RobBob

Y'know, it's just so easy to stir Jim's ire. Here I am all happy with a new vehicle, and he wants to say I was 'lying' about the politics of groundwater and that I don't use my vehicle offroad for work. Okay, buddy, whatever. The unfortunate truth is that I have owned 4 prev 4x4s in 16 yrs of doing this work, and I at some-time-or-other stuck 3 of the 4 in ways that required help pulling out. I don't have to like it, it's part of what I do. I happen to like leather seats. They are easier to clean than cloth seats in almost any circumstance. Jim, you are full of it.

I almost peed myself reading trask's reply.

Actually trask, this is a long-standing thing with Jim. He popped off way-back-when as the world's arbiter of groundwater use. He knows from our little discussion back then that I may well go offroad as part of my work. Jim's a socialist who has a case of 'capitalist envy.' And I don't agree that 99% of trailheads don't warrant a 4x4 (or at least a 2wd pickup). I damn near destroyed a rental car one day last summer in CO getting up a trailhead...

I had this dream, somehow I'm roaring down the maountain in my new machine, tearing right through Pebble Creek...when--- Lo and Behold---there cowers Jim right in front of me, clutching a handful of his stickers...

Thanks Charlie, I won't. Catburd just doesn't agree/understand because his applications for a vehicle are different. I'm not the gold watch type, but in the parking lot here there are new sedans, Explorers, pickups, even a new Expedition. If I drive a beater, I'm making a statement to my employees...and not the right one. If my circumstances were different, I might even agree with him.

Erik, Grasshopper, my son, I too was once young and paying $185 rent for an old house, eating boxes of Kroger maccaroni and cheese and drinking PBR to get by...seems like yesterday but more like 20 years ago. Like it or not, I'm the boss and I have to have a certain level of 'upscale' because I show customers around, etc. I also actually use my 4WD once-in-awhile for work. So I just can't get out of that 'over 30K' price bracket. Iain, go out to the lot on a rainy evening during the week. Make them invest a LOT of time in you. Etc.

ChrisT, the long answer: I got the $12 Consumer Reports cost sheet on it. Considering it's got oversize wheels and tires, sunroof, leather interior, and a few other options, I calc'd that it cost the dealer $32K. It was stickered up to $37.8. I bought it for $33K, and got 3.64% to boot.

Questions from a 'married bystander:' 1) What single chica is going to move across the country and be so quick to put the 'not looking for a date' disclaimer up? 2) What married chica who is moving across the country is going to go trolling for climbing partners on cc.com, having been warned about the denizens that lurk here? Better yet, what husband/SO would let his 'PNW virgin' out to climb with you animals? RobBob puts a Code Orange troll warning on this one.

Okay, just to put a post-script on this thread... I bought a new 4Runner Sport edition. Man this thing is nice. I drove most of the other 4x4s on the market, and I believe this is the best true offroad SUV for me. Rugged as hell, and with allwheel drive on the highway it drives like the Audi Quattro I had in the 80's . It's the first year that Toyota has put its 4.7V8 in the 4Runner, so the thing's got power to spare.

O BoyOBoyOBoyOBoy...I'm going to pick my bad new machine up right now. Will give you the lowdown on Monday. Yeehaa! She's sweet!

God you fell into that one minx.

and how pray tell do you know this??

Naw, we're thinking that this ISO wouldn't approve of anything you're doin' here...and that you don't really care about that...aw never mind.

Spanker's got the same doubts I do...

Yeah, Sj, you're wound up just as tight as Minx...hey....why don't you two just get together and "unwind?"

Caveman must have the salivary glands of an Alpaca, with all his spitting.

Allison, I thought that you would be upset that DFA called you a baby!

I enjoy telling it like it is. I also enjoyed OJ when he played football.

You know DFA, you have taken that little misquoting trick that I so delicately and cleverly used on you, and you have waged a widespread and blasphemous war with it. I do enjoy a Red Hook now and again, however.

Nothing more transparent than a terminal case of DSB.

Here's to reasonable rulez. Now I'm gonna go pick up my new gas-guzzlin' suv!

I wonder.

I thought DFA was "bottom" on cavey's autosig.

Little girl who witnessed her mom giving birth said "He shouldn't have crawled in there in the first place. Smack him again."

I'm just proud of DFA for spelling 'soldier' correctly.