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2015-08-09
So over the last year and a half I had been playing with the idea of buying a secondary vehicle. The main reason why I wanted a second car is because I have to commute 45 minutes to work everyday and end up getting a new car every 6 years, basically I get a new car when the current car starts having serious issues(usually when they start hitting 200k miles) and I don't want to have to take time off work to wait and get my car fixed or fix it my self. With two cars I can take one car off the road for a couple of days to fix my self, and drive the other car into work. And I won't be stuck in a situation where I had to borrow my mother car for a week while I had my other car fixed. This also opens up the possibility where when one car starts to hitting 300k miles I can spend a month or two rebuilding the engine and transmission instead of buying a new car to replace it and save me 10 of thousands of dollars in the process.
Another reason is that new cars these days are starting to get spooky. Congress passed a law that was added to an infrastructure bill that will require that all new cars past a certain date will be required to have some sort of remote lock out device installed in them, on top of the potential of modern infotainment systems possibility being used to spy on/track you as they can connect to the internet and be tracked via blue tooth pinging(similar to apple air tags). There is also the risk of them being hacked or being infected with malware from phones that connect to them. Lets not forget that a lot of modern cars now need to go in for "software updates" which is fucking retarded, cars have been computerised since the late 1970's, and never had to go in for software updates.
Final reason is that modern cars are starting to have right to repair issues, where you only can take the car to the dealership to have basic maintenance done or be fixed and no where else, with out voiding the warranty or not being able to get the parts for the car. On top of subscription's based features where you have to pay a monthly subscription for heated seats and or other features. I figure they are doing this in part because cars since the 90's can last upwards of 400k miles(or 25+ years) if maintained property, so they do this to keep money flowing in.
The vehicle I was considering was something larger then my daily driver, something like an SUV(Preferably 1990's Jeep Cherokee),4X4 pickup trucks or a Van. So after thinking about what to get after a year and a half I decided on getting a Van, because Vans in general are kinda of jack of all trades vehicle. Vans have very good storage and passenger space, have a high enough ground clearance to do some "light" off roading and being able to tow trailer up to 3600lb (that's for mini-vans) Another reason I bought A Van is being able to put all the seats down on the inside and use it as a small camper. I've decided I'm going to spend the rest of my life hiking various mountain trails, enjoying nature and traveling, so having something I can live out of for weeks on end works out great for me. Also being able to tow a small camper trailer works out with my off grid plan, if I ever decide to go through with that(The way society is going these days, its probably a good idea for dissidents like me).
The only real down side to vans is the lack of 4WD options, 4WD use to be commonly available on most mini-vans up until the early to mid 2000's then most manufactures stopped selling them on the north American market. The only exceptions were the Toyota Sienna and Cargo Vans, and those are hard to come by on the used car market. I'm not 100% why 4WD vans were never popular, I think it could have been because manufactures only offered them on their higher level trims and people went for the lower model SUV's instead, I've also heard there is social pressure to buy SUV's instead of vans for some reason as well.
The first van I view was a 92 Chevy StarCraft, The van was in good shape for a 30 year old van, but smelt like cat piss, dead mice and cigarettes on the inside then I test drove it and the transmission seemed funky so I decided not to get it. The second Van I looked at was a 2007 Honda Odyssey, at first glance it looked alright, and ran fine, and had a bit of rust around the wheel wells, which is typical for most vans and trucks in the salt belt. When I looked underneath the frame on the drivers side was badly rusted and was on the verge of rusting threw on some spots(near jacks points as well), the weird part was there was hardly any rust on the passenger side frame.. Then the third van I looked at was a 2010 Dodge Caravan with under 100k miles on it, there is some rust on the wheel wells, rockers and surface rust on the frame, but not anything to bad like on the Odyssey so I decided to go with the Caravan. I was able to haggle the price down by 700 dollars on it. I need to do some minor body work on the van along with some general maintenance (Transmission fluid, coolant, spark plugs etc etc), which I plan on doing in the fall, nothing major. I also plan on hitting up the junk yards to find a trailer hitch for the van as well. In theory I could convert it to 4WD, there is a 4WD version of the transmission the van uses, but I don't think its really worth spending the money on, probably looking at around 4 to 5 grand to covert it, money I could spend on a ATV and trailer instead. So far I have taken it on a couple of over-night camping trips, I've be able to fit my cot into the can with the seats down quite easily, and have been adding more stuff to the camping setup as I go long.
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