kid so no real reason to have a van. Content with the Subaru anyway.

 

+1 on the van. Very practical and it’s unbelievable how much fits in it, 3rd row up or down. Ours is a 2011 Odyssey Touring Elite, bought new in 2010 just when they came out. Biggest issue is a catalytic went bad, many say it’s from the VCM. Mine has the 3.5L v6 with the 6spd transmission. Other than that some gasket leaks, but I can’t remember having any serious issues. We have 150k miles on it, I don’t want to get rid of it, but I also don’t want another van.

we did the factory tow package because the after market stuff sat below the bumper, factory has a cutout. I only pulled a tiny single axel enclosed uhaul trailer with it and one of the jetski when it needed some more service and had to be brought in to a shop.

 

No kids for experience but always love seeing friends panic over having one kid and needing a bigger car for some reason. Currently have a friend expecting their first and his wife is saying they need a 3 row SUV with being due in 4 months.

Please Ack skip the minivan world.

 

We had a EM2 [7G] Civic Sedan & a 2G TL with 2 carseats.
The TL gave way to the Ford Flex, which was definitely an improvement, since the J32 was not in the best of health.

 

Sliding doors, nuff said. Getting a car seat into a regular door is doable but a pain in the ass most of the time in parking lots. Also not having to worry about your kids swinging the door open to get out and smackin the car next to you is a plus!

 

While where there's a will there's a way, having a big car with kids is infinitely easier than a small car with kids. We quickly found that a Subaru Outback is, while doable, not ideal even with one kid and a larger dog to travel anywhere. By the time you include our clothes, her clothes, the dog's stuff, stroller, pack n play, toys, food/snacks, etc you will definitely fill the back to the brim. Having the 3 row Ascent was life changing to have space to carry all the things anytime we want with ease.

Definitely not absolutely necessary but if you have the means, it's for sure worth it.

 

We've gotten by just find for 3 years with her Forester, and plan to do so for another year or 2 before switching to a van. I just know that is what she is eyeing for the next vehicle. It's either going to be a Toyota or a Honda so at least I got her buy in on that aspect lol

 

I have an SUV with 3 rows already lol

I have tried convincing her to get a larger SUV but she would rather have the van with sliding doors, etc. It's her vehicle so it is what it is. My mom had a minivan for 30 years or so and it was always nice to help move stuff

 

Small, annoying little update. When I got my wheels swapped, somehow NTB managed to break my 3D printed camera mount even though I had it tucked up into the roof. They half ass glued it and taped it together, but I knew that wouldn't last.



After driving a few times, the tape let loose and obviously the glue didn't do jack. So this was the aftermath.



Since the old one was a one off custom made arm I needed to find a suitable replacement, and given what happened to the last mount I opted for something more flush mount. Found this on Etsy.



It's designed to use the stock clip, however since I already had threaded a bolt into that hole, I opted to use the screw with some washers.



Here it is installed



Added some new 3M double-sided tape



And installed. I'll have to play with the aiming to get the angle right, but I'm just happy to not have it hanging by the wire anymore....



Overall happy with the change, I had wanted to shorten the old mount, just not by having it destroyed, oh well

 

Never ceases to amaze me how unprofessional "professionals" can be.

Sorry you had to deal with that.

 

I was going to ask why not mount it to the tailgate glass but then realized the window rolls down.

 

If you need anything printed, I could possibly do it for you. We have a carbon fiber onyx printer at work that I can do little stuff on when it is not in use. Share a sketch of what you would like. I can make a model of it and see what the cost to print would be.

 

I can print it at home if you have a model. Won't be in carbon fiber but would be nearly free lol.

 

Might hit you guys up for some Midget parts.
Can get the print files but don't have access to a printer.

 

Well, not a great update, but back in September I was run off the road, and ended up causing some major damage to the side and front of the truck. Thankfully I wasn't hurt and the truck was repairable. The front bumper and side quarter took the brunt of the damage. Here's a few befores of the damage.



The inner fender liner was rubbing on the tire so I had to zip tie the bumper remnants so I could drive it.



And here she is at the body shop. Notice when I took it for an estimate it was still fall



I also had some unrelated damage to the rear hatch from my wife opening the garage door not knowing the hatch was up, so I asked them to fix this while they were mixing paint and blending



And here's the rear quarter damage, I scraped a construction barrier before hitting a construction sign in the front...



It took a few months of waiting for insurance to do their thing and the body shop to acquire parts, but finally got to bring her in to be made whole again.

 

And here she is all fixed up, I'm very happy with the quality of work, and it looks the best it's looked in years



The paint work is fantastic



And I was very impressed with the quarter panel work, it's like it never happened



The shop reinstalled my LED headlights and even added the aftermarket turn signals that I had waiting to be installed. They also replaced my Morimoto fogs with a brand new set



Along with replacing my Morimoto fogs they also sourced me a new set of aftermarket tails that I damaged, I was expecting them to replace with an OEM tail light



This also made me laugh, I had a piece of precut tint on the headlight corner and had already bought a new set to install, but they removed the old piece and tried to put it on the new headlight housing. It's wrinkled and needs replaced but I was impressed that they even tried lol



And after 2.5 months of waiting I finally have my baby back to me in working order, and was able to get it inspected and up to date.

 

Sorry that happened, glad it's fixed

 

Glad you're ok. They did some good work, it seems.

 

Thanks gents, it was a rough process, but I'm glad that it's fixed

 

Sorry to see but awesome shop!

 

Well, keeping up with tradition. I did my yearly oil change on 12/30 like I've done for the last 4 or 5 years. I know @rockstar143 sets his watch to this post every year, so knew I had to make this post.



Drained all the oil and ran a half quart of clean oil through it



I finally ran out of my stash of TRD filters, and Toyota discontinued these filters but after some research I discovered that the filters are in fact made by Royal Purple, so I purchased one of those instead. And the filter definitely looks nearly identical




And here's the last TRD filter



Tried to do a side by side of the old and new



And I've been having some electrical gremlins with my VSC and ABS systems, it's always on the front right wheel, so I replaced the wheel speed sensor hoping to do away with those demons. Here's hoping

 

Sorry about the accident but seems like you found a fantastic shop to take care of it.

Did they also fix the wife mistake?

Hopefully the new speed sensor fixes your issue. Electrical gremlins are the worst.

 

Yes they fixed the scrape on the hatch as well. I should have had them fix the rock chips on the hood, but overall I'm happy with the quality of the work and having the issue on the rear hatch fixed after 4+ years of driving me nuts

 

A bit late to the thread...sorry to read about the accident and glad to read you're okay, Herr Ack. Glad it is fixed.

 

Oil is changed :messican:
Paint work looks great, they didn't blend but painted from fender and rear driver door with a hard line?
Their paint match mixer guy must be VERY good. Or the color is forgiving...
Either way glad you're back in action and still in a venerable off road rig worth what you originally paid for it, likely.

 

I only saw the prep work at that stage, not sure if paint was blended but they clearly painted the whole driver's side. The paint has a lot of depth and isn't very forgiving, but the work and quality is top notch.

 

Reflashed the ECU and put the tune back on the 4Runner, got some updates coming. Just wanted to historically note when I put the tune back lol

 

Time for a Trailhunter with a big turbo

 

I just farted.
Just wanted to historically note it in Chris' thread.