well, after almost a full year, i'm back. i've dipped in and out of this site here and there, but i never had much to contribute, so i just kept my mouth shut. i gave my 97 4 runner to my dad (sold his 96' 4runner), and i purchased a 2002 Lexus IS300 last february. the 96 was a limited, and mine was a regular sr5, so i spent all night swapping interiors, taking out the stereo, and some other simple stuff. and then of course, cleaning the hell out of both cars inside and out.

so after 1 year of driving a completely different car, what are my feelings? maybe it's the snow that just dumped in dc, but i miss the 4 runner so much. so much simpler of a car to drive. the IS is nice. and a hell of a lot quicker, but man, it was so nice to pull out of a driveway without worrying about scraping on the ground. these days, if it rains hard, i worry about driving anywhere, and forget about driving in the snow.

my dad's looking into getting something new within the year, so i might end up buying the 4 runner back from him. i have a lot of reading to catch up on. after a year, i'm sure that so much has happened. as i browse through the pages, it's nice to see that a bunch of the old guys are still around. anyways, it's been slow at work, and i thought that i'd just drop by and say hi.

 

Hi to a old member from a new member I just joined back about a year after you.

 

howdy

i used to post on 4x4 wire back in the day, but i completely forgot what my screenname was. plus, it got a little stuffy in there, so when i heard about this site, i was quick to make the move over.

 

What a sad story with such a great ending

 

I feel your pain. I go back and forth between sports cars and trucks. Porsches, cj7, rx7, trooper, another porsche, tacoma, and my last car a bmw 540 with a bunch of mods to my current 4runner. This is much EASIER! For now anyway. Keeps ya more honest too. What's curb rash anyway? mike

 

curb rash is in reference to the wheels. when you make a right hand turn too sharp (and the curb rubs against your wheel) or if you suck at parallel parking, and your wheel nicks the curb.

the 4 runner, just rolled over curbs very easily. so the wheels never got "curb rash" on them. the IS has low profile tires, so if you hit a curb, it scratched the hell out of your wheels. this wasn't a huge problem, but i just have to be super careful now when driving around certain tight areas.

the worst problem is that my IS300's lowered, so the exhuast and the exhaust pipe scrape over speed bumps, and even when i pull out of my driveway