Temporarily giving up my FFH

[machoman1337]

It's a time of simultaneous happiness and sadness. The good news is, I'm temporarily relocating to the United States for a one-year stint in graduate school, before coming home at a higher pay grade.

 

The bad news is, I'll be without my FFH for a year, starting this August. I won't be car-less though - I'm actually bringing this not-quite-as-economical car with me:

 

 

Why the change of rides? I actually have a practical reason for this - the car was originally bought stateside and imported to Canada. My parents have wanted to sell it for some time, but the market for this class of car over here is dominated by the Germans, and the imperial gauges on a US-spec car hurt resale value in Canada. It'll be much easier to sell (and for more $$$ too, especially with the exchange rate) in the US, plus the importation procedure is easier than if I bring a Canada-spec car along, since I don't need to prove compliance with the EPA and FMVSS beforehand.

 

The car is currently 14 years old and I'll sell it on its 15th birthday next year. Despite its age, it's still a great car and doesn't miss out on that many features vs my FFH. I'll still enjoy heated and cooled leather memory seats (actually more comfortable than those of my FFH), rain-sensing wipers (which my FFH doesn't have, ironically), front and rear parking sensors, HID lamps, side mirrors that auto-fold down when I reverse, navigation (not that I'll use it much due to its age), and a Mark Levinson stereo system.

 

I've ordered a 3.5mm-to-cassette adapter (just typing the word cassette makes me LOL) to be able to use my phone for music, and I already own a compact Bluetooth headset for phone calls. I also own 12V USB adapters for charging devices (originally bought in case I drive a rental car without a USB port).

 

The 290-hp 4.3L V8 makes about 15 mpg in mixed driving on a good day (best I've seen is 23 on the freeway), but I won't be doing quite as much driving while in school as I do right now, so my gas consumption is overall under control.

 

I will dearly miss my FFH while I'm away, but I will rest easy knowing my parents will take care of it like it was their own, and that it will be waiting for me again when I graduate!

[tr7driver]

Congratulations on your grad school appointment. The year will go fast.

[machoman1337]

Well, my first semester is nearly over so I thought I'd post an update. May 2017 can't come soon enough.

 

I made a 920 mile road trip in that Lexus all the way to the Bay Area, stopping overnight in Medford, Oregon to sleep. It was a mostly uneventful trip, until I passed through Redding, California which was blistering hot at the time (July). The heat caused one of my tires to develop a lump (meaning it was no longer perfectly round), so for the last 1.5 hours the car would shake like mad when I exceeded 55 mph. Fortunately, I managed to reach a tire shop after arriving at my destination and $50 later, everything was fine.

 

Surprisingly despite blasting the A/C the entire way I squeezed 29 mpg out of that V8 engine on the freeway. Obviously I would've preferred my FFH :P but that's not bad for an old V8.

 

Over the last few months, the Lexus has held up very well - I finally hit 100,000 miles on the odometer in October. The front passenger side window switch no longer works, one of the parking sensors failed, and the cruise control switch only works intermittently, but otherwise it's a testament to Toyota's legendary long-term mechanical reliability. Not a single check engine light since the day of purchase too!

 

In the meantime, I caught on to a thread on the 2GFusions forum: http://www.2gfusions.net/showthread.php?tid=3881 Since I'm going home for Christmas, I decided to pull the trigger and get a Sync3 unit as well as an FCIM with physical buttons. It'll be a great Christmas gift to myself - turning my Fusion into a 2017 model (sort of)!