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As a man thinks, so he is. Some people are never.

November 2009

This particular 1998 Tacoma 4x4 has 130,000 miles on it and it's showing every inch of it. Toyota is using some formula to figure out what to pay to buy back these trucks, and in this case it turned out to be $12,500.

Pretty sweet deal. Get 10 years of use/abuse out of your 4x4 and get $12,500 cashback. Timing in life is everything!

7:36 am | Categories: recalls, toyota
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Sep 14, 2007 - Not That I Recall

I'm not here to talk about the past... right! Unless we ever find ourselves at the point where one manufacturer has somehow managed to wipe out all the competition and we all buy our vehicles from the same place, we'll always have fans of the various makes and models trying to explain why their choice is the best choice out there. One quick look at the various comparison discussions on the CarSpace forums will make that obvious. I'd bet that even if there was only one manufacturer with one model to choose from that we'd have postings like this:

Well mine was made on a Tuesday and is blue, and you know that your Wednesday reds have had far more problems than mine.

One of the many criteria people use to compare cars is recalls, specifically the number of recalls on a vehicle. While that may be a general indicator of which vehicle you might expect more problems from, there are problems and then there are problems.

I've had a number of recalls over the years on my Nissan vehicles. The vast majority of them have been very minor items like windshield wiper arm or weatherstripping replacements, items like that. The most recent (pardon the pun) I can recall was one to replace the power window regulators in my Altima, which were operating fine for me, but if I needed new ones, I guess I needed new ones put in at no cost. The point is, that while some of these were safety related, none of them was for something that would be life threatening or would leave me stranded on the side of the road unexpectedly. The absolute number of recalls on a vehicle is something to take into account when judging a vehicle's merits, but what those recalls are for is far more important in my view.

There's a big difference between a recall for a problem with an ABS system that could cause a fire or failure of the brakes, and a recall for a faulty brake light switch. A recall for one major issue can far outweigh a handful of annoying ones.

Choosing between cars
Which one has the most problems,
or loudest whining?

3:13 am | Categories: car comparisons, nissan altima, recalls
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November 2009

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Jun 10, 2008 - Fortunate Timing

Sep 14, 2007 - Not That I Recall