Did you recently take on (or consider) a loan of 84 months or longer on a car purchase?
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The 98s have a 3year/50K bumper to bumper warranty and a 5year/60K powertrain warranty. I'll run out of time before I run out of miles...
-mike
As far as child seats go, we have a booster seat for our 4 year old. We still run the seat belt behind the car seat and use the car seat's 5 point harness. We found the key to getting the seat in nice and tight is to actually get in the back seat area, put your knee up on the seat and twist the seat belt at the connection while pulling all of the slack up on the belt to lock it in place. Are you using the seat belt or the car seat harness for protection?
I bought my Trooper to tow an 18ft boat (did not like the V8s out there and couldn't afford a new Landcruiser).
So far so good. I have hit the 5K RPM on up hills and feel kinda bad about subjecting a new car to the abuse. Are you towing mostly in 3rd? Any mods made for towing?
Thanks.
second of all, as far as the stereo goes, i want to swap in an aftermarket unit.. Best Buy offers free installs this week on all headunits >$100, so i might go for that.. I talked to the guy there last night, and they seemed competent enough to put a HU in..
lastly, i am already having problems with a brand new car.. i think its related to the discharged battery or something
what happens is that every time i crank the stock HU up, it starts cutting off sound, and if i turn my wipers on, same thing happens.. have no idea what it is, but taking it to the dealer to have looked at soon..
any advice would be appreciated..
also, does the rear bumper protector, the custom one from 4x independent, does it need a hitch??
This is the current leader and four times winner of the Australian Safari, Bruce Garland, in his 338hp Jackaroo/Trooper. This year's safari started last Saturday and concludes next Saturday.
Last year, there was in-car video of this guy doing 100mph in a dry creek bed, on the Holden web site.
Needless to say, do not try this with your standard Trooper.
www.holden.com.au
www.australiansafari.com.au
www.grt.au.nu
Bruce Garland's truck (#50) is heavily modified and isn't quite stock. The V6 he runs requires 100 octane fuel and is a competition development engine from Isuzu Japan.
Peter Brock (#05), who came 2nd last year, and Nathan Pretty (#55) are running basically stock trucks with minor modifications to suspension, brakes and body. Drive train is standard. Note that Brock's Jackaroo last year outran the Paris-Dakar Ralliart Mitsubishis (who aren't here this year).
The tyres are competition Bridgestone Dueler R/T's in 7.50R16 size. They are kevlar belted and about $750AUS each.
The torsion bars and coils are locally sourced from Ultimate Suspensions, IIRC. The shocks are Proflex hand built units from from Holland. They are something like $1000AUS each.
I believe Bob Land from California is racing a Trooper here this year. He has had mixed fortunes in previous years with a Vehicross.
Ideally I would like one that works well, is not noisey, is easy to install, and not too expensive. Make and model number and a vendor would be appreciated.
Thanks,
George
Cont.
There is a white LS or Limited in Ramsey NJ at a dealer, perhaps that is a viable solution. Too bad, cause I'm on vacation in the adirondacks and toyed with the idea of shooting over to VT for a day to meet up with you!
-mike
The one I helped design for Indy uses a hitch to attach it. In a really bad rear end, you'll probably sustain the same damage as not having it, in a smaller one, the bar will slice through the car rear ending you's front end and it will protect your rear end. Mostly I got it to protect the tire/door/bumpers from parrallel parking dings and what not. In NYC they like to whack your car as they park, and in the troopers case it would push the tire into the door.
-mike
This reminds me that the Trooper's safety controversy was truly unfair. Under the circumstances of this accident, it was exceptionally safe. It makes me wonder further about how well NHTSA and IHS tests correlate with real world accident data. It may be true that a box framed vehicle, hit into an immoveable concrete wall, will perhaps punish itself (ie. the frame will transmit force to the cabin rather than crumpling completely). But if the same vehicle hits another vehicle, that frame will (in essence) act as a ramrod, forcing the other vehicle to absorb much of the force while protecting itself.
I'll pause here to say that I'm no expert and these conclusions may be wrong but if they aren't...
Perhaps there's good reason for people in cars to fear SUVs. The policeman told us that most officers he knows folow the traditional wisdom of driving a larger heavier vehicle for protection reasons. If the careless drivers are in small cars (as was this gentleman) and the careful drivers are in SUVs (as was Monique) it is perhaps a less unfair situation. But to be sure, a bad driver in an SUV is a real potential menace to safe drivers in small cars.
Bottom line is that I may never drive a small car again (its been years since we owned one anyway).
On a motorcycle one relies on defensive driving, manueverability, protective gear and the hope that, if an accident should occur, one will be thrown clear. Its clearly a matter of accepting a certain amount of risk. But if I'm going to be trapped in a small metal and glass box during an accident, I don't want it to be a small box.
So, I'm still on tour with Honda (having left briefly to deal with the accident) but will be finished soon and need to go up to QB to removed the aftermarket stuff from the vehicle before its totalled.
Any leads on a replacement? This was a mint (it turned out, after my mechanic inspected it) 1999 Trooper with performance package, sunroof, nerf bars, silver-gold paint etc. I may even look at new again if the incentives are sufficient.
Best,
Sean
-mike
OME rear coils- These are progressive rate and give a slight lift so that when you apply a trailer it won't bottom out and is more stable than the OEM ones.
Rancho 9000s- I keep the rears on 3 for normal driving and then when trailering over 1000lbs I put em up to 5+ which makes em harder but controls the load a lot.
Hidden Hitch- So far great hitch towing 5500lbs on several occassions
Tires- I upgraded to Scorpion ATs in 275-70-16, not sure if this helps or hurts, but the extra contact probably helps.
Other items that may help:
Sway Away Torsion Bars- I added these recently and they just help to settle the truck, towing or not towing.
Poly sway bar bushings- For $20 you can't go wrong, not sure if they help towing or not.
K&N panel filter- Again not sure if it helped towing, but for $50 you never need to buy another filter, and it does seemt o give some extra umph over 4000 RPMs.
Other than that my truck is stock. I tow in "D" unless I notice that it's doing a lot of up-down shifting, then I'll drop it to 3. Around town I put it in power mode for towing to keep it from shifting too often.
Trailers I've towed:
18' Fiberglas Bowrider w/3.0l I/O about 2700lbs
17' Fiberglas Bowrider w/90hp OB about 2800lbs
Uhaul Autotransport Tandem Axle Trailer with Surge Brakes Carrying various subarus. ~5500lbs.
Uhaul tow dolly 3400lb SAAB, not fun w/o brakes
I'd say if you are over 2500lbs get trailer brakes, well worth the investment if you tow more than 50-100miles often.
-mike
-mike
As for where to get a replacement Trooper, I'd start on autotrader.com and see who has what. A good bet might be a year-old corporate Trooper that has been sold recently to a dealer via an Isuzu dealer-only auction. You might check with a few dealers to find out which ones are more active in this program.
We bought our replacement Trooper, a 98 w/Performance Package (that pkg included TOD back then) and 7k miles, for $21,000. A new '99 similarly equipped would have cost $24-25k. We could have done a bit better but overall I'm happy with saving $3-4k and starting with a vehicle that had 7k miles on it.
Got those poly sway bar bushings installed over the weekend. An easy task, and good results!! Feels quite differently in the curves.
That's the first item I had the dealer check under warranty as I was convinced it wasn't working. I wasn't quite familiar enough with the car at the time to let it go below the empty mark, and I'm still uncomfortable to do so.
A bit of an eventful day on the safari yesterday. Apart from the rolled Jackaroo, the official helicopter crashed after the tail boom clipped a tree. It lost the boom, went into a spin but managed to land upright. No one injured.
In a separate incident, a motorcycle entrant came off his KTM bike and was then subsequently by the third Holden Rally Team Jackaroo. He was hospitalised but luckily only suffered a dislocated shoulder.
This year's race is not for the faint hearted. And there's five days yet to go!
Seems that with the new tires on a run today I topped out at about 110mph with them, before I ran out of road and guts.
-mike
-mike
You know, those poly bushings I installed did not seem to help my gas mileage a bit!!
Maybe Rancho shocks will help!
I wonder if the fact that the brake is fighting the engine all time time is contributing to bad mileage...
There's a number of things that have worked for me but only when the car gets a chance to run a bit. These include, the two stage foam filter, a higher octane fuel, run all four tyres at 38psi (then you get the center of the tyre wearing out), synthetic motor oil, and be gentle on the throttle. All this gives me a cumulative improvement of around 10% but only when cruising.
All this goes out the window, when you get into stop-start traffic. Like what my wife does Monnday to Friday.
If this is a real problem....the only solution is to get another car for stop-start and keep the Trooper for the longer runs.
I tested out the Valvoline Oil for Higher Mileage Engines in 5W30, it was all the store had in 5W30 that day.
http://www.valvoline.com/pages/products/product_detail.asp?Product=7
It has extra detergent and other stuff that sounded like a good idea for my dirt fearing engine. The results were pretty good, it stopped the little bit of faint ticking I was having before changing the oil and kept it away. The down side of this $1.88 dino oil in consumption rate of a little less than a quart in 2000 miles compared to maybe half a quart of $4 full synthetic in 4000 miles. The dino oil would be less expensive even with using an extra quart each oil change. This agrees with Paison's idea that the oil is "evaporated" I think that is right, then it is sucked into the air intake by crankcase ventilation to be burned. I have never had a Trooper that leaked a drop, but burning a little is the norm.