roosterk0031:
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Found a 08 GV 5 speed with 61,000 I was going to go look at Monday, but after thinking about it, my daughters wouldn't drive it if they ever needed to borrow a car if their car is being repaired so decided to stick with an auto. Oldest has driven my Cobalt 5sp, but an incident at a uphill stop light and a police officer I don't think I'll get her in again. Other one just says no, even offered $100 for 10 minutes of driving it around town
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I remember my first stick-shift lesson. A hill, and my Dad's BMW... Firmly cemented the smell of burning clutch in my head! I think he quickly taught me the hand-brake trick, but I think it was mostly his not yelling at me about it that let me keep at it. If you want to give your daughter another reason to try, my sister learned and drove stick and blew the minds of just about every guy she knew. Most of them couldn't drive stick, and were impressed! She even got the hang of coasting to lights with the clutch in to save gas when she was a college student trying to stretch her gas money. All by herself.
My first truck had a stick. Learned the hard way how to drive without a clutch when the slave cylinder blew out one day. That truck had a 2-pump clutch until that episode, which involved me being stuck in neutral until I crawled under with a wrench and banged on the linkage jammed between the throwout arm and the slave cylinder piston that was sticking out and cocked sideways in the end of the bore. Popped the link rod out, and now I had no clutch but I could move. Luckily that truck had no neutral safety switch, so I could start in gear. Blame a poorly done V8 transplant by the PO. Miss that truck still!
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Found a high mile 2011 Rogue instead for my 17 son that will do all the offroading that I will do. Got 33 mpg indicated over 45 miles bring it home just setting cruise at 55. He's already pulled it down into the 20's with his 4 miles to school and back. Some concerns about the CVT, but price was good enough I'd still be OK if I have to replace it. Need to get a hitch on it so I can use the hitch buddy to carry deer etc..
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Sounds like a good choice - keep the CVT happy and it ought to do quite well on fuel. IIRC they are finicky about clean fluid, yes? Not sure about heat, though - they're too different than the regular automatics.
The Explorer turns out to have been a very good buy - according to the mechanic (yes, I had it inspected *after* I bought it - rolled the dice...) the front end appears to have been serviced recently - all the ball joints and tie rods are tight. I need to make sure the upper balljoints get regular greasing as the boots are torn, but otherwise it should align without any issues. He said the front shocks look pretty new, too. No oil in the coolant or coolant in the oil (it had passed my sniff test/visual inspection, but that was a relief to hear!), and he found a minor coolant leak up top (water outlet and upper radiator hose). I knew it had a bad rear shackle - he confimed it. He said the shocks would actually be at the bottom of his list of things to replace - wait until I can't stand the ride. Check engine light (came on 10 miles after buying the truck, go figure...) is for the rear (after cat) O2 sensor, so I can wait a while on that. Parking brake doesn't work (knew that) and mechanic said the driver's side cable was broken. Only bummer was 98% worn rear brakes, so I'm having that done along with the shackle and the coolant leak. Then, once he tore into the rear brakes to replace them, he found that the driver's side parking brake shoes were also basically worn away - apparently having only one side do the work for a while (and, being a foot-activated brake, be left on a lot...) leads to that. He was apologetic, and is doing that side's shoes for the parts cost alone. (New mechanic in the area, seems to be a good guy, so far he's getting my business.) Not doing the cable yet, so the parking brake still won't work properly, but it won't have to come apart again to replace the cable. Might DIY, dunno yet - time is as budgeted as cash.
I ended up putting on some General Grabber HTS tires in the stock size.
http://www.discounttire.com/en/buy-t...er-hts/p/29590
I looked up what was available at the Discount Tire near where I was buying the truck (exposed driver inner side steel belts = new tires now!) and checked out ratings on Tire Rack. 85% of the rating at 74% of the price for the best rated Michelin Defenders - and the next step down had no treadwear warranty and very mixed reviews. Next step down from that were much worse in ice/snow. I wanted to get snow tires on the 15" rims and do summer/all-terrain on some 16" rims, but I ran out of time to min/max a set. Got the tires on in less than 30 minutes right at the end of the day. Guy selling me the truck gave me $50 for the 4 used tires afterwards, too, so I netted $62 off the price of the tires with the $3/tire disposal fee waived - covered the 3% convenience charge for using my debit card to buy the truck. Also got $40 rebate on the tires - DT promotion for using their CarCareOne card. I know I'll pay a bit of interest using their card, but most likely a lot less than $40 worth.
All told, I'm only about $150 over my original cash budget for the whole truck, including the tires and initial repairs. The rest of the budget will come from selling my Chevy, once I find the title for it or get a duplicate. I am going to let the broken windshield wait until spring - a cold snap would just snap a new one. I'll see if the parking brake will hold one-sided, but for now I'm just not using it, at least until I figure out how to make the brake light come on when the parking brake is on so I don't burn it out on the first drive. No idling in gear without a foot on the brake or chocks on the tires, but that's bad for fuel economy anyway, right?
I'll check into low-hanging ecomod stuff after I get a few tanks under my belt and get used to driving it, plus develop a baseline fuel-usage. Roof-rack delete looks like a good idea if I can fashion some nice hole-fillers and the rack ends up easy-on-easy-off. Rear fender skirts might be easy - I think the tires fit fully inside the fenders. That'll wait 'til spring, though, else they'll just fill up with 500lb of ice/snow/salt/gravel mix. A stick shift ought to lend itself to plenty of eco-driving. I think I'll spring for a ScanGauge or equivalent once I sell the Chevy and have more cash.
Thanks again to all for the input! I know I could have found a smaller/more fuel efficient rig - like a Grand Vitara or similar - but this truck ticked enough of the items off the checklist that I went for it, and it is hard to argue with that little rust at that low a price here in MN. That and it isn't a fullsize, so it should end up doing relatively well.