I have a pretty hard and fast rule about about buying American Built vehicles. I just say no. The FX16 is an exception to the rule but one it isn’t mine and two its a cool little car that has the heart of a Japanese car, so we let it slide.
So why then break the rule? We are moving. We are moving everything. Every car, every piece of equipment, every last nut and bolt is moving. And not close either. When we moved the shop from San Jose to Dixon it was a long effort to even find a place willing to accept that we wanted to store cars indoors. The Bay Area seems to have a massive prejudice against car people. I mean California in general makes modifying and collecting cars a challenge, but the Bay Area specifically seems to think that everyone should have some hippie commune electric car that they all share so we can save the planet together. Whatever. With only 30 days to move everything we don’t have time to play games with flakes that make up the Bay Area’s real estate scene so everything is moving to where I know things area easier. Nebraska.
The Sequoia is joining our team of rag tag Toyota’s as the “tow rig”. The 2UZFE V8 is rated around 280hp and 320lb-ft of torque. It has a rear air bag suspension system, and it even has an aftermarket brake controller already installed. It’s sorta like it was born to do this.
The Tundra would have made another great candidate but honestly the prices were higher. While a used Tundra that’s done some living can still be sold as a work truck, the Sequoia isn’t thought of as much in this way. Of course another factor could be that its close to $100 to fill the tank here in California. Not what I would call an economical choice for the area. Unless you plan to live in it. I mean hey, I’ve seen ads for worse places to stay on Craigslist.
It’s got some room for sure. With the 3rd row seats removed and the back seats flipped up you can actually put two rows of four 18 gallon totes down. You can stack those double high for a total of sixteen 18 gallon totes at once. Not too shabby for a soccer mom SUV.
I didn’t have a whole lot of time to shop around and be super particular about the vehicle I went with. We only looked at a handful of trucks before I decided on this one. It was the limited with the previously mentioned rear height control, it looked okay, and it was already on Toyo ATII which saved me from buying them for it. The other reason I wanted it. It had a very apparent exhaust leak.
While an exhaust leak isn’t a good thing, having a good idea of why someone traded in the car you are about to buy is. Sure some people get bored and get rid of things, but do you really want to take that chance on a vehicle that you want to make multiple trips across the country towing your stuff? Me, I’ll fix the exhaust leak and hope that’s the only reason they dumped this thing.
As an added bonus my camera fits very nicely in the place where the shifter should have been had Toyota not copied the other ‘merican trucks column shifter.
