The intervals between my updates keep stretching longer and longer. Sometimes it's hard to know where to draw the line when stuff keeps happening. I have a habit of getting about 75% of the way done writing an update, shelving it for a couple months, then coming back and hating my writing. Hopefully this process will have resulted in a more polished post for you all to read, because I've really enjoyed reading everyone else's car threads over the years — they're what keep me coming back to this site. Below is a timeline of everything that happened since my last update:
- Sold the 318ti (October 2022)
- Bought a Volvo 960 (November 2022)
- Bought a Ford Crown Victoria (September 2023
- Sold the 4Runner (October 2023)
- Sold the Saab (April 2024)
- Sold the Volvo 960 (April 2024)
- Sold the 530i to my insurance co. in a salvage payout (June 2024)
- Bought a Lexus ES300 (December 2024)
- Spent a fortune on routine maintenance, car repairs, insurance and gas
- Helped my dad with the acquisition of an used Toyota Tacoma, a Prius, and a BMW 328d
- Helped my dad keep the Prius, the 328d, and his LS430 maintained. And the 911, once.
Selling the 318ti
I owned the 318ti for 10 months and put 2,000 miles on it. It came fully serviced and detailed when I bought it, so I didn't have to do anything to it during my brief ownership. I originally bought it for $2,650 and listed it for $4,750. I sold it a week later for $4,000 to a guy who turned out to be a coworker of the 318ti's original owner and knew the car when it was brand new. It was an insane coincidence, but the timeline and locations matched up with the car's history on Carfax. There's also hardly any Morea Green 318tis, so I doubt it was a different car that just happened to be identical. I got to see the car again a month after I sold it when he randomly happened to be at my work. I didn't have any real use for the 318ti or space to properly garage-keep it, but I do miss it. I think about it a lot compared to other cars I've sold. The DMV screwed up and never sent me a license plate, so it wore an increasingly weathered temporary paper plate the whole time I owned it, which was kind of funny.
Buying a Volvo 960
Seeing what the Saab 9000 was all about awoke a curiosity in me about older RWD Volvos. At the time I thought a 240 would've been too old for me to viably own, but ask me today and I'd be willing to do it. I was interested in the 900-series cars with maybe a slight leaning towards the 960 because the idea of a luxury Volvo appealed to me. I found a 1997 960 for $2,200 with a whopping 312,000 miles on it, being sold by its second owner. It came with a thick folder of service records and was good to go except for needing new tires. In a serious lapse of judgment, I bought the car and put Continental Extreme Contact tires on it. It was a complete waste of money to put such sporty tires on it, but I'm happy to say the car itself wasn't a waste of money. It had obviously been maintained to have reached 300,000 miles. I took an inventory of everything done to the car, and mechanically it was pretty uneventful. Just consistent maintenance and minor repairs throughout the years, with the exception of the A/C, which seemed to require constant tinkering and accounted for much the money spent. The total amount spent on maintenance and repairs over 300,000 miles was nearly the same as the car's original MSRP. The engine and transmission were original. At this mileage, I would've expected to at least see a head gasket or something in the maintenance history, but there wasn't. Crucially, the timing belt had been done a few times.
I kept the Volvo for 1.5 years and 5,000 miles. A few weeks after buying it, I drove somewhere half an hour away in the rain, but by the time I got there, the driver's side windshield wiper wasn't working anymore. It just went down and never came back up after I adjusted the wiper speed, with the passenger side one soldiering on alone. Luckily it wasn't raining anymore by the time I went home. That wasn't too expensive to fix. From November 2022 to May 2023, it was one of my daily drivers until the fan speed control quit turning on, and thus there was no A/C. I parked it for 5 months until the weather cooled, then I used it again for a couple months with no A/C before taking it to a Volvo shop. The blower motor had shorted out, and it took a few weeks to source a replacement. It actually ended up being in the shop twice because the lower dash hadn't been reassembled, and then something else minor got broken during the process, so it was down for a couple more weeks waiting on parts. The car had been away for a month combined, and a day or two after getting it back, the plastic connecting the sun visor to the ceiling cracked and broke from age, leaving the visor dangling, suspended by the wires. Having a broken sun visor is a non-starter here where the sun feels like it's precisely aimed to blind you at all times, especially so in a car like the 960 with such a tall greenhouse. I didn't feel like rigging up a way to hold the visor in place, so I parked it in my grandma's garage and forgot about it for a month. One weekend, my dad was having an estate sale there and someone was interested in buying the Volvo. I ended up selling it to them for $2,000, which I took to be an absolute win because the idea of selling a >300k mile non-Toyota online made me want to kill myself. Instead, I caught a nice break.
The most surprising thing about the 960 was that I ended up liking it better than my Saab. The 960 had numerous standout qualities, whereas most cars have none. The seating comfort was terrific — no other seat has supported my shoulders so well. The stereo was surprisingly great, the best of any car I've owned. The turning radius was the best of probably any car I'll ever experience. 3-point turns just weren't necessary, ever. It gave you so much control for parking, too. My favorite thing about the 960 was its cable-actuated throttle. It feels like every car, cable or electronic throttle, is calibrated to where even the smallest possible pedal input results in too much response. The 960 was so refreshingly not like that, to the point where I feel like I'm taking crazy pills driving any other car now. I don't understand why all other cars can't just be like the 960. Instead of needing to be overly judicious with throttle inputs, the 960 allowed you to just modulate the pedal and receive an equivalent output, rather than this guessing game crap I feel like I have to do in other cars. It's a little thing, but it made driving in real-life situations where traffic is accelerating at the absolute slowest rate humanly perceptible tolerable. As you can tell, the calibration of this car's throttle was everything to me. Also noteworthy was how smooth the engine was at idle, not even vibrating the cabin. That went away when you pushed it hard, with the engine sounding increasingly coarse up to redline. Similarly, the transmission shifted pretty hard in those instances, but was fine when driven normally.
I do miss this car a little after selling it, but if I ever had the chance to drive it again, I'd probably get bored of it after 20 minutes. It had a lot of standout qualities, but it also had a live rear axle and modified leaf springs (like a Corvette!) so it didn't have the plush ride one might expect of a luxury car, and wind noise was pronounced at highway speeds thanks to its boxy, upright profile. I will concede that mine was probably at least in need of new bushings, because others have referred to the 960 as a comfortable car. This car was the anti-beater. Its weathered appearance may deceive you, but underneath it was a car that used premium gas, got so-so gas mileage, and was expensive to maintain and fix. Before I bought this car, I hardly ever saw them for sale. But after selling it, I've seen a surprising amount of 960/S90s for sale; their survivorship is much higher than I originally thought. One last random fact: this was the only car I've owned to have an LSD.
I got to sample the 960's modern counterpart, an S90 T6 Inscription belonging to my friend, for a week earlier this year. I came away liking the 960 better because at least when I drove that car, I felt
something, whereas when I drove the S90, I felt nothing and didn't think about it at all as soon as I got out. It blew the 960's doors off performance-wise, was a far better highway car, had a way nicer interior, but the seats weren't as comfortable, the driver aids were intrusive, and the user interface was
horrible! My friend echoed all my comments about it, but I don't think the UI is as big of a deal for him since he's had a couple years to get used to it. He used to drive a Volvo 240, and we both lament how different in character new Volvos are from classic ones. I guess you could say that about every brand, though.
Buying a Ford Crown Victoria
In the summer of 2023, gas prices soared higher than I've ever seen before, and I couldn't ignore the inherent superiority of a sedan for my driving conditions versus my 4Runner any longer. I found an '09 Crown Victoria for $4,300 and bought it for that price. I've wanted a Crown Victoria or a Mercury Grand Marquis since before this thread's inception. My ideal models were the street appearance package Crown Vic: all the P71 bits but with the civilian interior and exterior, and an '03 or '04 Grand Marquis Ultimate: digital dash, last years of the cable-throttle... so clearly the solution was to buy a regular P74 Crown Vic because ??? Over time, my Crown Vic dream was looking less and less attainable with so many of the cars having been used up already. I used to see street appearance package cars for sale regularly; now the few per year I do see for sale are priced 2-3 times higher. The '03 and '04 Grand Marquises were still available, but I wasn't keen on buying a car with leather seats in this instance, and it seemed like the digital dash and leather seats generally went together, and I wasn't compromising about the digital dash. The regular gauge cluster for those years was just so cheap and generic looking. So when I saw my car for sale, I looked past the perceived deficiencies because it had a black cloth interior, which was the only way I wanted the interior to be.
Typically I wouldn't have looked at any post-2008 Crown Vic period, since they were solely for fleet sales at that point, and I wouldn't want an ex-rental car. This one was not, and so I found it worthy of consideration. It was a detective's car out of California, as evidenced by some extra wiring in the trunk and a couple of metal brackets inside the car where lights used to be. I did make one big miss: I failed to notice that the car was repainted because I brushed it off as Crown Vics having crappy paint, and so I didn't scrutinize it properly. I wasn't too crushed to make that discovery, but I did feel foolish for not catching it. Crappy paint is liberating for me because then I don't need to fuss over it, which is perfect because this car lives outside.
I bought the Crown Vic at 194,000 miles, and now it's at 217,000. The car had came straight from auction with only a quick cleanup when I bought it, so I had all the fluids replaced. It had 3 matching tires and one older tire, which went flat about a month later. The spare tire in the trunk was blown, so I had to get it towed to the tire shop. I replaced both the offending tires and had them all balanced to take care of a steering wheel shimmy. Did it actually take care of that? No, it just made it happen at a different speed now. I haven't bothered addressing it again. A couple months later, I made the crappy discovery that the Crown Victoria will let you lock your keys inside. Initially I thought I lost my keys since the doors were locked, but after getting a new key made and having someone open the car, my keys were inside, on the floor... The A/C stopped blowing cold at idle, requiring some new valves and a new electric cooling fan. Every summer here since 2020 has broken previous records for how hot and miserable a summer can be, and last summer was more of the same. I relented and got the best window tint available, Llumar, at 20% all around with a clear 50% film on the windshield. It costed a LOT, but it allowed the A/C to actually cool down the cabin after sitting outside on a 115 degree day (which happened for a month straight last year). It's hell getting into hot cars at my job, and I wanted mine to be a relief on those worst summer days.
Last October I brought the Crown Vic to the shop to eliminate all of its residual minor issues. The driver's sun visor was broken (floppy) and the retainer clips were broken, so I bought a new visor and clips to be installed. The shifter was reluctant to come out of park when the car was cold, so I had a new shift interlock solenoid put in. The installation ended up fixing my no horn issue somehow. The idle was dropping too low and bogging the engine when shifting out of park, so I asked them to do an intake and injector cleaning. That also improved the electronic throttle response, which previously was so touchy to the point that it was almost a deal-breaker for the entire car. That was a godsend. I had the driver's wiper arm replaced because the old one wasn't pushing down hard enough on the windshield. This unearthed another issue where the driver's wiper arm is not aligned correctly, so it doesn't wipe all the way to the edge of the windshield. It looks kind of stupid from inside the car, but it clears enough of the rain off to not be an issue. Lastly, the power port inside the car stopped working, which was fixed by adding a new ground.
As far as the car itself goes, it's been a pleasure. The '03+ Crown Vics drive pretty well for their size. The rear air suspension is not functioning, but the car rides fine. I think it's just there for load leveling, so I haven't fixed it. The steering is nice and direct with a moderate weight to it. It turns in well for how long it is; it feels really composed. It's a lot more comfortable to ride in for trips over 30 minutes than the 4Runner was, and it's a lot quieter, as one would imagine. My car has the laziest 2.73 gears, but I do enough freeway driving for it to be worth it. It's not a fast car and I don't drive it like one, so I usually average 22 mpg combined. It's a bear to park, which kind of put me off of getting one of these cars sooner, so I avoid parking in bad spots. The biggest problem with the car has been the cheap interior plastics. I solved the problem with the sun visors, but afterwards the pop-out cupholder cover broke off. Luckily, since the interior is so dark, it's hard to see that it's missing. Quality aside, I think the interior looks decent, but the ergonomics really give away the platform's age. My life would be a lot easier if the steering wheel telescoped. Instead, I find myself sitting pretty close to the dash relative to other cars, yet the wheel is still just barely within a comfortable reach, and I have to lean forward to use the radio.
After owning this car for a little while now, I realize that the best thing I could've done would be buying a street appearance P71 back in 2019 instead of the Mercedes-Benz E350. The market for these cars is so much different now, but I don't regret my purchase because I've hardly seen any decent Crown Victorias for sale since buying mine. The most appealing ones for sale are clean older ones, but they wouldn't be as suitable for a daily driver.
Selling the 4Runner
I think I put 38,000 miles on the 4Runner. At one point I replaced the battery, and a month later it seemed to need a battery again. I didn't immediately think the battery was a dud, so I took it to a Toyota shop suspecting a parasitic draw. There wasn't, but I had them remove the dealer-installed alarm system anyways, because I hated how the horn would honk whenever I locked or unlocked it. Since the battery was still draining, I just replaced it which fixed the problem. Another time, I began hearing a faint grinding noise from the engine bay whenever I had the driver's window rolled down. The sound got progressively louder over a couple days, and I thought I observed a loose belt tensioner pulley. It actually wasn't that, but it was in the ballpark of that. Normally I can glance at my service records to fill in the gaps, but they're gone since I sold the car. That's all I have to report on the 4Runner mechanically. I rotated the tires and changed the oil several times, but I never touched the suspension. I don't recall ever touching the brakes, and it was due for new tires when I sold it.
Selling the 4Runner was a bear because it had 272,000 miles and was a 2WD. It took about a month before a guy finally came and gave me $3,300 for it. Afterwards he fulfilled the 4Runner owner's destiny of ruining it with tacky, low-effort mods and plastidipping random stuff because chrome bad. He listed it for sale 4 or 5 times last year, with the most recent listing pegging it at 290,000 miles and finally having new tires, but now having a salvage title from a minor fender bender. What a shame.
The fourth-gen 4Runner is a great vehicle, and I'd love to have another one. Will I
actually ever have another one? Probably not for the prices they charge. The smooth, refined power of the 2UZ can't be beat. I don't regret selling this one, but I do regret selling my previous third-gen 4Runner. Even with the beat suspension, ride quality wasn't really an issue. Generally I just used it for getting around, but one time I did transport a treadmill inside the car. It wouldn't have fit if the rear window didn't roll down. My dad borrowed it a couple times for transporting other workout equipment. I drove it up north a few times, but I didn't take it on any proper road trips out of state. I usually averaged 16 mpg, although I managed to coax it up to 18 a few times by really hypermiling it.
Selling the Saab
It took almost a year to sell the Saab. I waited until the end of spring to post it for sale, but it was dead on arrival with no A/C for the summer. I wasn't interested in fixing it since I was getting rid of it, and if I fixed it, I might as well have just kept it. I tried again at the end of the year, but there was still no interest. I wasted $50 a couple times to post an ad on Saabnet. I had the car posted locally, but nobody wanted it. Months passed, and I was so,
so sick of the car not being gone yet. Finally I posted it to the local Saab group for $1,000, and somebody materialized and gave me $1,200 to keep it until he could pick it up. He came a few days later with a Uhaul trailer to pick the car up. He fixed a few things on it, but ended up having to sell it as well.
The Saab wasn't a bad car, I just didn't like it as much as I thought I would, and my experience was tainted by choosing a bad shop. The good Saab shop is a lot further away, and I wasn't dedicated enough to start taking my car all the way over there. I put about 2,000 miles on the Saab. The acceleration was far and away the car's best quality. That, and the exterior styling are the only things I miss about it. Since selling it, there's been so many moments on my commutes where I could've made use of the 9000's acceleration, but instead I continued to suffer under the tyranny of slow, distracted drivers. The power was so available around town, and it seemed happiest cruising between 85 and 95 on the freeway. The plastic passenger airbag cover made an extremely irritating rattling sound 100% of the time that the engine was running, but if it weren't for that, the interior wouldn't have felt so noisy. It did have a lot of road noise, but not as bad as the Volvo 960. The seats weren't anything to write home about, and the driving position was so-so.
The 9000 was a neat car to own, but it was such a prolonged ball ache to sell that I don't know if it was worth it. Actually, it wasn't worth it, but I don't regret owning it.
Selling the 530i
I put 9,000 miles on the 530i and thoroughly enjoyed all of it. The E39 5-Series is truly is one of the best all-around cars. It was so good at being a luxury car while also being satisfying to drive even in ordinary situations. Unfortunately the second act of my E39 saga was cut short when someone hit and ran me on the rear quarter panel. I kept the car for over a year afterwards, putting another thousand miles on it. For the first 6 months, I didn't want to make a decision about what to do. For the last 6 months, I put serious thought towards fixing it, but it was just too tough of a spot to be fixed to my liking - right where the rear door meets the wheel arch. I didn't want to go through fixing it just for the end result to be less-than, so I made the tough decision to total the car out. I got more than I paid for the car, but I was incredibly sad to let it go. It didn't seem wise to take on the overhead of owning another E39 for the time being, so there was a finality to watching the car get picked up from my house. Exterior-wise the car was nothing special, but the interior was very clean, and I left the service records in the car, so it was no surprise to see that someone fixed it a couple months later. As I suspected, you could still tell there had been damage. Currently, it's for sale again, and just like with the 4Runner, the buyer has fulfilled the used BMW owner's destiny of ruining it with tacky headlights and an unpainted M5 front bumper. I hate car people.
My 530i was pretty well-sorted mechanically, so I didn't have any
BMW moments. I added coolant a couple times, but that was it. You may remember that on my initial test drive in the rain, the windshield wipers didn't work. I didn't take care of it for a while since it never rains here, until one overcast evening when I visited my grandma and had to stop at the auto parts store to buy some Rain-X because it started raining. It just needed a wiper control module, which didn't cost too much. The climate control slowly became less and less responsive until it stopped working at all. It just needed a resistor, which
really didn't cost too much. The front passenger window regulator bit the dust, and I got it replaced for an extortionate amount of money. The car made a great companion to my 330i and 300CE, bridging the gap between the two perfectly. The driving position is my favorite of any car. It had the best highway manners of any car I've owned so far. 80-100 mph felt like the sweet spot. It wasn't a fast car, but the M54 was so smooth and happy to rev at any time. A lot of automatic transmission cars feel awkward to drive at wide open throttle, but in the 530i it felt natural to do so.
When I had the 530i picked up by my insurance company, it felt like my life was over. Life went on, but the E39's absence is felt. I've continued enjoying other cars, but I miss the all-around satisfaction of driving an E39, where everything feels just right.
Buying a Lexus ES300
After parting with the 530i, I was left with the 330i, the 300CE, and the Crown Vic. I had no interest in buying any more cars because I was tired of car ownership and spending money. A year and a half ago, I asked a resident at a high-end retirement home I used to work at if he ever wanted to sell his 2000 Lexus ES300. I had been wanting an ES300 for a few years at that point because that was my grandparents' last car. I kept tabs on used ones, but all were either beaters, or clean and very overpriced. I really didn't want to pay more than $5,000 for one, and I wanted it to be a Platinum Edition like my granddad's car, or a Platinum Series. I would see this ES300 from time to time at work, and I really enjoyed the fact that it was silver with black interior, rather than the beige interiors most had, or the occasional gray. It was also a Platinum Series, so it had the same wheels as my grandparents' car. Last year in August, the resident approached me and gave me a heads up that he was going to decide to sell one of his cars in November. The ES was his wife's car, and he decided to keep his car, so I bought the Lexus.
I paid $5,500 for the ES300, which I felt okay about doing because it had 99,000 miles, had new tires and brakes, good paint and a great interior. It had a couple of codes which I thought would be remedied by getting a new fuel cap, but the check engine light came back. It needs a new purge valve. I got the timing belt replaced, and I plan on servicing the transmission next. My grandparents' ES300 was totaled many years ago, but I found everything that went with the car while cleaning out their house last year. I added one of their Lexus key chains to my key, and I threw one of my granddad's business cards in the center console. My ES was missing the owner's manual and books, but I was able to replace it with the ones from my grandparents' car. The final touch for now is a period-correct plate frame from the local Lexus dealership. I spent a lot of time cleaning the car up and now it looks really pristine.
I've put almost 5,000 miles on the car so far, and I've been enjoying it. I thought the Crown Victoria would be a regular enough car for me, but this actually beats it by a little. The ES' size makes it easier to park, and I don't have to be nearly as vigilant about staying in the middle of the lane like I do in the Crown Vic. The Crown Vic isn't hard to drive — the ES is just so easy to drive. It is a Camry, though, so that’s to be expected. It rides soft like the 300CE, but it's not as controlled. It pitches forwards and backwards more, and the ride can be floaty, which I remember all the way back from my grandparents' car. The brakes are spongey, but I coast a lot and brake lightly, so it's not too big of a deal for me, but I could see myself feeling seasick if I were riding with somebody who sucked at driving. When I bought this car, I planned on enjoying it for a bit and selling it later this year. But the more I drive it, the more I don't want to part with it. At this point, I'd sooner part with the Crown Vic. The ES300 just rides
so softly, has a way more comfortable driving position, is way easier to park, and I'm really enjoying having a car that's in such good condition.
Toyota Tacoma
This was a briefly-owned car, so I won’t have as much to say about it. My dad had expressed interest in getting into kayaking again, something he used to do, as well as having a pontoon boat. The blue ‘06 Highlander he bought around the time I bought my ‘09 Mercedes E350 had become a family vehicle for my older sister and was thus no longer available to him. He wanted a truck, to which I suggested a Toyota Tundra or Tacoma. There really wasn’t room in the driveway for a full-size truck, since the space was shared with other cars. I warned him that in my opinion, an used Tacoma wouldn’t feel like it would be worth the money compared to an used Tundra. Still, I found an ‘02 Tacoma Xtracab listed for $8,200 with 147,000 miles. We drove 90 minutes up north in my 300CE to go look at it. It was a two owner truck, but the second owner had owned it since it was nearly new, and it was being sold by their son-in-law as the owner sadly had dementia and would no longer be driving. It was in good shape, with the exception of the tires being very old. Not all of them were matching, but I remember at least one being from 2005! My dad decided to buy it, and the son-in-law did a weird thing where he claimed he thought he was asking more than $8,200 for it. I thought he was BSing, but my dad wasn’t as concerned over a couple hundred bucks. I believe he paid $8,500 for it. I followed him back home, and luckily the old tires held on for the majority highway drive back.
The next day, my dad went to Discount Tire, and he hated the steel wheels on the Tacoma so much that not only did he get new tires, but he also got a set of very generic Vision 5-spoke wheels, which I’ve seen on countless other cars, and not once have they ever looked better than the OEM wheel. I will say that the original steel wheels were very ugly, though. My dad never did get back into kayaking, and he never ended up buying a pontoon boat. The truck bed ended up coming in handy for some renovations at a rental property. It was on the drives to that rental property where my dad realized that he actually didn’t like driving the Tacoma at all. It was a 5-speed, which I didn’t think my dad would want in a truck, but he thought it would be fine. It ended up not being fine, and so after he ceased to use it, I drove it around a little bit. I liked driving the Tacoma, and I could see why people who like small trucks are so passionate about them online. Doesn't make them any less annoying about it, though.
Driving the Tacoma was an interesting experience because it made my 4Runner feel like a Rolls-Royce, but that didn’t mean the Tacoma sucked. The steering wheel, shared with the Tundra and Sequoia, felt giant in the Tacoma’s small cab. Unlike most modern (let’s say post-2000) cars I’ve driven, it had a perceptible deadzone in the center. The steering was light and loose which made for a very easy, albeit vague time driving it. The turning radius and tight turns in parking lots completely sucked thanks to the long wheelbase. This was the first pickup I ever had access to, so the ride dynamics of having an unladen bed took some getting used to. Bumps that felt like no big deal in any other car felt jarring in the Tacoma. It was a pretty easy vehicle to drive manual in, but the shifter’s long, vague throws combined with a notchy, mechanical feel was a bit weird. I still preferred it over any of the newer manual Tacomas I've driven. This Tacoma had the smaller 2.4L 4-cylinder, and it was fine. It would cruise at 85 on the freeway if you wanted. I actually miss driving it. I really enjoyed its simplicity.
My dad owned the Tacoma for 5 months. When it came time to sell, I cleaned it up and took some pictures at sunset. The next day, I posted it for $10,500 on Craigslist. Half an hour later, a guy with a standing alert set for used Tacomas called. We drove across town and sold it to him for $10,200, and he put it into service at his business. He said that he’d bought 40-50 used Tacomas for his fleet over the years. I actually ended up spotting the Tacoma on the freeway last year, with its tailgate bearing the business name. I knew it was the same Tacoma because he only had a few Tacomas in service at the time, having recently started a new business after selling his last one, and the fleet of Tacomas that went with it.
Toyota Prius
As I mentioned earlier, gas prices spiked in 2023. Neither my dad nor I owned a car that averaged more than 23 mpg. I didn’t have the Crown Vic yet, and was still using the 4Runner, which at the very peak, was now costing almost twice as much to fill up than when I first bought it. My dad, after not having a commute for nearly my whole life, now did have a commute, and a long one at that. Remember how I mentioned driving 90 minutes up north to buy the Tacoma? Well, this commute followed that same route, just a little bit farther. While the LS430 is the ultimate highway commuter, my dad didn’t want to be filling the tank all the time. He asked me to find a hybrid that we could use, which was somewhat of a tall order at the time, since that’s what was most in demand, but also since buying an used hybrid requires you to be a lot more vigilant. I finally found something that checked off my requirements to be a good car: an ‘07 Prius with 150,000 miles, boasting a new OEM hybrid battery, and a new catalytic converter. It was a one owner car, always garaged - the original catalytic converter got stolen literally as soon as it started being parked outside - with great paint and a clean interior, in stark contrast to so many Priuses which were cosmetically garbage and even nastier inside. It cost all the money, $8,750, but its condition was very impressive.
My dad left the final decision up to me, and with my blessing, he bought the car. It was put to use immediately, with my dad racking up another 25,000 miles on it before finally caving and asking me if I could find him an economical car that wasn’t so slow (his commute involved climbing mountain passes, which is hell when the semi trucks and idiot crossovers inevitably cut you off, robbing all your momentum uphill). I did just that in the form of the BMW 328d, and for my efforts, I was rewarded by finally having unfettered access to the Prius. Before, I had barely driven it a thousand miles or so because my dad would use it all week, and who wants to drive a Prius on the weekend?
I found the Prius to be one of the best regular cars around. The seats, in spite of only having two modes of adjustment, worked surprisingly well for me. The ride was pretty meh, and the steering feel was weird. I wanted the Prius to feel like a small, chuckable car, but it just wasn’t. Instead, its narrow tires demanded you drive it like a larger, heavier car than it was. Once I made that adjustment, it started to feel more normal. A Camry Hybrid would have been vastly preferable. I live at around 1,000 feet elevation, but still the Prius felt pretty slow. It hated going uphill, and never really felt like it was in the powerband. I put another 5,000 miles on the Prius, even convincing my dad to go ahead and put new tires on it when the time came. In a perfect world, I would have kept using the Prius indefinitely. Unfortunately, I live in the real world, where everyone else on the road treated me like I was perpetually in the way just for existing. The amount of tailgating and close passes I saw behind the wheel of the Prius was ridiculous. Some people claim to not notice any difference when they drive a Prius. Others do. Is it psychological? I don’t know. I think it’s more of a regional thing. All I know is I sure noticed a lot more assholes whenever I drove the Prius, and I didn’t have the mental fortitude to simply ignore it. With some regret, I told my dad I was done using the Prius, and it became my sister’s family car, to which she benefited immensely from no longer having to pile the miles on the Highlander with half the gas mileage. I miss driving the Prius, but I don't miss how much of a dick nearly every other road user was about it.
BMW 328d
My dad wanted an economical car that was easier to live with on a long commute than the Prius. This was a tall order, so it took me a few months to find a car. One night I found a Mercedes-Benz E320 CDI in great condition for $4,750, an unbelievable price for one of those. Unfortunately, I had some doubts about whether my dad would seriously consider such a car for himself, so instead of reaching out to the seller directly, I ran it by my dad first. Within that time, someone else got to it already, despite the ad having been posted for 20 minutes when I saw it. That was such a damn bummer. I returned to the gulags, and a couple months later, my searches finally yielded another compelling choice: a 2014 BMW 328d with 120,000 miles for $10,500. It also boasted an entirely new fuel system replaced under warranty, which was very concerning to read, but after reading about 328ds online, I decided it was still worth a look.
I sent the ad to my dad while I was at work, and he arranged to meet the seller at my work so we could all go for a test drive. The car was in great shape. In retrospect, it was priced pretty well, but I didn't know it at the time. Having never driven a modern diesel before, my dad was very impressed with the power delivery and found it hard to pass up. The following morning, I drove my dad in the 300CE to collect the 328d, then I continued on to a car show. When my dad drove the 328d to work for the first time, he called me before the commute was even over to rave about what a revelation it was compared to the Prius. The 328d is now at 162,000 miles, 16 months later. In that time, it’s had new tires, a few oil changes, a couple fuel filter replacements, a brake fluid flush, and a coolant pipe.
Despite being the softest 3-Series and symbolizing the beginning of the end as far as driver-focused BMWs went, the 328d is an extremely compelling car. Regardless of it feeling like BMW's rendition of a Lexus, each time I drive it somewhere, I get the urge to shed all of my cars and just own a 328d instead. It’d probably serve me better, anyway. I was an avid car magazine reader at the time of the F30 3-Series' introduction, so I’ve had over a decade to get used to the fact that it’s a way softer, less sharp of a car to drive than any of its predecessors. With my expectations thoroughly managed, I’m able to appreciate the 328d as the ultimate daily driving appliance. The diesel aspect makes it a specialty car here, and as time goes on, that will make it more and more of an enthusiast car, but to label this an enthusiast car right feels like a huge disrespect to my 330i, so appliance it is.
It’s just such a hard car to argue with. The torque is so available, a lot like in the Saab 9000, but being a diesel, it’s available even sooner. It picks up speed so easily, and one merge onto the highway is all it takes for me to start feeling like my other cars are slow and irrelevant. So far, the side of me in favor of keeping my cars has stayed ahead, but the other side of me that craves simplicity is catching up.
BMW 330i
I didn't mention the 330i at all in my last post because it was sidelined that whole time. I was driving it and thought I felt the rear end react weirdly to a bump in the road. My thoughts immediately spiraled into a frenzy of rear subframe-related hysteria, so I went home and parked it. A few weeks later, I bought the IS300, then the 318ti, then the 530i, then the 300CE, sold the IS300, bought the Saab 9000, sold the E350, sold the 318ti, then I bought the Volvo 960. Plus I had the 4Runner. All of my attention went into managing those cars, meanwhile the 330i sat in my driveway for 13 months. After some reading online, I began to doubt my initial panic that the rear subframe was amiss, and now suspected the rear differential bushings to be responsible for whatever I thought I had felt 13 months prior, which was now very fuzzy.
I got it towed to a German car shop to take care of the rear diff bushings, get an oil change, and I had to get a new battery. Afterwards, I drove it to school and work occasionally, and it really shined on a few Friday and Saturday afternoons when the weather was perfect, and I went for a drive. I’ve always enjoyed cars in numbers — I have over 2,000 Hotwheels and Matchbox cars, well over 100 1/18 scale cars, and bounced off the 2,000 car limit constantly in Gran Turismo 5. When I was little, I made collages of different cars using pictures from magazines. All of the cars I bought after the 330i were me enjoying cars in numbers as usual, but it didn’t change the fact that the 330i was and still is my favorite. It’s just the best all-around package. I think I said that about the 530i, but the 330i is the best all-around package
for me. That spring, I discovered that the tires had dry-rotted when I cranked the wheel for a picture. That meant the end of driving the 330i again and another period of hibernation. This time, I kept it at my mom’s house and would drive it around the local, lower-speed streets once a month. On four of these outings, each one of the window regulators broke in succession, which is really on the nose for an older BMW. The A/C had a leak and wasn’t really cooling the cabin down anymore, so I quit driving it around once it got really hot.
In the meantime, I bought the Crown Vic, sold the 4Runner, sold the Saab, sold the Volvo, and the 530i was totaled. Before I turned my attention back to the 330i, I wanted to get my other cars sorted. The Crown Vic went to the shop twice for maintenance and all of the little fixes I listed earlier, as well as getting the windows tinted. The second time the Crown Vic was in the shop, it was away for two weeks, so I daily drove the 300CE. Afterwards, it was the 300CE’s turn to get some fixes, so I took it to a Mercedes shop that was good with older models. With my other two cars fixed, it was time to pay attention to the 330i again! Then I bought the Lexus ES300, but I didn’t let that distract me.
First, I bought a set of Continental DWS06s and was elated to be able to drive at freeway speeds again. Then I took it to a BMW shop to get the A/C recharged. Recently I took it back to find out where the leak was. They said the culprit was the evaporator, which is $$$, so I just had them recharge it again. When I picked the car up, the battery was dead because the parking lights had been left on. When they went to jump it, the key got locked in the car, so I had to wait for my dad to go home and bring the other key. They replaced the battery for me for free. Two hours later when I set off, the A/C wasn't blowing cold at all, worse off than it was before I took it in. So I came back and they recharged it again for free. I think I got 100 trouble-free miles before the driver's window came off the track and wouldn't stay up, so I had to go back again. This time it only cost half as much to do the driver's window regulator as it did on my 530i. Once again, I was back in the driver’s seat of my 330i. Last time, I still had my 530i, but this time the 330i has to carry the BMW flame all by itself. Having spent so much time in automatics, it was a revelation to get back in a stick shift. People have waxed poetic about manuals online well past the point of being cringe, so I won’t do that, especially not since my shifter needs to be rebuilt, so my actual manual driving experience is very crude. But still, shifting gears is fun, and I can do exactly what I want versus trying to negotiate with a 20 year old automatic that guesses what I want to do.
Last December, I passed four years of ownership, making this my longest-owned car, although it feels like much less since nearly half that has been downtime. I’ve only added 8,000 miles so far. My friend who helped me go buy the car asked if he could drive it around for a bit, so we swapped cars for three weeks and he added a few hundred miles. It’s at 230,000 miles now. But what a worthy car to have been kept the longest, since it’s my favorite. It just scratches the itch for me better than anything else at this price point. It’s got enough of what I like: I6, RWD, manual, sedan bodystyle, without the high-class problems of expensive tires and brakes, V8 gas mileage, or sports car insurance rates. The 330i is actually my cheapest car to insure, ironic considering how it gets driven.
Mercedes-Benz 300CE
I've added about 15,000 miles to the 300CE, having owned it for three and a half years now. This year I haven't driven it very much due to buying the ES300 and reviving the 330i. I washed it two months ago, which it sorely needed, and I've been keeping it in the garage at my mom's house ever since because the trees in my front yard have been invaded by birds this year, and I don't feel like cleaning off bird poop over and over and over. I'll start driving it again soon because I really miss it.
After completing the suspension work I mentioned in my last update, I was having a problem where the car wouldn't start all the time. Having just been down that road with my 4Runner, I replaced the battery, but of course this time it turned out that the last battery was perfectly fine, because the problem persisted. I had the ignition switch replaced, which costed a lot, but now I had a spare key because the lock cylinder also got replaced. I thought it was fixed by now, but then it happened again. That's when I realized that it would start after shifting from park to neutral a few times, so the ignition switch wasn't the problem at all. I took it back to get the neutral safety switch replaced, which cost half as much as the ignition switch, at least. Later, the A/C stopped cooling when the car was stationary. I decided to take it to a Mercedes shop, because I felt like the German car shop I was using previously was too expensive. Refrigerant was leaking from the expansion valve, so that got replaced, and the air conditioning rocks now. I also had the oil level sensor replaced because the idiot light was coming on randomly.
Most recently, I had it in the shop because I thought it needed an alignment, but they rotated the tires front to back and it drives straight again. My power antenna never worked, so I got the motor replaced. My cigarette lighter didn't have any power to it, but it turned out that it just wasn't plugged in. Fixing those meant I could listen to music for the first time, which revealed how awful the aftermarket head unit is to use — seriously, what a POS. The 32 year old factory speakers leave a
lot to be desired, but having music really completes the driving experience. I was looking to get the motor mounts replaced due to a vibration at idle, but it would've cost over $800, so I'll do it someday when my pockets are deeper. The driver's window isn't reliable anymore, so I haven't been able to drive with all four windows down for a while.
Lexus LS430
The LS430 is at 149,000 miles now. A while back it wasn't starting every time, so I got the battery replaced and set off on a 50 mile trip to Wickenburg, AZ. Once I got below highway speeds, the gauges and center screen started cutting out, and the car was wanting to stall out as I slowed down. I limped it to the auto parts store. The battery was fine, but the original alternator had finally bit the dust. I was in town to visit my girlfriend's grandparents, and her grandfather was able to connect me with someone who could get it towed to his home shop and work on it, and he drove us home. Later, the A/C wasn't working as well anymore, just like about 95% of the cars I've mentioned in this update. We took it to our Toyota mechanic who replaced the schrader valve and recharged it. My dad asked him to polish the headlights as well. For a while now it's felt as if the power steering was shot, but the mechanic found that the power steering system was fine, just the aftermarket steering rack was worn out. That was surprising to hear, because it meant that it had been replaced before my dad bought the car when it was 8 years old and had 52,000 miles. He declined to fix it due to the cost. I don't think he feels much of a difference because he's pretty strong. The driver's mirror isn't staying in place anymore, so my dad has to roll down the window and push it back periodically. The passenger mirror did the same thing many years ago, which was resolved by putting a screw inside it. If not for the floppy mirror, my dad would be driving it more.
Miscellaneous
The 911 has 151,500 miles now. My dad used to drive it fairly often, but that's dried up. He asked me to list it for $24,000 earlier this year, but nobody wants to pay that. He's tasked me with selling the 911, the Corvette, and the Miata. I'm going to try to convince him to list it for $20,000, which is still probably too high. Nobody appears to be buying sports cars right now. I'm seeing cars get posted over and over again without selling, even more regular cars that you think would be in demand. My dad drove the Corvette a little bit at first, but the climate control panel needs to be resoldered, meaning the A/C doesn't engage. That was quite a while ago. Ever since then, it's been a cycle of sitting for 6 months, then my dad decides to mess with it, uses up all the battery on the jump pack just getting the car out of the garage, then it dies at the end of the driveway and is stuck there (this has happened at least 3 times). The last time he did this, he took the battery out and exchanged it for a new one, but dropped a bolt in the engine bay when reinstalling it, so then he had to go back and buy a tool magnet. He had to go back to the store 3 or 4 times that evening, and ever since then he's had enough. My dad drove the Miata more than he did the Corvette, but he never kept it at home. Instead, it lived at my grandma's house, and he'd drive it whenever he went to visit. Once it came time to settle the estate, he still drove it occasionally when he was over there, but not as much. As it goes with cars, once the Miata was left to sit, it started deteriorating. The last time he drove it, the A/C didn't work anymore. He thinks rodents have done some chewing under the hood.
It was cool to experience a Porsche 911, but I hate the 996's bizarre shift feel and clutch, so I didn't drive it much. The Corvette Z06 was a huge missed opportunity because my dad refused to pay for insurance on it, and I could never convince him otherwise. How stupid is that? I never drove it solo because of that, which is a damn shame because I loved driving the Z06. The opposite of the 911, the shifter felt phenomenal, and the clutch felt way more natural. The 911's flat-6 was great when you revved it out, but the startup and idle of the LS6 tickled me in a way that only American V8s can. The Miata's shifter and clutch were great, but I rarely had the opportunity to drive it because it was never at home. And again, my dad refused to pay insurance on it for arbitrary reasons. As a car guy, you tend to think people will pay for the costs of ownership since they already did the most expensive part of
buying the car, but experience often disappoints. Nothing ruins a spirited drive like getting the car impounded for no insurance. I don't feel attached to the 911, but I'll probably miss it once it's gone. I didn't think my dad should've even bought the Miata in the first place, so I won't miss it at all. I feel terrible about the idea of selling the Z06. I'd like to buy it for myself, but I really don't wanna get rid of my cars.
Final Thoughts
When I look back at the
ramblings of a crazy person stuff I wrote in this update and the last one, I feel pretty negative about it. I got to enjoy many different cars, and nothing beats seat time to really form your own opinion. Mostly I just remember resenting the constant financial bleed, the incessant, ceaseless moving around of cars, the pain selling of cars (buying was so easy and fun!) and the fact that the more cars I had, the less I enjoyed each car. I’ll only get the most out of a car when it’s fully sorted mechanically, maybe with a few carefully chosen mods to correct whatever I don’t like, have it be clean and stay clean as much as possible. When I have a car that’s lacking in one of these areas, or more often,
all of those areas, it keeps me from fully enjoying it. I learned that I had the bandwidth to keep one or two cars nice, like with my first 530i, or when I had the LS400 and the Yukon, but no more than that. It takes me four hours to clean a car, and there's only so many times I feel like doing that. Having four cars, that means the average car of mine is only getting washed twice a year. The rest of the time, they look like crap.
I also only have the fortitude to keep on top of a couple of cars mechanically. I’ve done very small tasks that can be done with just screwdrivers and light disassembly, and I’m fine with checking and adding oil, transmission fluid, or coolant as needed on older cars. Anything beyond that and the stakes rise drastically. I don’t want to go through the pitfalls of learning to wrench on my own stuff. Since it’s way costlier to go to the shop, I had to constantly prioritize and figure out my plan of attack. With one car, it’s a very binary thing: you either get it fixed or you don’t. With four cars (or more), I was always having to assess what’s most pressing and what I’m willing to let slide. Only going after the most important stuff meant all the little annoyances that chipped away at my enjoyment were never getting fixed. I spent more and more time tolerating problems, never getting the payoff of having a fully-sorted car.
The more cars I had, the more the downsides outweighed the upsides. I often find myself longing for a life where I drive a gold Camry that rarely needs to be washed, and is cheap and easy to maintain. A car I never have to think about, because I'm tired of all the upkeep. Something about the things you own owning you. But that’s such a hard pivot, I doubt it’d stick. It’s tough to decide which car to own as my only car. There’s only a few cars that could do it all for me. A street appearance package P71 Crown Vic, a facelift LS430, a BMW 328d, or a 335d. It’s more realistic to picture myself having two or three cars, because that takes the pressure off one car to do it all, and lets me explore so many other curiosities, or own cars that I wouldn’t want to have to depend on every single day. But at least I got this cool picture:
(I have a friend with a Dakar Yellow one with a S52)
