- Joined
- Sep 21, 2021
- Threads
- 24
- Messages
- 78
- Location
- Walnut Creek, CA
- Website
- danspassionforcars.blogspot.com
Just introducing myself. Just got married on September 4th. My wife (still getting used to that term) had always wanted a white 80 series Landcruiser. That was her dream car, which if you met her, it would surprise you. I've always been a car guy, but very different kinds of cars. I still own my first car, a 1971 Fiat 124 Spider that I've owned since 1984 (yes, I'm old). My daily driver lately has been a Toyota Mirai, a hydrogen fuel cell car, so I'm all over the map from old school to cutting edge technology. We also just leased a 2021 Tesla Model 3, which seems to be more of a tech gadget than a car, but still a very impressive piece of tech. My kids first car was a car we inherited from my dad when he passed away, a 2001 Toyota Highlander, which took a beating and lasted until both kids graduated high school and went off to college and then some. Anyway, back to the Landcruiser. Finding a white one in good condition proved more of a challenge than we thought, but in July we found one on Auto Trader in Washington state (We're in Northern California) that looked great in the pictures. Got a hold of the seller, he walked around the car on a video chat and everything looked as good as it could from a distance anyway and we bought the car for what we felt was a very fair price and had it shipped to us. When it arrived, it looked even better than we'd hoped. The original paint and bodywork are all clean and in great shape, as is the interior. Fairly new tires, it ran well and everything worked pretty much (except for the antenna of course). But it did have the check engine light on and I took it into an independent shop to do a full inspection where we found that underneath it needed a fair amount of work, but nothing unexpected for a heavy duty car with 233,000 miles on it. It's back from the shop now after a few weeks, as they sourced parts and did the work. Now we need to get it smogged in California, so fingers crossed. Still need to drive it more so that all the codes reset. Be curious for any advice from anyone about anything to watch out for regarding smog in California on one of these rigs. The check engine light has not come back on and they worked on just about every aspect of the emissions system except the cats, which look good anyway. I guess I'll find out soon. I've been very active in other car communities for the other makes I've owned, and am sure that this community is just as awesome. I look forward to learning from you and hopefully even meeting some of you and turning a wrench together at some point. Be happy to hear from any of you if you have any recommendations/suggestions for things I should learn/do as a new owner. Once we get it smogged, have an appt. to get some interior things done, including a new double din apple carplay deck with backup camera, adjust the driver seat for my petite wife, have the wheels refinished to oem and a few other things. And yes, I know that was very very long. Respect if you made it this far.