James Hatch
Active Member
All,
Here's the short of it - Thank you for being a wonderful community, and I'm wishing you all farewell as it's unfortunately time to move on due to the last 7 months. Read on if you want.
The long of it: :soap:
Back in June, I had a trip to North Carolina to visit family and I was not going to subject the Trac to the trip as I planned on driving the Blue Ridge Parkway on the way back, and it needed a few things fixed. So, in the meantime I dropped off the Trac at the SO's uncles shop hoping he could get the small things fixed in the 10 days we would be gone. Anyhow, Day 8 rolls around and we're on our way back and all that so we decided to call him.. Turns out he hadn't gotten the truck into the shop yet. Not sounding good at all. :angry:
So we arrive home on Day 10, drop off the rental (Volkswagen Tiguan - had a manual shift mode which came in very handy on the parkway, highly recommend if you plan on driving it) and am stuck at home with no truck. Uncle says he'll get to it ASAP. By now I've started to learn my lesson.
Abridging the rest of the story quickly, we got the Aunt's car while waiting as she was out of work for medical reasons. :banghead:
To wrap up that saga, I got the Trac back on 23 December 2016. Also got billed an extra $500 on top of what the original quote was, but uncle said didn't charge us for labor not on quote. Now I'm out $1500 and highly perturbed, I was still glad I had it back. We began using it as DD again. No issues whatsoever.. Read on for more.
Cut to 31 December.. Decided to take the Trac out for a drive up to my Dad's. About 3/4 of the way there on the highway, CEL starts flashing. Fortunately, I had my Bluetooth reader already connected and got P0304. Pulled off the highway, picked up a new plug at NAPA - Autolite Platinum. Get to my dad's, and had to change it out. Old was super rusted, new one was gapped correctly and I put it in no real issues.
Obviously I had to make it home, so I drove home and it was great on the highway until I got back into town. CEL flashing again. At this point I'm a happy camper and I realize that I should not have driven it that hard so soon.
Inform SO when she gets home, look of disappointment about the truck and anger at me for driving it (warranted). Furious research on how to fix it begins. SO and I decide that I'm not putting more money into the truck, and it's time to let it lie. It's been driving a maximum of 1 mile a day (SO to work and back) and that's the extent to which I use it.
Lesson learned: Never go to family for car work. (There are exceptions, but YMMV.)
So now, I'll regretfully be purchasing a used 2016 (Yota Camry or Rav4) on Thursday, trading in the Trac and hopefully will not have many issues with the new vehicle. I'm aware I probably won't get near what I want on trade-in, but I'm not about to keep driving it all over the place and potentially compounding the issue.
But I do want to say that this has been the greatest resource for me during my time as a Trac owner and I thank you all for being so wonderful.
Farewell to all. :haveabeer:
Best Regards,
James H
Here's the short of it - Thank you for being a wonderful community, and I'm wishing you all farewell as it's unfortunately time to move on due to the last 7 months. Read on if you want.
The long of it: :soap:
Back in June, I had a trip to North Carolina to visit family and I was not going to subject the Trac to the trip as I planned on driving the Blue Ridge Parkway on the way back, and it needed a few things fixed. So, in the meantime I dropped off the Trac at the SO's uncles shop hoping he could get the small things fixed in the 10 days we would be gone. Anyhow, Day 8 rolls around and we're on our way back and all that so we decided to call him.. Turns out he hadn't gotten the truck into the shop yet. Not sounding good at all. :angry:
So we arrive home on Day 10, drop off the rental (Volkswagen Tiguan - had a manual shift mode which came in very handy on the parkway, highly recommend if you plan on driving it) and am stuck at home with no truck. Uncle says he'll get to it ASAP. By now I've started to learn my lesson.
Abridging the rest of the story quickly, we got the Aunt's car while waiting as she was out of work for medical reasons. :banghead:
To wrap up that saga, I got the Trac back on 23 December 2016. Also got billed an extra $500 on top of what the original quote was, but uncle said didn't charge us for labor not on quote. Now I'm out $1500 and highly perturbed, I was still glad I had it back. We began using it as DD again. No issues whatsoever.. Read on for more.
Cut to 31 December.. Decided to take the Trac out for a drive up to my Dad's. About 3/4 of the way there on the highway, CEL starts flashing. Fortunately, I had my Bluetooth reader already connected and got P0304. Pulled off the highway, picked up a new plug at NAPA - Autolite Platinum. Get to my dad's, and had to change it out. Old was super rusted, new one was gapped correctly and I put it in no real issues.
Obviously I had to make it home, so I drove home and it was great on the highway until I got back into town. CEL flashing again. At this point I'm a happy camper and I realize that I should not have driven it that hard so soon.
Inform SO when she gets home, look of disappointment about the truck and anger at me for driving it (warranted). Furious research on how to fix it begins. SO and I decide that I'm not putting more money into the truck, and it's time to let it lie. It's been driving a maximum of 1 mile a day (SO to work and back) and that's the extent to which I use it.
Lesson learned: Never go to family for car work. (There are exceptions, but YMMV.)
So now, I'll regretfully be purchasing a used 2016 (Yota Camry or Rav4) on Thursday, trading in the Trac and hopefully will not have many issues with the new vehicle. I'm aware I probably won't get near what I want on trade-in, but I'm not about to keep driving it all over the place and potentially compounding the issue.
But I do want to say that this has been the greatest resource for me during my time as a Trac owner and I thank you all for being so wonderful.
Farewell to all. :haveabeer:
Best Regards,
James H