Purple People-Eater

Some of you may know that I have a condition known as Frieberg's Disease, that affects the second toe on my left foot.  I've had this (and its associated pain) since the early 90s, however, in the last couple of years it seems I'm also developing arthritis in the joint.
   
This is what happens when you get older, people. Try to avoid it at all costs.

Driving any great distance in peak hour traffic (constantly on and off the clutch) has become unbearable. Even the orthopaedic specialists have asked if I'd thought about getting an automatic car.  Well, yes, I had thought about it, but I'm a manual girl and have never owned an auto.  Hell, I'd only driven an auto once in my life before.


Combine this with the fact that Steve was a tad unhappy about all the extra kilometres that I was putting on the Prado getting to and from work every day, and the decision was made to sell his Courier and buy a small, economical auto. After consulting our friendly mechanic, Steve's model of choice was a Mazda 3.

I won't bore you with the tedious looking-at-and-test-driving-of-vehicles drama, other than to say there's a whole lot of crap out there for $6000 (huge mileage, no logbooks - seriously, not one of the ones we looked at had logbooks, only the one key - apparently Mazda owners are a careless bunch who are too tight to pay the ridiculous key replacement cost), so we ended up having to borrow a little extra and look in the $7500-$8000 price range.

Lucky for us that we did, or we'd have never stumbled onto this brilliant little car.  One (retired female) owner, full logbook history, both keys, and genuine VERY LOW mileage, for the bargain price of $7500.  You'd scarcely believe it's a 2007 model.

I don't know about you, but when we saw it, we were sure it was maroon, but apparently it's purple. Phantom Purple Mica, in fact, according to Mazda.  In direct sunlight, it certainly appears more reddish, but in the shade or on an overcast day, it's definitely more purple.

It has been so well looked after and so rarely driven (for its age) that it looks and feels like a brand new car on the inside.  Sure, there are a few small nicks and scratches on the exterior, but overall, pretty damn good considering it's a 10 year old car.

When we bought it, it had done just under 48000 kilometres, so of course we had to take a photo when it finally rolled over to 48000.

That was two weeks ago now, though, and considering I do just under 500 km per week just travelling to and from work, it certainly won't take long before it has the kind of mileage that's usually seen in a 10 year old car.

After two weeks of driving it daily, although I've never once tried to use a non-existent clutch pedal, I still occasionally find my hand drifting out to change gears, and twice I've subconsciously gone to check that it was in neutral before starting, lol.  I'm blaming too many years of driving manuals and the fact that the auto transmission stick looks very much like a manual gear stick.

I'm sure that driving an auto will grow on me.  Eventually.

Swanning Around (aka Resistance Is Futile)

Let me just start by saying that we already have a perfectly good soft floor camper trailer.  It's not new by any means, but it's still in great condition and does the job well.  It's also compact and fits nicely in the garage under our house, behind our second roller door.  We've had some great camping trips in it over the years.

For a while now, Steve has been wanting to get rid of our camper and buy another wind-up camper van.  I say "another", because we've previously owned two of the same sort - where you put up the roof and pull the beds out at each end.  We've owned one which was wind-up and the other had a stupid hinged arm setup for lifting the roof. The less said about that one, the better, although it did make it to Uluru and back in one piece, which is about the nicest thing I have to say about it.

Now, when you question him, Steve has tried to give rational reasons for wanting to replace our camper with one of these. It takes too long to set up, Cheyenne doesn't have a built-in bed of her own, blah, blah, blah.  His real reason (which he won't admit to) is that everyone else - all of his brothers, his parents and most of our friends - have either wind-ups or full caravans, and he's been feeling left out.  That, and we've owned the current one nearly five years and he's reached his boredom threshold.

Here's the thing: they go to caravan parks! We don't. We usually go bush or beach camping, on unpowered sites, so there's really not much point having a caravan.  

There's also the fact that we don't really have room to store a van. And, we already have a perfectly good camper trailer. And, a wind-up isn't exactly a top priority in our budget when there are a million and one things that should be fixed around the house.  And, I could go on.  In fact, I have been holding out against this idea for a long time now.  Steve needed reinforcements, so he convinced Cheyenne she'd be better off with a proper bed rather than a stretcher, and the pair of them ganged up on me. Two against one.  He has not-so-subtly been leaving Gumtree ads open on the PC so I will see the photos and I've been getting "Don't let it get away" reminder emails from eBay about the ones he's looked at there.

Resistance is futile, though.  Regardless of all the reasons why this isn't really a good idea, he wants, so ultimately, he gets. In the end, I gave up fighting. It's not worth the effort.  As with his cars, and boats, change is inevitable.

Last weekend we picked up our "new" camper. It's a 1998 Jayco Swan.

The plan was to bring it home and set it up in the backyard to give it a good clean out. This would require a bit of "trailer shuffling" (take boat trailer out, put Jayco Swan in, put boat trailer back in), but luckily we have two vehicles with towballs.

Here's where accurate measurements would have come in handy!  It's all very well to say it's 2100mm wide, but you also need to remember to include the clearance lights, roof clips, handles, and anything else that sticks out.  Especially when you have less than 2400mm clearance between the house and the side fence!

To say that it was a mission to reverse it up the slope of our yard and under the carport without hitting anything would be an understatement.  It's a mission of epic proportions. Think "search for the Holy Grail" epic. It is a very tight squeeze, with only a few centimetres on either side between the Swan and the house and fence. I wouldn't even dream of attempting it, but luckily Steve is extremely good at reversing. As it was, after we'd unhitched it from the car (because the car is too wide to fit up the side of the house) and were pushing it back by hand, we managed to break the plastic cover on one of the clearance lights by hitting it on a carport post.

"It's ok," he says, "the garage door is wider, so when we put it under the house it'll be a lot easier."  "Are you sure you won't hit the steel shelving inside the garage?" I ask.  "No, it's all good, I'll just have to move the cupboard back a bit behind it because it's a bit longer than the old camper."

We gave it a good scrub, inside and out, including the canvas, and transferred all of our cutlery, crockery, pots and pans, and cooking utensils from the old camper. A few minor repairs to the door lock and step and a bit of paint on the drawbar and chassis rails, and she was ready to go under the house (so we can leave it opened up while packing for a weekend away this coming weekend).

Cue the trailer shuffling, only this time, add the old camper trailer to the mix.  Oh, and the old camper has a completely different type of towing hitch that doesn't use a towball, just to add to the "fun".  Boat trailer out, Swan out, boat trailer back up the side of the house, change towing hitch, old camper out from the garage under the house and put up the side of the house in front of the boat trailer (so it's easy to get at when potential buyers come to look at it after we advertise it next week), Swan into garage under the house. Phew!

All this, we did last night after Steve got home from work. The drama we had getting it up the side of the house in the first place?  Imagine that at night (with only a single fluoro light to see the minimal clearance available). In the rain. With a sloped yard, full of wet grass. 

But wait, there's more...

I'll say it again. Accurate measurement is key. Measure twice, cut once, as they say.  Did I not suggest the steel shelving along the wall of the garage was going to be in the way? Were my concerns not ignored? (see previous conversation mentioned several paragraphs above)

Was I not, in fact, correct?  You're damn right I was.

Much swearing from Steve when he realised his error. Lots of eye rolling and "I did tell you, but nobody ever listens to me" from me.  

After some creative angling and decisions to cut and re-weld not one but two entire shelving units at some point in the near future (because the Swan is longer than he'd thought, as well as wider), it's in the garage.  I may now be down 4 washing lines (the Swan is also a lot higher than the old camper) and can no longer see the screen on our solar inverter (to keep an eye on it to check it's functioning correctly), but it's in and we can close our roller door.

If our mate Jason hadn't come over to help us, I'm positive Steve and I wouldn't be talking to each other right now.

Still Cruising After All Of These Years

Well, it had to happen. We've hit that 5 year mark that's the upper limit on Steve's boredom threshold. Naturally this means it's time to change cars. Again.  I was blissfully unaware that this also meant I had to change MY car as well.

The clear coat was starting to go on the paintwork on the Cruiser, and there were a few other minor niggles that were starting to get on Steve's nerves (one being that I hated driving it), and the paintwork is shot on my Mazda and it had a few overheating issues, so he decided it was time to sell the Cruiser AND my Mazda.  The plan was to replace them with a 2nd generation Prado (which would be predominantly my daily driver) and a dual cab 4WD ute that could be loaded up with the trail bikes or taken to the boat ramp.

Not one to let the grass grow under his feet, Steve started looking in mid-January, and had found a 2005 Ford Courier in no time at all.  As we hadn't even advertised the Cruiser, we had no intentions of actually buying a replacement just then, but it turned out to be too good of a bargain (they were asking $4500 but we got it for $3500) to pass up.

 Bargain ute

Having 3 cars was not exactly part of the plan, so we had to get a move on selling the Cruiser and Mazda. I didn't want to sell my car until I had a replacement to drive, so the Cruiser had to be first to go.  It took just over a month, but we sold it for $19000, which was only just under what we were hoping for. 

 Bye-bye 100 Series

Steve already had a firm idea of what model Prado he was after, so we knew we'd have to extend our home loan a little to get the extra money we'd need.  We test drove several, both manual and automatic, before finding the right one.  It's a 2003 model, manual, 3 litre inter-cooled turbo diesel with 107000 on the clock.  It's a little older than the 05-06 models we'd been looking at, but those low kms and the immaculate condition really sold us on it, and Steve got the car yard down to the price of $24000, drive away.

Our new Landcruiser Prado

It is an absolute dream to drive AND I get to park in the garage, lol.  What could be better than that?  Well, selling my Mazda would help.  We just have to get a road worthy and give it a good wash and polish - not that doing that will help all that much, lol.  Let's face it. Anyone buying it will not be buying it for looks.  The clear coat is so stuffed that it's gone white and flaky (OMG my car has dandruff!), it's covered in hail dents and scratches from supermarket trolley run-ins, but it IS reliable and economical. It would make a great second car for someone who just uses it for daily running to and from the train station or the local shops.  I will NOT be telling potential buyers that it is an imaginary car, though. After all, nobody warned me!

Edit 10 April:
Sold my Mazda!  Our mobile mechanic has bought it as he has a friend who wants it but doesn't have the money right now.  After subtracting the cost of the things that needed to be addressed to pass the roadworthy from the potential sale price of $1000, we have come out of it with $750, which has been spent on having a flash new Alpine stereo (or Mobile Media Station, as it says on the box) installed in the Prado.  All touch screen controls and capable of playing movies, and we've also had a reversing camera hooked up to the screen.  Not sure that all that swanky tech is completely necessary, but somebody had his heart set on it.

Cruisin' Again

After hearing from Chris (the seller) that he’d finally had the road worthy done, we arranged to drive up to Toowoomba on Thursday afternoon to hand over the bank cheque and sign the transfer papers. Steve had an easy day and was home from work by 2.30pm, so we picked Cheyenne up from school half an hour early and headed off to try to avoid peak hour traffic.

Chris had loaded the boot of the Cruiser up with the rear row of seats, which he’d kept in storage, and all the spare parts he had for it. He’d found his missing second remote for the central locking (saving us $44, which is how much Toyota charges for a replacement) and mounted the roof rack. We really would have preferred not to take the roof rack, but I guess he just wanted to get rid of it to clear out some space in his shed.

Driving back at night, we discovered that both the glove box and ashtray have internal lights, which is very handy, but that the Toyota stereo is too well lit, making the dashboard distractingly bright. Fortunately, we still have our mp3 CD stereo and UHF, which we kept out of our previous vehicles, which we will be installing instead.

The colour is Dark Green Mica, but it is an unusual chameleon-like colour - depending on the angle of the light, it looks green, blue or even black!

The first job was to remove the roof rack so that the Cruiser would fit under our roll-a-door and be parked in our garage. With a little help from a mate (who is also kindly allowing us to store it at his workshop), the rack was removed Friday night. Unfortunately, this means my poor little Mazda has been banished to the driveway once again, lol.

Over the weekend, Steve attempted to mount his spotlights to the bullbar, but we have discovered that, although the plastic SmartBar may indeed be nice and bendy and “pedestrian safe”, the fact is that it is bloody useless for mounting spotties. It’s far too flexy, so that the spotties vibrate annoyingly and can’t be adjusted to the right angle. We also need to change the bracket for the aerial mount for the UHF, so rather than spending a lot of time messing about trying to get it right, Steve is looking around for a second-hand alloy or steel bullbar. He just phoned to tell me he may have tracked one down already (can't let the grass grow under your feet, lol). Next on the list is stripping and re-tinting the windows.




I now officially have too much on my keyring! (Not that I am removing any of it) Who knew that one Toyota key and a central locking remote could add so much extra weight? Maybe the plastic is heavier on the 100 Series key than on previous models?

It's good to have a Cruiser again!

Out with the New, In with the Old...

No surprise really...

I already knew from the moment that Steve bought the Navara, that it wouldn't last long. You just can't have 5 Landcruisers in a row then be happy with a 3 litre 4 cylinder. It's only half a car!

Steve had decided that as soon as we returned home from our trip up north, that he'd advertise the Navara for sale. After a bit of discussion amongst the family and seeking advice from several car yards, we decided to remove the alloy tray and canopy and refit the original style-side tub. We were assured that we'd still get the money we were hoping to get with the style-side back on and we knew we'd have no problem selling the tray and canopy.

The tray and canopy sold within a few days of the ad being listed, as we thought it would. The particular canopy we had is hard to find second-hand, and much sought after.

Then we sent the Navara off to a spray painter mate to have a dent fixed and a few scratches touched up. We had originally told the guy we bought the Navara from that we'd get the dent fixed ourselves so he didn't need to, and he'd knocked a bit off the price to compensate us. So what if we only actually got it fixed so that we could sell it, lol.

Then it was off to the DOT to take our personalised plates off and replace them with a standard set, off to get the road worthy and safety certificate done (no prizes for guessing who ran these errands) then we took some photos and I uploaded the ad to the Trading Post.

After a slight drama with the Trading Post having two categories for Navaras - "Nissan Navara" and "Nissan Navara Ute" (despite the fact that they only ever came out as utes) - and our ad being in the Navara Ute category which didn't show up with a keyword search for "Nissan Navara", two phone calls and a whole lot of waiting on hold later, we had this changed and the phone calls from potential buyers started.

A man came round during the week and took it for a test drive. He loved it, and came back on Saturday with a bank cheque. He paid us $20500 for it. Not bad at all, considering we only paid $18500 when we bought it!

Naturally, Steve had already been scouring various car sales websites looking for potential replacements, and he'd picked out a nice dark green standard diesel GXL 100 Series Cruiser at Toowoomba. He'd phoned the seller a few times before we'd sold our Navara, and chatted about the vehicle. It was exactly what he wanted. The plan is to buy a standard diesel and save up the $5000 to get a turbo fitted to it. Two reasons for this - 1. factory turbo diesels in the 1998-2003 models are still selling for upwards of $35 thousand, which is well out of our price range, and 2. factory turbos come standard with independent front end suspension, and Steve would prefer a diff front end.

Sunday morning, we rolled out of bed (rolled being the appropriate word, after a night of eating huge steaks at Outback Jack's Restaurant... for those of you interested -no, Steve did NOT complete the challenge [see below pic], although he made a very good attempt, and my eye fillet was more than enough for me) and Steve phoned the guy selling the Cruiser in Toowoomba. He still had it, so we arranged to drive up and inspect it.

1 KG of rump, plus wedges and steamed veg! (If you eat it in half an hour, you get it for half price and get a t-shirt and your photo on their wall.)

After a bit of looking over the vehicle, taking it for a test drive and a whole lot more chin-wagging, we decided to buy it for the $22000 asking price. It's a little more than we wanted to spend, and for the first time ever Steve wasn't able to haggle for a cheaper price, but it is well worth the money.

They still need to get the road worthy, and we're still waiting on the bank cheque to clear from the people who bought our Navara, so it probably won't officially be "ours" until the end of the week, when we sign the transfer papers.

We're more than happy to be trading our 2005 model Navara for a 1998 Cruiser.

I promise to post pics once we get it.

Imaginary Car Strikes Again

Armed with the knowledge that my car is actually a Protegé, we mistakenly believed that this would solve all my problems with regard to ordering parts for my ’95 BG.

I knew it was too good to be true!

Steve dropped in to his favourite auto parts supplier and ordered a full set of Ultima shockies. Yes, they make them to fit a ’95 323 Protegé, they’re made in Australia, the distributor is local and they’d be available the next day, and they are considerably less expensive than other brands. I went in, paid for and picked them up on Friday. $500 for the full set – thanks Mr Rudd!



Next stop, the library. After applying for a whole new library card – apparently my previous one was too old to be reactivated, even though my details hadn’t changed (WTF?), I borrowed a repair manual that covers Ford Lasers from 1990-1994 and Mazda 323 Sedan and Astina (hatches) from 1989-1994. Now, I know I’ve got a ’95 323, but I figured that, as the repair manuals from ’95 onwards seemed to only cover BA and later models, I’d take my chances that my ’95 BG was pretty much the same as the ’94 BGs. So far, so good.

So, after reading the manual and explaining it all step-by-step to Steve, he removed my front shock absorber and spring. It really was as easy as the parts guy said it would be… until we took the new shock absorber out of the box and discovered that the diameter of the spring seat was not as large as my original, so my spring wouldn’t fit! It was clear to me that, although they were for a ’95 model, they were probably for the BA and not the BG. Here we go again...

Damn Mazda and their 18 month model crossover period! I’m seriously over this! If I ever find the person/s responsible for compiling after market parts databases and leaving out my year model, I will belt them over the head with my old struts!

Well, the first lot were going back to the shop! To be on the safe side, we also removed the rear shock on the same side, so that I could take my originals in to compare them. Just as well, since the brackets on the rear shock they’d given us weren’t the same as my originals, either! I was more than prepared, if all else failed, to go directly to the actual distributors at Albion, show them my originals and refuse to leave until I had the correct replacements!

These are supposed to be the same diameter!

That's more like it!

First thing Monday morning, Steve got onto Robert, the parts guy, who said he’d order some to fit a ’94 model and we’d see if they fit my ’95. A few hours later they’d arrived so I took the first lot back (along with my originals) to swap them for a second lot. I walk in, carrying the boxes and he looks at me and says “Ah, shock absorbers for a car that doesn’t exist” Yep, you said it mate!

Second time lucky, I hope. At least this second lot look exactly the same as my originals and my spring fits nicely into the spring seat! Promising start… now let’s see if they go back into my car properly!

Monday night, Steve’s Dad came over to give him a hand to fit the shocks to my car. It all seemed to go together smoothly, and after a test drive, Steve labelled it a job well done.

Finally, success!
Now I just need to get new tyres and a wheel alignment…

My Imaginary Car

I need new tyres for the Mazdabator. The ones I currently have are incredibly noisy due to being scalloped. Yes, you can hear them over the stereo (which is saying something, considering the volume I have it at). Of course, before I get new tyres I have to replace all four shock absorbers because they are all badly worn, and the rear shockies are leaking. Mr Rudd has kindly offered to pay for new shockies and tyres (Thanks, Kev!) - all I have to do is buy them.

Herein lies the problem. It seems there is a persistent theory amongst suppliers of after market vehicle parts that my car simply does not exist. It is a theory that appears to be supported by my extensive research on the internet.

Let me explain. When we first bought my car I wanted to order a dashmat and some weather shields. Now, according to the compliance plate on the firewall of my car, I have a Mazda 323K, BG model, paint colour 11R (Sparkle Green), built in September 1995. You'd think that would be sufficient information, wouldn't you? I don't know what the "K" stands for in 323K, but I've found absolutely no information about this anywhere, so this just adds to the mystery.

Well, off I went to Supercheap, Autobarn, etc, etc to try to order a dashmat. I wasn't expecting to find one in stock since my car is more than 10 years old, but I did think I'd be able to order one. Apparently not. After checking various catalogues it seemed like the manufacturers stopped making dashmats to fit BGs in 1994 and the only ones they made for 1995 were to fit the Astina (hatchback version of the 323, which has a completely different interior) and Protege (the top-of-the-range version of my car) models. I ended up getting one through GrandPrix Mazda at a higher price... when it arrived it turned out to be for a 1994 model (!) but at least it fits! Same deal with the weather shields, however Stoneshield (who actually manufacture them) assured me the ones for the Protege would fit because it is the same body shape, so the doors would be the same.

Now all the info I can find says that the Protege had a 1.8 lt engine (and maybe had electric windows, being the "flash" model), so clearly mine is a standard 323 because it only has the 1.6 lt engine. Then again, apparently Mazda had something like a dozen different models available globally, all with slight variations, so who knows for sure?

Back to the shockies. Pedders want $424 for the front pair and $424 for the rear pair, plus an extra $300 in labour to fit them. Um... no thanks! There must be a better price out there! So we ring around. Repco sell Monroe shocks and Autobarn sell some American brand I'd never heard of... but not to fit my car! You guessed it - the same old story! It doesn't exist.

Conversation goes something like this: "Hi, I'm after a price on shockies for my Mazda 323" "What model and year is that for?" "It's a 1995 BG model" (pause, while they search for the details in their parts catalogue...) "Was that for an Astina?" "No, just the 323" "Not a Protege?" "No" "Well, the BG model wasn't manufactured after 1994, are you sure it isn't a BA?" "It says BG on the compliance plate" "Well, if it's 1995 it can't be. Are you sure it isn't a 94 model?" "I'm sure, never mind"

In desperation I go to GrandPrix Mazda and do my best "dumb blonde / female driver" impersonation. Well, not really, but I'm positive that's what they think. I hover between the Parts and Service counters. "Hi, I'm not quite sure if this is a parts or a service query... I want to know exactly what model I'm driving." (Condescending looks.) "I know it says it's a 323K BG, built in Sep 95, but if I give you my VIN can you please double check that, because I'm having a hard time locating parts for it" The same guy who ordered my dashmat looks up and says "You again, what's wrong this time?" "Well Paul, apparently my car still doesn't exist" He chuckles. I'm so glad to have brightened his day. Really I am.

Turns out that the BG was produced from 1991 through to May 1996, so all these after market parts databases are wrong! He says I should tell them that Paul from GrandPrix says they are "boofheads" if they want to argue. I can, and do have, a BG. Knowing I'm right doesn't help with ordering parts, though. Paul says to tell them I've got a 95 Protege. "But it's only a 1.6 and I thought Protege's all had the 1.8 ?" Apparently not all of them. "It doesn't actually say Protege anywhere on it..." He can sell me a Protege badge for $3, if I'd like. No, that's ok.

Hmmm. I'm still not entirely convinced my car is not a figment of my imagination, but at least it will now (hopefully) be easier to order parts. I still don't know what the K means...


ps. Have found a better price - Ultima shocks, Aussie made, $250 for front pair, $250 for rear pair... and the plan is to replace them ourselves to save labour costs. Have the right tools (including a set of spring compressors)... just need a workshop manual!

It's a Nissan...

...and that's my car!

(Pretty sure that's how the jingle used to go, anyway...)

As promised, I've finally gotten around to taking a photo of our new car, so I've put the "before" and "after" pics up for you all to see. We picked it up last Wednesday night, but Steve only did the tinting on it last Friday evening.

Thankfully, this one doesn't require much to be done. Steve has already installed his UHF and aerial, swapped out the original Nissan stereo for our Kenwood mp3 CD player, bought some new speakers for the front doors - for some strange reason the original ones had stopped working - and put his huge spotties on the bull bar. He just has to finish wiring them up properly to a switch on the dash.

He is still undecided as to whether he will keep the styleside tray it has now or whether to change it for an alloy dropside tray. This really depends on whether he can find a fibreglass canopy with the window configuration he wants, at the right price (ie. bargain). In the meantime, he's removed the polished chrome rear carry bar and the cargo pins, so that it looks a little less like a workhorse. (Photo with vehicle facing left is from the Trading Post ad, so you can see the carry racks it had)

All that's left to do now is the rust-proofing - both spray on and electronic, for good measure - and possibly some minor panel work on the dent. You can't really see it in the photo, but it is just above the side indicator on the front driver's side guard.

Hopefully, as this one is a turbo diesel with plenty of power, and isn't even 4 years old yet, he will decide this vehicle is our "keeper"... well, at least for the next half a dozen years anyway!

Fingers crossed!

The Quick or the Dead

It seems I was wrong.
$19 000 will be enough to purchase a turbo diesel ST-R Navara, after all.

It's all in the timing. When perusing the Trading Post or Carsales.com, the trick is to check daily and be on the ball. If you find a potential vehicle (right car at the right price with low kms) and you don't phone straight away, you will probably find that it has already been sold by the time you get around to it.

After spending Saturday night down the coast, catching up with old friends for North Kirra Surf Club's 60th Anniversary celebrations (Steve's an ex-lifesaver), Steve returned home about 3pm and sat down at the computer to look for a new car. Jackpot! He found a likely candidate in an ad that had only been uploaded Saturday evening. A 2005 model, silver, style-side tray, turbo diesel ST-R Navara with only 150 000 kms on the clock (which is practically new for a diesel engine), at Labrador, for $20 000. It even comes with polished chrome carry bars, for carrying ladders, etc. "You'd get that for $19 000, easily" says Steve. I've said it before... his middle name should be 'haggle' - he will never pay the asking price. So he phoned the seller and asked about the car and whether he'd take $19 000 for it (yes, he would) and told him we'd be down in about an hour to have a look at it. So off we went, to a street at Labrador that Steve had driven right past on his way home earlier! Oh well... you get that!

The paintwork isn't perfect since it has been used as a work vehicle, but most of the scratches (from toolboxes and cabinets, since the current owner is a shopfitter/cabinetmaker) are confined to the inside of the tray. It has a small crease dent on the top of the right front guard, next to the bonnet. He had booked the car in to the panel beaters to get that fixed before selling.

We took it for a test drive, and as you'd expect from a four year old car, it drives perfectly well and has plenty of power. We decided to take it.

Rather than wait another two weeks (the earliest he could get it booked into the panel beaters), Steve asked him if he'd take $18 500 for it and we'd get the dent fixed ourselves. If you know Steve, you know he seems to know someone in every possible trade, and yes, we know a panel beater. He accepted our offer and we gave him $500 deposit. All he has to do now is get the road worthy done (hopefully today) and pay out the remaining amount owing on his lease to release the finance interest. Once the finance company processes his payment and advises him that it is officially "financially unencumbered", he'll give us a call and we will be able to go down to pay him, sign the transfer papers and pick up our new Navara.

At least the search and acquisition process was quick and painless... and did I mention the best bit? It's not white! Thank goodness we won't look like we own another "commercial vehicle". OK, so that might seem minor to you, but trust me, we don't really want to do that again. Not to mention white is too hard to keep looking clean!

After being Toyota owners for the last ten years, we have now crossed over to the 'dark side' and become the owners of a... gasp! ... Nissan. That might take some getting used to.

I'll post some pics when we bring it home.

♫ Money, Money, Money...♫

Nineteen grand. All hundreds. Not something you see very often. Unless of course you win lotto, marry a millionaire, or hit an investment jackpot... or have a successful career in armed robbery, I guess.

We sold our Hilux this morning. The bloke phoned during the week, said he was coming down from Childers this weekend to look at another Hilux on the Sunshine Coast, and ours, if we still had it. He asked if we had the Safety Certificate and paperwork ready to go, because he'd be bringing cash (as long as Steve'd take $19 000 for it, a grand less than the $20 000 we'd advertised it for) and if he liked it, he'd take it straight away.

We had, and he did. He checked it out, took it for a test drive, signed the transfer papers, handed over an envelope full of cash, and drove off in his new car.

Normally banks try to talk you out of hanging onto that much cash. They try to steer you towards a bank cheque (which naturally attracts a fee, so that's better for them) or at the very least, direct deposit. Consequently, we've never seen this much cold hard cash in one place.

Why do people say "cold hard cash" ?? Sure, if you're talking coins, but notes? They're neither cold, nor hard. OK, so maybe I should say a "thick wad of cash", which, let's face it, it certainly was!

Steve and I had a chuckle about it after they'd left. It was just a little bit 'gangster' - his wife pulled this envelope (albeit an ANZ Bank envelope) containing a thick wad of cash done up with rubber bands, out of her handbag. "It's all there, you can count it", she says. It brings to mind scenes from movies. People just don't do that these days, so we had to take a photo for posterity.

You wouldn't believe the cheek of some people though. We'd advertised it for sale at $20 000. It was after all, a 2004 model, with only 86 thousand kms on the clock. Car yards would have been asking over $25 000, and if the paintwork had been pristine, we could have asked a few grand extra as well. As it was, it was nicely priced. Steve received a text on his mobile that said "Mate, I got $15 000. Worth coming to look?" Steve sent a text back "NO". Another bloke sent an email saying "I've got $17 000. I'll take it without the mag wheels and tyres." Seriously? ...um... NO!

$19 000 is probably a bit less that we need to get a decent turbo diesel ST-R Nissan Navara, but still a couple of grand more than the Hilux owed us, so you have to be happy with that!

This means that the hunt for a replacement vehicle can now begin in earnest... AGAIN !

I don't even want to think about that just yet.

Record Breaker

In the immortal words of Kevin 'Bloody' Wilson (from the song Dick'taphone, for those of you who are interested)... "Ah shit, I don't believe it, here we f*ckin' go again!"

It seems that the new Hilux will not only hold the record for being the Newest Vehicle We've Owned (to date), but it will likely take line honours from the Barina, to take out the title for the Vehicle We've Owned the Shortest Length of Time.

Why?

Although a great car to drive on its own, it is only a standard diesel, and as such, is sadly lacking in enough power to tow the tinnie in the manner in which Steve is accustomed. It has been tried and tested... but sadly it did not pass Steve's test!
Towing the tinnie into a headwind on the highway and only managing to do 90 km/h with foot flat to the floor, is apparently not good enough. Towing same tinnie up the Gateway Bridge and only getting about 50 km/h in second gear ? Well, that's hilarious really, considering my Mazdabator can get slowed down to 50 km/h in the traffic but still manage to pick back up to 80 km/h before the top of the bridge... without changing down out of fifth gear !

So, with the trip to Rainbow Beach coming up in July (up and down all those hills!) and a fishing trip to Hinchinbrook planned for September, Steve has decided to cut his losses and put the Hilux on the market immediately (accompanied by much eye-rolling and "I told you so"s by me).
This will give us plenty of time to find a replacement and get it set up ready for fishing.

All that stuffing around and time wasted getting wheels and tyres, alloy tray, side steps, yada yada yada... and for what? So that it looks more presentable and will sell faster!

Time WAS wasted making this vehicle aesthetically pleasing for Steve. I will NEVER get back (that's right! Not Steve, me!) the hour or so wasted while I waited for the wheels and tyres to be fitted, nor the almost 5 hours I waited when the wheel studs needed to be replaced (waited twice as long as I should have due to the incorrect parts being delivered the first time round)... and do you think he can answer the phone when the silly woman from Kirby phones back and tell her that I've discussed it with him and "No we don't want a Kirby demonstration" ???
Of course he bloody can't! He can't even thank me for wasting my time!

Who knows what vehicle we'll end up with next. He's thinking maybe a dual cab Nissan Navara (in a turbo diesel this time), but I'm not sure I even care. I do know he'll phone me every time he stops at a car yard or the auctions or scans the Trading Post, to tell me all about the latest prospect - the whole damn process we went through in December, all over again.

I also know that next time I'm going to try and manage to be unavoidably unavailable whenever the vehicle needs to be taken to tyre shops, mechanics, etc, etc... unless I'm getting some sort of reward (monetary or otherwise) out of it!

I wonder what the hourly rate for Executive Assistants is these days???

Stranded at Spotlight

I went to Spotlight yesterday... (as you do, since there is nowhere else to buy haberdashery these days... Hell, half the country doesn't even know what haberdashery is!)
I was on a mission to buy some cord and a spring-toggle (you know, the things that are usually found on the drawstring on the bag a sleeping bag comes in, to hold it closed) to modify Cheyenne's new school hat. Whatever for, you ask. Well, let me explain.

Remember back when we went to primary school? If we even wore a uniform (definitely optional, at the school I went to), our parents would, if they could be bothered, label our clothes, hats, etc by writing on a tag and sewing or ironing it onto the item...and that would have been enough! These days, it is apparently necessary to make the item easily identifiable from the outside as well as having a name label inside, in case someone else wanders off wearing your child's item. When every child has a navy blue, broad-brimmed school hat, I guess I can see the benefit, so I've opted to change the colour of the chin-strap cord on the hat.

Anyway, back to Spotlight. I love Spotlight. You can, and I often do, spend hours there, just browsing. Yesterday, browsing was much easier due to the fact that Cheyenne is having a sleepover at Steve's Mum and Dad's. That's right, no "Mummy I need to go to the toilet", "I'm hungry", "I don't want to walk, can we get a trolley?", "When are we going home?" Bliss.

The bliss lasted until I'd finished both my browsing and required shopping, and got in the car to head home. I turned the key...and, nothing! Not even a click. No, I hadn't left any lights on, and it had been fine when I left home that morning. Turn off the air con and try again. Still nothing. The charge light and other normal warning lights were still showing up on the dash, but maybe they were a little faint...probably a flat-ish battery. OK, phone Steve. He is working on the other side of town and can't really leave, and suggests I try checking my fuses. Good idea, except that I don't have any pliers in my car and can't pull the fuses out with the useless little plastic "tool" supplied in the fuse box. Fine, I'll call the RACQ. It is what I pay them some phenomenal amount each year for, after all. May as well get my money's worth! Someone will be there in around 45 minutes. They tell me to keep an eye out for him. Gee, what else would I be doing? Not like there's anything else to do in the car park! So I wait.

He arrives, puts his volt meter on my battery, then asks me to turn the key. Like a coroner, he pronounces it dead at the scene. Apparently it is fully charged, but collapses "under load" (ie, when you turn the key). Now for the bad news - since it isn't a simple collapsed cell, but a "break", it can't be jump started! What? OK, so I'm not an auto electrician and I don't know what a "break" is, but I secretly suspect that it's RACQ-speak for "Sucker, you'll have to buy one of the really expensive ones we have in the back of the service truck." Steve already told me not to buy one from them because we can get a better deal through one of his mates (that doesn't sound like Steve, does it? LOL)

Mr RACQ asks me was I planning on keeping my car. Gee, er...let me think...um... Der! I replied, hesitantly, "Ye..s", wondering all the while if he really thinks it looks that bad. (You know, I could have sworn a new battery would be cheaper than a whole new car...) I decided not to tell him I've only owned it for 3 months!
I politely told him I wouldn't be buying one of his batteries, so he told me they could put my car on a tow truck but I only get 10kms free (and it would be an hour wait for the tow truck). Won't get it home, but would get it to my Mum's. Phoned Steve. He says not to bother, he'll get his Dad to bring me a spare battery out of his brother's car. OK. Mr RACQ dubiously asks if I'm sure, then leaves. Steve rings back. His Dad doesn't want to risk spilling battery acid all over his brand new Ford Territory and isn't sure if the battery is the right size anyway, and can I call the tow truck?
No I bloody can't! I don't have the number, and the battery on my phone is almost flat too!

By now, it is raining and I am well and truly over it all. I've spent all my money, dammit, and I want to go home and put my feet up. I phone my brother. He doesn't start work until later and can pick me up. I can wait at my Mum's for Steve to finish work. When Steve finally picks me up at 5.30pm he wonders if, although the car cannot be jump-started, can it be clutch-started? We decide to try. The carpark has cleared out a bit by now, and since I'm parked on a slight slope, that will make it easier to push and keep the car rolling. Started like a dream after rolling less than 4 metres.
Remind me again why I'm paying for RACQ membership???

Got home no worries, although, once turned off it would need to be clutch-started to get it going again. Not a problem, since I should have a new battery by this afternoon anyway.

Let this be a lesson to you - regular checking of the water levels in the cells of your battery is a must. Apparently, running each cell bone dry is a bad thing, and is undoubtedly what caused the "break".

On the bright side, at least Mr uppity RACQ didn't check this, so could not stare at me with the scorn, reserved by men, for "women drivers" that don't maintain their vehicles.

Changing of the Guard - A New Beginning

Before After



Well, we finally have a new vehicle. We found our 2004 Hilux dual-cab at Pickles (an auction house) on Christmas Eve, and put in an offer of $14000 on it. The engineering company that owned it accepted our offer pretty much on the spot (they'd originally wanted around $17500 but it had been there for over 3 weeks and hadn't attracted any interest at that price, so they were happy to sell it), however we had to wait until the following Monday for it to get a roadworthy, before we could get it registered and take it home.

The top picture is how it looked when we purchased it - oxidised paint, steel tray, plain steel wheel rims, covered in red dirt and dust...oh yeah, and complete with orange rotating light !
The engineering company did a lot of work for mining companies, so we discovered it had a few other features designed to comply with mining workplace health and safety regulations - internal roll bar (we're keeping this), headlights wired up so that they are on whenever the engine is running (day or night) for extra visibility, and an extra loud reverse beeper - no, not the sort old fogies buy from Supercheap to put on their cars, I'm talking about the sort you find on large trucks, heavy vehicles... or in fact, on mine trucks!

Less than two weeks later, and it looks like a totally different vehicle (second picture).

Steve's first mission was to give it a polish. The paint has improved, but as it is quite oxidised, this is still a work in progress. Then he fixed up the headlight wiring so that they can actually be turned off during the day. This also included plugging the dashboard lights back in and replacing dash bulbs (clearly unplugged so that they weren't on during the day annoying the driver) - discovered this little "feature" the first night we drove it and couldn't read the speedo in the dark! Then, of course, the reverse beeper was disconnected - no more waking the neighbourhood backing out of our garage late at night...

Next began the serious search for wheels and tray. Steve is a tad obsessed with the aesthetics of his vehicles, to put it lightly, lol. They simply are not allowed to look ugly. I must admit though, the alloy tray is not just for looks. It has a practical side, being that it will not rust from frequent beachwork, unlike its steel counterpart. Ditto for alloy wheel rims, versus the original plain steel ones. Luckily he found both a suitable alloy tray and a near new set of sidesteps at a wreckers and they gave him a discount because he was buying both items. A bit of hard yakka, a whole lot of adjusting and a fair bit of swearing later, and the new tray (previously from a Holden Rodeo) and sidesteps were fitted to his satisfaction. The old steel tray was advertised in the Trading Post and a bloke drove all the way from Biloeila to buy it!

The wheels are a bit of a saga. We were checking out prices for rims and tyres at Fourby's and they had a secondhand set of alloy rims that would suit the Hilux. We said we'd take them and ordered a set of new tyres to go on them. When we arrived to have them fitted, the tyres hadn't been delivered yet. While waiting to hear back about our ordered tyres, we bought a secondhand set of the tyres we preferred (but didn't order because they are too expensive these days) from a friend. We had these put on the rims and fitted to our Hilux. They look great, but scrape the mudflaps a little on full lock, so of course, he's not 100% happy, and is still looking until he finds a better set of rims.

He's just installed a new stereo mp3/CD player with new speakers, and a UHF radio. The window tint will need to be redone as well. It still needs a bit of a cleanup, but we're going to get a detailer to do the seats and have another go at the paintwork. Next on the list is rust-proofing and then a canopy for the tray, but that can wait until the next serious fishing trip in July.

It's not the turbo we were looking around for, but it isn't the "standard" diesel either. It is an EFI diesel, which apparently has power/performance somewhere in between the standard and the turbo. As long as it can handle towing the boat, fully loaded up with camping gear, that's all that matters.

Who cares! It's still the newest car we've ever owned (at just 4 years old), it has low klms (only 85000) and we got it for an absolute bargain price.

You've gotta be happy with that!

(Sorry for the "marathon" post, people!)

Changing of the Guard Continues - Part 2. End of an Era

We sold our Cruiser yesterday. Just in time for Christmas. In fact, just in time to ruin our Christmas holiday, more than likely.

It's Murphy's Law isn't it? We advertised it in the Trading Post online several weeks ago, with the hope that it would be bought by people wanting to go offroad for their Christmas holidays. Plenty of time for it to sell and for us to find and buy a dual cab 4WD ute as our replacement vehicle, so that we could still go away at Christmas. After all, my Mazda 323, great little car that it is, has no towbar and not a whole lot of room for camping gear, either! It certainly isn't going to handle driving on the beach. We'll have to come up with some alternate plans. (Normally we don't go away over the Christmas/New Year period, but Steve actually has holidays from Christmas Eve until the 5th of January.)

Naturally, for the first few weeks the online ad attracted no calls at all from potential buyers. The only guy to phone us up was actually trying to phone about the one listed above it in the online Trading Post, and phoned our number by mistake. Steve left it parked down on the main road with a sign in the windscreen and had a couple of queries, but nothing concrete.

So, just when we figured we'd remove the ad and wait until after Christmas (and until there weren't quite as many other Cruisers being advertised - ours was one of about 25 of the same model and year!), thereby still retaining a vehicle to use for the Christmas break, Steve got a call from a couple who were after a Cruiser.

They came to look at it yesterday morning, took it for a test drive and were very happy with it. So happy in fact, that they came back yesterday afternoon with the bank cheque! They are from the Northern Territory and are headed back up there at the end of the week. They apparently only came to Brisbane to visit family and buy another Cruiser!

Now we have just under a week until Christmas. Maybe if the cheque clears quickly, we might even manage to find a new car by then... as if we didn't already have enough to do!

On a side note, my brother says (tongue-in-cheek) that no longer owning a Cruiser means I will need to relinquish my "Cruisergirl" avatars and email address, but I disagree. The way I figure it, having owned five in a row must surely entitle me to "life membership" of that nickname, as it were...

Changing of the guard

Those of you who know Steve will have noticed that he changes vehicles on a semi-regular basis - this includes his boats as well as his cars. In the 11 or so years since we met, he has owned a succession of Toyota Landcruisers - 5 in total... count them - a 75 series ute, a Troopy (for all of about 6 mths !), a mid-wheelbase FRP (fibreglass top), a 60 series wagon and an 80 series wagon (our current Cruiser). He also recently sold his Toyota Hilux, which he'd owned for about a year.

Don't even get me started on the boats - I've lost track how many there have been, including the "absolute bargain, too good to be passed up" that we drove all the way to Bundy and beyond for, which he sold several months later because he didn't really want a tinnie with forward controls, since he preferred a tiller steer !

The way I look at it is that he gets bored easily, but he will never admit to that. He explains it as changing to a more suitable vehicle...but then why didn't he get the more suitable vehicle in the first place? This is not to say that we've ever lost money on any of our vehicles (with the exception of the mid-wheelbase Cruiser, which was stolen from our driveway). On the contrary, we have always paid cash and owned them outright. They have had money spent on improvements and accessories, and have been well looked after. We have always gotten our money back on them when we've sold them, since Cruisers seem to hold their value well.

Anyway, with the world financial crisis looming large, exorbitant fuel prices and inflation increasing other running costs, Steve made the recent decision to downsize our fuel-hungry 6 cylinder vehicles. Our "beach and boat car" (if you left it overnight at the boat-ramp you'd be guaranteed to find it there when you returned since it wasn't worth stealing), the Hilux would be first to go. With some of the money from its sale, we'd get a cheap run-around car for me, so that I'd have some transport when we sold the 80 Series. With the remainder of the money, together with what we get for the Cruiser, the plan is to get a dual-cab 4WD ute with a 3 litre Turbo Diesel 4-cylinder engine.

I'm happy to say that stage one is FINALLY complete. The Hilux sold in 2 days, to the first people to look at it. Steve set a limit of $2500 for our run-around vehicle, so the search began to find something half decent. It was not an easy search. Let me just say that there is a lot of crap out there in that price range. A whole lot of crap. I took my life into my own hands and test drove a couple of dodgy ones, we trawled around several motor wholesalers' yards, we made dozens of phone calls, we went to the auctions and even to the wreckers to check parts availability for the $750 Hyundai Lantra on the side of the road near our place.

We discovered our new car by sheer luck. It was not the car we were stopping to look at. We were just in the right place at the right time. The dealer had only just got it in, it hadn't been detailed and he hadn't really worked out a price yet. A bit of haggling and a "mates rates" deal later (Steve went to school with the mechanic that does their road worthies, so we worked out a deal to pay for our own RWC in order to get a better deal and keep the rego that was still on it) and we bought ourselves a tidy little 1995 Mazda 323 with power steering and aircon, a Pioneer mp3 CD player, and only 114000 kms on the motor. The aircon is out of gas, but that's a minor and relatively inexpensive detail.

Sure, there's the odd dent in the bonnet (someone sat on it by the looks) and minor stone chips in the paintwork, but it drives like a dream, and is now registered in my name, so it's mine all mine! Bit of tint, some alloy mags and new aircon gas and she'll be the perfect little car.

Might take a while to get used to driving a "low to the ground" car again after five years of driving Cruisers, though... I'll keep you posted!