deerslayer

We were until 2023 hit us. I had shoulder surgery, we moved, and two weeks after we signed the contract, my wife totaled her 2013 4Runner. She got a 2023 RAV4. I was way up in MO a couple weeks before the power steering snafu. I suppose I could have made it home, but I decided that my 17 year old truck was about to become a local only vehicle. I bought a 2022 4Runner, but still mostly drive the Tacoma. 2023 was expensive. My daughter is about to start driving and may inherit the Tacoma.

Definitely not perfect, but better than most. The Taco recently sprang a big leak. $2k later I had a new rack and pinion and a new power steering pump. It is 17 years old though.

My sister has an XTerra that has been boringly reliable.

2006 Tacoma. This was it two years ago:

Except they aren’t having many trials, at least around here. Shelby County held less than 40 criminal trials in 2023. This is not due to increased plea bargains and such; on the contrary, nothing is getting done and the backlog is getting bigger. On any given day, you can walk around at 201 and it’s a ghost town.

Amen. Already hard enough to get enough sleep without some alert in the middle of the night about a crime six or seven hours away.

He was calling newer cars those that recommend 0w20 or 0w16 vs those whose manuals recommend 5w30, so I’m thinking by “newer” he meant 5-10 years old. I don’t think he had the cars of yesteryear that used 10w40 or 20w50 in mind. He didn’t say engines are blowing up, but oil consumption is on the rise.

I would think the quality of the oil (maybe synthetic vs dino) would be a bigger factor than the viscosity. Probably barely measurable, but every bit counts when the EPA is sniping at you. I’m not sure if I buy my mechanic friend’s theory about running thicker oil from the beginning, but I know for certain that an engine that already uses oil will use thinner oil more quickly. Back in the day, I had a Ford Ranger with bad rings. It would foul a plug in three months. I switched to 20-50 and the oil consumption slowed somewhat.

I’ve always changed my own oil and there is always a definite difference in the appearance of the oil that came out vs. the oil that goes in, whether it’s 10w-40 or 0w-16.

My Tacoma is American made and it’s the best vehicle I’ve ever owned. My wife has a Canadian made RAV4 that is too new to conclude it will be a long lasting vehicle, but so far, so good, and I have little reason to believe it won’t be reliable. 4Runners are still made in Japan. A mechanic friend swears that newer vehicle engines generally don’t last as long due to thinner oil being used nowadays, which he believes offers less protection (unless you floor it immediately after starting when it’s 10F outside) and burns easier. He told me he sees newer vehicles using oil sooner and his solution is to switch to 0W-30 or 5W-30. The problem often goes away for another 50-100k miles. He believes if we still used 5W-30 from the get-go, this trend wouldn’t exist. Older Toyotas (15-20 years ago) used 10w-30 or 5w-30. My wife’s RAV4 says to use 0W-16. I didn’t even know such watery oil existed.

I got only one. It took me a few seconds to realize that it wasn’t my alarm. Then my concern became my wife not waking up and listening to her raise hell because she thought work was calling me in the middle of the night again.

Another heartless bastard here - as of this morning, I have Amber alerts and public safety alerts turned off. Do blue alerts fall under public safety alerts? And what time was that anyway?

That song was his masterpiece.

Yes, I think that’s what he was asking, and my answer would be yes. That is pretty much the point I made earlier - only 10% extra is probably not realistic. I’ll pay 10% extra all day to buy American if the quality is as good as or better.

I think CMP recently announced they are venturing into more conventional gun sales. This may be part of that.

If it is the same quality (assuming both are decent quality), I'm still paying the 10% to help Mary Sue in TN have a job vs. some third grader in Zingzang Factory No. 38.

Channellock claims their pliers and screwdrivers are 100% American made, while they claim their sockets are made in Taiwan and wrenches are Spanish. I assume they are telling the truth. I started having problems with Craftsman pliers years ago (while they were still supposedly American made) and got a couple Channellocks. I never looked back. All their stuff is affordable (a bit more expensive than the cheap Chinese stuff, but way cheaper than Snap-On etc.). I am no mechanic and use them for basic stuff (screwdrivers/sockets/pliers/wrenches), but they have held up well. I think they fill the role of old-school Craftsman tools.

Hand tools are one example - it's easy to flip over the package and see where it's made. Used to be, there were American made options that were more expensive but still affordable, but now it often comes down to China or sky-high American stuff. Channellock tools are an exception, but some of their stuff is made in Taiwan. Some tools in Lowes, Home Depot, etc are made in Taiwan. I'll take Taiwan made vs. Chinese eight days a week.

I sometimes go out of my way to avoid buying anything Chinese, but sometimes, it's unavoidable. Occasionally, China makes superior stuff.

Except cars lol

I bet a lot of Americans would pay 10% extra. The problem is that American made goods are probably typically much more than 10% extra.

My friend’s father is 88 and still works full time. Two guys I see at the range a lot are 79 and 84 and can probably do anything I can. The 84 year old guy told me women over 50 can’t keep up with him. I didn’t ask for details. These three fellows all have two things in common - they have always stayed moving or into something and they are not overweight. On the other hand, my uncle could have lost a pound or 50 and he just flipped channels after he retired. He ended up with cancer, diabetes, bad knees, heart trouble, and lots of other stuff. Genetics and injuries often play an uncontrollable part, but as I get older, I plan to keep these observations in mind.

Speaking of tv…

We had two animals (for lack of a better term) at work who got kicked out of the Po Folks on Summer Ave. I’ve never seen humans eat like those two. Po Folks had an all-you-can-eat chicken special and after an hour or so, refunded my two co-workers and asked them to leave because there was a church youth group due soon and if the pace continued, there would be no chicken for them. They may have eventually been single-handedly responsible for the demise of Po Folks.