Car buying thread #69... with a twist!
 

I will sum up:
We've had an '05 4Runner and '06 Speed6 up until a couple weeks ago when the Speed shit a rod... sold the carcass for $2k.
The same week, we get orders to Hawaii targeting December.
The 4Runner is typical Toyota... a zero-maintenance required freak of nature and has 175k miles on it with no hints of slowing down, but is only 2 wheel-drive.
We have been borrowing a neighbors Odyssey in the meantime, but I can't justify relying on a deployed buddies loaner for the next 6 months.

Our problems:
We need two vehicles here in Virginia right now, and THEN we need two vehicles in Hawaii.
The Navy will only ship 1 car to Hawaii for free. We can ship another one ourselves ($2500 from Virginia, $1200 from San Diego).
Everything I've read says "If you come to the islands, bring a Toyota!"... but I can already see us needing 4x4 motivation perhaps on a daily basis. Base housing is literally ON THE BEACH and you can drive on the beach.

Solutions in a somewhat thought out order:
1) Buy a shitbox beater ($1000 1995 Corolla or something) for the next 6 months that I can set fire to the week we leave... AND SHIP THE 4RUNNER on the Navy bill (that we use as a daily in Hawaii) and buy something 4x4 when we get there.
2) Buy a used 2008+ 4x4 Sequoia that my wife really wants and have that shipped... and count on being able to sell the 4RUNNER quickly here before we leave... and get myself a sweet island car (rust-bucket Jeep pos) for instant "local" status.
3) Sell the 4RUNNER now and use the proceeds and savings (no gas, maintenance, insurance) to Uber everywhere for the next 6 months.

I'm looking for other options... but I gotta have a second vehicle this week.

Option 2. The sequoia sucks gas, rides alright and steers alright but is damn near unstoppable 4x4 mode unless you're crawling. And my girlfriend's family had a 2011 Sequioa that was a complete freak at 278k, with literally ntohing but fluid changes. Blows my mind. Was a 4x4 5.7L SR5.

That option makes everybody happy as long as the money factor isn't hemorrhaging.

Fuel will be more expensive there. A/C isn't necessary there in homes or cars. Local status? Think VW bus for a large vehicle and Corolla for a small one, haha. Your 4runner will be perfect there, even with 2wd. You're not actually required to drive on the beach, lol.

A VW Thing should still be a common sight there if you are looking for something fun to cruise around in. Average January lows and highs 65/78. Average July lows and highs 74/84 with tradewinds and seabreezes.

You'll probaby never see the top side of 50mph on Kauai.

This is pretty spot on. We went to Kauai and Maui for our honeymoon in June about 4 years ago. Temperatures were in the 80's, but honestly felt like high 60s/low 70s. Never a speck of humidity and we never used AC - even in our room. I do not remember seeing a single car with windows up, or houses with windows closed.

I would choose number 2. Make your wife happy first. Buy a nice top down cruiser while you're there (jeep would be ideal). There are plenty of opportunities for exploration and you'll want a vehicle you can just park and forget about at times.

Ship 4x4 toyota (of some kind) on navy money and sell it in Hawaii when leaving. I'd imagine you could profit doing that if it's allowed.



PS I have a 2000 4runner with 294k miles. I've owned for 45k miles and done a timing belt and oil changes. It drives better than my 02 WRX with half the miles- they are amazing vehicles.

Buy the toyota 4x4 here and have the navy ship it for you. Will be worth way more there. Especially trucks.

But a second 2wd car to use there for other activities. Sell both when you leave. Profit.

Tons of good advice here... been on the lookout for the right used Sequoia for months. We may end up settling with a color other than white. I'm all about just sucking up a loan, and selling the 4Runner right before we leave. I know we could ship it there ourselves, but from VaBch, I don't think we'd recover the $2k+ shipping cost. Mainland vehicles do have an attached premium on the used market, but it's still $2500'ish to get it there.

Sat down at the computer Sat morning and checked Craigslist... there was a 2008 Sequoia Platinum 4x4 that had been listed for 7 minutes.... 4 days later, it's in my driveway.
Fully loaded minus the rear seat entertainment and remote-start... neither of which I wanted. Otherwise, beast mode.

It has 95k on it and looks like 25k. The interior is 9.9/10 and the exterior is 9.99/10. It's unbelievable how well this thing looks. I'll post up some pics tomorrow when the sun is up, but it's bone stock, so you know what it looks like.

Plan is to ship this one to the island... what we do with the 4Runner is up in the air. We could pay to ship it ourselves or sell it and buy something else... a beater truck for me and a spare car loaner for guests. The used market there isn't as bad as you'd think in the $5k range... quite a few Rav4's, Xterras, Escapes and the like. I could get 2.

Anyways, another first world problem solved.

Thoughts for my eventual island beater... thinking about something like this:
https://honolulu.craigslist.org/kau/...246145468.html
https://honolulu.craigslist.org/kau/...241624103.html
https://honolulu.craigslist.org/kau/...199453963.html

Fuck Nissans. Especially Xterras. Giant piles of shit. Shitty gas mileage, shitty power, shitty reliability, shitty design, oh, and made by Nisshit. Try again.

I've read of cooling system reliability issues on the Xterras due to design flaws. If their interior and switchgear plastics are is crappy as most of the other Renault Nissans then I wouldn't want one. It's not a Toyota, lol. See also 350z interiors and switchgear, Altima taillights and switchgear, and lower quality rubber O-rings rings and seals in the engine across several models.

This is the biggest vehicle I've ever driven that doesn't feel like a big vehicle... it's fucking big. Toyota got it right though... plenty of power and brakes. I spent an hour last night browsing the 500+ page owners manual and reading up on what all the systems do. I'll never use half of them, but nice to know about. This weekend is going to involve a little bit of maintenance... some rust on the rear subframe. It looks worse than it is, and is literally the only part of the car that has any rust on it... but definitely something to take care of now.

Question... I'm gonna use a steel brush wheel on my drill and then get the tight areas with smaller tools... hose it all down with rubberized undercoating (3M or Rustoleum... are any of these better than another?). Question... after I hit it with the steel brush wheels and blow everything off, should I use anything else before the undercoat spray? Should I wipe it down with acetone or anything? Any other kind of anti-rust product BEFORE I coat it that will help somehow... make the coating stick better or whatever?

EDIT: Just discovered a product called POR15... looks like that's what I'll be using.

POR15 is great, if you know how to use it. It is worlds better than the spray on conversion coatings from Rustoleum, etc.

Do NOT remove all the rust. It is a conversion coating, and the rust is what it converts. Just remove loose stuff. A wire wheel is probably too much. A hand held brush is all it takes. Bare metal will not work well.
(Many Locost builders "pre rust" their frames before using it, by wire brushing and spraying with water to get a light rust on the surface.)

Pour what you will be using into a separate container. If not, the whole thing will start to cure in the open can. It can go off quicker than you expect, and it's too expensive to waste.
Seal the container very carefully. Clean out the rim of the can or it will glue the top on and you will never get it off. Many users have had to destroy the can to get to the contents.
Use heavy duty gloves and old clothes. The stuff gets everywhere, and it will NOT come off your skin. Don't even try. It stains everything, so take precautions.
It MUST be top coated, or it will degrade, and let rust in again. Undercoating, paint, whatever. Just something to seal it once dry.

/\ I never knew any of that. Very interesting
Sam, 'grats on another 'yota

POR15 is very common in the Locost community. There are as many threads on it there as there are ones here asking about ebay manifolds.

Is that really better than powdercoat or just painting it? Or is it done because of the ease of fixing dings/rock chips?

I think it beats out powder coating simply because of cost. Especially when you consider that almost all Locost are home built, and people don't have access to a large enough curing oven.
It's also dead simple to do, and holds up better than plain old paint. Maybe comparable to an epoxy type paint, which has it's own problems and learning curve, and is more expensive.

I have used it, and where I did, it's held up quite well to rust belt winters. The main thing that degrades it is UV, and a chassis is fairly well protected from that. It's also perfect for fixing the rust we see inside rockers, when you are trying to protect the metal, but are going to apply a patch and cover it up. Holds up better than plain primer, and gets in all the nooks and crannies to seal.

Most of the YT videos I'm seeing use the 3-4 step process with a marine degreaser, then an etch, then the POR15. I think what I'm seeing is that there are several "stages" of possible use for this stuff... you CAN just slather it all over a completely unprepped rust monster... all the way to... take it down to bare metal, degrease, etch, and apply to perfectly unrusted clean surface.

Excellent, thanks for the info.

I was figuring most guys building a Locost, probably also have a truck they could put the frame in and take to a powdercoater. But it's good to know all the successful uses with it.

Yup. And you could pull the subframe, have it acid dipped and then chrome plated. Depends on what you intend to do with it.
Remember, some of these guys are building a car as much to show it off as to just drive it.
Showcar? Give it the whole nine yards of prep. Daily driver? Just slap it on and hit it with some undercoat or paint.

I only casually watch the locost forums, mostly because I can't be sucked into a locost build right now. It would not surprise me if most locost builders have far less tools and experience then you would expect. I know several people personally who have gone down the locost build road with out having a truck. I think all of them used AAA to have the car they were using for parts towed to their houses.