Well, my 929 died on me back in January. As a graduation present back in August, my mother-in-law gave me $5K to go towards a truck, which I’ve been wanting to buy to replace my nearly 20 year old 929. My brother is the regional supervisor for customer satisfaction for Mazda and he recommended that I get either a Chevy or a GMC. I found a low mileage GMC at a Mazda dealership and my brother was able to get them to take just over $3K off the advertised price. So, with 31K miles on it, it still has its factory warranty, and its got brand new tires and a bed liner.
Congratulations. Do you need a 4x4 for work or is this an American thing?
It’s a bit of a complex certain American men have.
american trucks are shit. you want reliable get a toyota hilux. those things are unbreakable.
Is that a challenge?
Its an American thing, you wouldn’t understand. Just as a Soviet farm worker loved his tractor, American men love their pickup trucks.
You can’t get the hilux in North America. Maybe they are right drive only? I never have seen one, just heard some good stories…
AFAIK, the Hilux is tagged as the Tacoma here in the US. Problem is, I can’t fit a baby seat in the back of one. As for 4x4, this is a 2wd model. I don’t drive off road enough for a 4x4 to be sound economically (i.e. lower gas mileage and higher maintenance costs). As far as reliabilitity goes, mechanically, the GMC is rated higher by JD Powers in terms of reliability than the Toyota. I’ve already used it for hauling furniture, lawn equipment and compost. Now that deer season is over but its still cool enough to kill hogs and eat 'em afterwards (fly blown hogs in the summer are nasty), I’m hoping to be able to use my new truck to haul some meat.
Toyota recalled half a million Tundras and Sequoias about a month ago
http://wcco.autobytel.com/content/shared/articles/templates/index.cfm/article_id_int/2546
American engineering FTW!!!
Looks like it is the Tacoma. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Tacoma
If I was a truck kinda guy, that would be something I’d look at.
TEA–
Drive it in good health!
My new new RC Helicopter - Hughes 500
That truck is going to kill you on gas. Do you really need king of towing power?
As proven by the BBC. Top Gear took a Hilux with 190,000miles on the clock, and to test its toughness:
drove it into buildings and trees.
Submerged it in the sea.
Dropped it from 50 feet.
Dropped a caravan on it from 50 feet.
Hit it with a wrecking ball.
Set fire to it.
It’s still running at this point, so they put it on top of a 23 storey housing block about to be demolished.
Did it survive?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HibMBiWn2MM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HibMBiWn2MM
fucking aye. and im not pimping them jsut because i used to work for toyota, they really are the bees knees. we had a 4l V6 hilux as our work car, that thing was nuts to drive. plus american trucks look fucking idiotic
It gets better gas mileage than my Mazda 929.
As for the GMC vs Toyota debate. I can’t fit a baby seat in the Tacoma extended cab and the crew cab is out of my price range, so that leaves me with full size trucks. Chevy and GMC are way better full size trucks than any of the Japanese makes, Toyota included. I know plenty of guys with 200K+ miles on their Chevies and GMCs with hardly a hickup, so I don’t think reliabiltiy is going to be an issue.
As for the Hughes 500, yeah, if I had the bucks and enough space in my yard for a landing pad, that would be the way to go.
And then there are those of us Americans who love anything that will make a good solid gun platform and go through anything.
Just got this e-mail from my father-in-law.
When driving your new truck, here’s something to keep in mind:
The National Transportation Safety Board recently divulged they had
covertly" funded a project with the U.S. automakers for the past 5 years,
whereby the automakers were installing black-box voice recorders in 4-wheel drive pickup trucks and SUV’s in an effort to determine in fatal accidents,the circumstances in the last 15 seconds before the crash.[SIZE=2]
[/SIZE]They were surprised to find in 49 of the 50 states the recorded last words of drivers in 61.2 percent of fatal crashes were, “Oh Shit !”[SIZE=2]
[/SIZE]Only Texas was different, where 89.3 percent of the final words were:
“Hold my beer, I’m gonna try somethin.”
Heh, not just Americans. IIRC, the Afghanis used Toyota 4x4s to great effect against the Ruskies. Not surprising, considering the terrain.
I think it was actually the Taleban that made the most out of the Toyota 4x4. They started off as mercenaries who protected convoys of Pashtun truck drivers after the Soviet withdrawal and the mujahideem turned on each other like a pack of starving heyenas. Their subsequent use of the Hilux to rapidly move troops was a key factor in how quickly they were able to take over the majority of Afghanistan, defeating one warlord at a time until the remaining jackals formed the Northern Alliance.
The Somalis also use pick-ups for gun platforms. Seems like they have a lot more US makes in their inventory, though.
I wouldn’t mind installing a rig like this in the back of my truck.
This looks kind of cool, but might be a bit of overkill.
This might fit, though.