1world1love
SILVER Star
While I have never really thought about doing a build thread, I have recently had a couple of requests to compile one and figured that I'd oblige. Also, I have exhausted other ways to spend my free time these days. Hopefully something I post in here will be as useful to somebody as the many things I have found useful in other's threads. There are a couple of things that I will mention for full disclosure:
My base vehicle on Day 1 (officially the cleanest it will ever be with me as owner):
I had been looking at 200s for about a year before I got serious about buying one. Like many on here, a Land Cruiser has been my dream vehicle for a long time. While my grandfather was always into Jeeps, my uncle broke with tradition one day and came home in a FJ60 when I was about 11. He loaded us up and we took it into the mountains for a week long camping trip. That's pretty much all it took.
In the intervening years, I have spent huge swaths of time backpacking as my primary outdoor recreation. As the years have caught up with my knees though, my ability to carry a week's worth of supplies up and down rugged terrain has diminished. In addition, we decided a few years ago to move out west. We found ourselves wanting to experience more of the vast, remote wilderness that exists in the western US. I made the argument to my wife that with a proper vehicle, we could get into the kind of remote places that we were used to when we were backpacking. She apparently saw the wisdom in that argument. Either that, or she realized that it was a mid-life crisis and the alternative was that I would run out and buy a completely impractical sports car.
Whatever the case, she agreed that our quality of life would improve if we had a Land Cruiser. As long as we didn't buy new, she was all in. So we looked, and looked, and looked. We looked at probably a dozen LCs which were all either over our budget, or not worth what was being asked. One day my wife asked me about the LX. There were quite a few more on the market and they all seemed to be lower mileage and lower priced. I hadn't considered an LX, mainly because it was a Lexus and I equated that with the country club set. We did a little research and then went to test drive a 2015 CPO. We were blown away at how much better shape it was in for the money. We were about to pull the trigger on it when my wife called me and told me about a single owner 2013 that just popped up at the local CarMax. We immediately went to test drive it.
106k miles, all serviced at a local dealer. Owner was an older gentleman (lawyer) who had lost the ability to drive and his out of state daughter dropped it off at CarMax and took him back east with her. The only ding on the service history was the all-too-familiar diff lock flashing light at around 76k. Mechanic's notes says the owner was accidentally hitting the diff lock button while trying to turn off the vehicle. Who knows, but it checked out fine at the dealership before purchase.
- Along with the truck mods, I may also post about trips, gear, and other related content. I usually post pics in the LX pic thread and occasionally to some of the other threads and I will still do that, but I usually take more pics than I post (even though I feel like I post a lot of pics) and I may post the extras in here.
- Sometimes my sense of humor is not as keen as I think it is. On the other hand, I never take myself too seriously. For anybody reading this thread, it's probably best not to take me too seriously either.
- I am not a mechanic and not much of a car enthusiast generally speaking. I am pretty handy though and I am perfectly happy to attempt some things, but some things I'd rather leave to the professionals. I am always impressed at folks that can dig in and attempt major mods on their own. I know that for a lot of people, that is half the fun. I do not judge anybody negatively who doesn't. Not everybody has the time, money, space, tools, experience, etc. I probably fall somewhere in between. If I say something stupid or wrong, feel free to correct me. I've got pretty thick skin and It's all part of the learning experience.
- This first post will be kind of wordy. Sorry about that. The TLDR is - I bought a 200 series.
My base vehicle on Day 1 (officially the cleanest it will ever be with me as owner):
I had been looking at 200s for about a year before I got serious about buying one. Like many on here, a Land Cruiser has been my dream vehicle for a long time. While my grandfather was always into Jeeps, my uncle broke with tradition one day and came home in a FJ60 when I was about 11. He loaded us up and we took it into the mountains for a week long camping trip. That's pretty much all it took.
In the intervening years, I have spent huge swaths of time backpacking as my primary outdoor recreation. As the years have caught up with my knees though, my ability to carry a week's worth of supplies up and down rugged terrain has diminished. In addition, we decided a few years ago to move out west. We found ourselves wanting to experience more of the vast, remote wilderness that exists in the western US. I made the argument to my wife that with a proper vehicle, we could get into the kind of remote places that we were used to when we were backpacking. She apparently saw the wisdom in that argument. Either that, or she realized that it was a mid-life crisis and the alternative was that I would run out and buy a completely impractical sports car.
Whatever the case, she agreed that our quality of life would improve if we had a Land Cruiser. As long as we didn't buy new, she was all in. So we looked, and looked, and looked. We looked at probably a dozen LCs which were all either over our budget, or not worth what was being asked. One day my wife asked me about the LX. There were quite a few more on the market and they all seemed to be lower mileage and lower priced. I hadn't considered an LX, mainly because it was a Lexus and I equated that with the country club set. We did a little research and then went to test drive a 2015 CPO. We were blown away at how much better shape it was in for the money. We were about to pull the trigger on it when my wife called me and told me about a single owner 2013 that just popped up at the local CarMax. We immediately went to test drive it.
106k miles, all serviced at a local dealer. Owner was an older gentleman (lawyer) who had lost the ability to drive and his out of state daughter dropped it off at CarMax and took him back east with her. The only ding on the service history was the all-too-familiar diff lock flashing light at around 76k. Mechanic's notes says the owner was accidentally hitting the diff lock button while trying to turn off the vehicle. Who knows, but it checked out fine at the dealership before purchase.
