Jim Rosenthal
Supporter
This is not about a Ford, full disclosure, although no doubt they can be as stupid as anyone. This is about my Toyota Tacoma, which was built in California, by the way. It is a 2008 model.
I love Toyota trucks. The predecessor of this truck (a 1998 Tacoma) would still be driving if someone hadn't bent it into a pretzel shape with me inside of it and landed me in the hospital in 2007. Anyway, after I recovered from all that, I decided to replace my 98 Tacoma (which only had 200K miles on it and ran perfectly) with a new one. This was in late 2007, when things were already going soft with the truck market due to high fuel prices. I special-ordered an 08 Tacoma, 2wd, stick, 4cyl. The only options I wanted were cruise control and intermittent wipers, but the cruise and wipers only come in a package called the SR5 group- along with a lot of cheap trim, power locks etc, which I didn't want. I tend to keep vehicles a long time and all that complicated stuff breaks and is hard to repair. I would rather not have it.
The cost of the SR5 package is $2500. The cruise control is offered at $400, which was fine with me, but when the dealer tried to order it that way, Toyota declined to do it. The intermittent wipers weren't offered at all- except as part of the SR5 package. To their credit, the dealer tried hard to get me to buy the SR5 option, even discounting it to $1600 or so, but I didn't need all that other stuff. So I just bought the truck with no options.
The first thing we took care of was the intermittent wipers. The little circuit that works them is actually in the switch, which is on the steering column. Take out the old switch, put the new one in, and you're done. All the wiring is already in there. The switch is the brains of the outfit. Total cost $150.
Today we took care of the cruise control. Cost to find out that factory CC can easily be added to non-CC Toyotas: $30 on web (probably could have found this out for free, but I decided to support a web site which lets you decide whether you want to pay for the answer you got. Worth it, too.)
Cost of CC switch, clutch safety switch, and harnesses: $120
Labor to install: $180 (again,not difficult, but required a few tools I don't have and anyway I like to support my local independent shop)
Driving your truck down the road with factory cruise control which you bought and installed yourself (with help) for $300: priceless.
I would have happily paid Toyota five or six hundred dollars to have these on the truck when I bought it. I think if you turn down money to spend an hour or two activating circuits which are built into every Toyota and just have to be woken up by installing the relevant switchgear (it would have been cheaper for them since they would have only had the wheel off once and they get the tech's labor at wholesale) you are stupid. What do you guys think?
In the meantime, I'm going for a ride. And playing with my new toy.
I love Toyota trucks. The predecessor of this truck (a 1998 Tacoma) would still be driving if someone hadn't bent it into a pretzel shape with me inside of it and landed me in the hospital in 2007. Anyway, after I recovered from all that, I decided to replace my 98 Tacoma (which only had 200K miles on it and ran perfectly) with a new one. This was in late 2007, when things were already going soft with the truck market due to high fuel prices. I special-ordered an 08 Tacoma, 2wd, stick, 4cyl. The only options I wanted were cruise control and intermittent wipers, but the cruise and wipers only come in a package called the SR5 group- along with a lot of cheap trim, power locks etc, which I didn't want. I tend to keep vehicles a long time and all that complicated stuff breaks and is hard to repair. I would rather not have it.
The cost of the SR5 package is $2500. The cruise control is offered at $400, which was fine with me, but when the dealer tried to order it that way, Toyota declined to do it. The intermittent wipers weren't offered at all- except as part of the SR5 package. To their credit, the dealer tried hard to get me to buy the SR5 option, even discounting it to $1600 or so, but I didn't need all that other stuff. So I just bought the truck with no options.
The first thing we took care of was the intermittent wipers. The little circuit that works them is actually in the switch, which is on the steering column. Take out the old switch, put the new one in, and you're done. All the wiring is already in there. The switch is the brains of the outfit. Total cost $150.
Today we took care of the cruise control. Cost to find out that factory CC can easily be added to non-CC Toyotas: $30 on web (probably could have found this out for free, but I decided to support a web site which lets you decide whether you want to pay for the answer you got. Worth it, too.)
Cost of CC switch, clutch safety switch, and harnesses: $120
Labor to install: $180 (again,not difficult, but required a few tools I don't have and anyway I like to support my local independent shop)
Driving your truck down the road with factory cruise control which you bought and installed yourself (with help) for $300: priceless.
I would have happily paid Toyota five or six hundred dollars to have these on the truck when I bought it. I think if you turn down money to spend an hour or two activating circuits which are built into every Toyota and just have to be woken up by installing the relevant switchgear (it would have been cheaper for them since they would have only had the wheel off once and they get the tech's labor at wholesale) you are stupid. What do you guys think?
In the meantime, I'm going for a ride. And playing with my new toy.