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Sidelining the 31-year-old Trooper Orphan

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JulesMaximus said:
I love it here. We have lived here since 1997.
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It's just that So-Cal is so crowded. Everywhere is becoming crowded. That is -- if you want to live near conveniences like a Walmart or Costco. looking at some of those farmhouse properties sprinkled along US 395 between here and Reno, you wonder what happens when they have to go to the doctor, or go shopping. I suppose it's manageable.

Today, I took the Trooper out for a round-trip to COSTCO. It needs to be driven about once weekly. Over the 1,333 miles driven in my RAV4 so far, the gas mileage reported on the instrument cluster is 39.4 MPG. More than double the highway MPG on the Trooper. Somehow, the Trooper has lost something in my estimation. 12 MPG city driving can't compare to the 41 MPG of the RAV4. The Trooper will cost me something short of $1,000 annually for insurance and registration. Assume it's up to date on repairs -- not likely to need anything over the next year.
 
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My Lexus gets around 15-16mpg average but I haven’t really been driving it much. I am working from home, because I am immunocompromised due to chemotherapy, so really the only time I drive anywhere is to go to doctor’s appointments.
 
JulesMaximus said:
My Lexus gets around 15-16mpg average but I haven’t really been driving it much. I am working from home, because I am immunocompromised due to chemotherapy, so really the only time I drive anywhere is to go to doctor’s appointments.
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Visiting a friend for lunch on Friday at Portillo's in Moreno Valley, I decided to top up the RAV4 tank at COSTCO ($4.05/gal) across the street. I was about a quarter tank down. $14. A full tank gets me about 500 miles. I shouldn't need any gas for the month's remainder.
 
BonzaiDuck said:
Visiting a friend for lunch on Friday at Portillo's in Moreno Valley, I decided to top up the RAV4 tank at COSTCO ($4.05/gal) across the street. I was about a quarter tank down. $14. A full tank gets me about 500 miles. I shouldn't need any gas for the month's remainder.
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Yeah, fuel economy is impressive on those Toyota hybrids and they are pretty bulletproof. I had a Camry Hybrid for a few years, one of the things I liked about it was how it had no serpentine belts so when the engine shut off or wasn’t running, the AC stayed running and cooling the cabin. That is one of the things I hate about cars with auto start/stop, the AC shutting off when the engine shuts off. You feel it immediately especially on a hot day.
 
JulesMaximus said:
Yeah, fuel economy is impressive on those Toyota hybrids and they are pretty bulletproof. I had a Camry Hybrid for a few years, one of the things I liked about it was how it had no serpentine belts so when the engine shut off or wasn’t running, the AC stayed running and cooling the cabin. That is one of the things I hate about cars with auto start/stop, the AC shutting off when the engine shuts off. You feel it immediately especially on a hot day.
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Well . . . it certainly impresses me. I have a tendency to nitpick. A round-trip to the Reno NV area brought my odo mileage to 1,300, and the car reported an average MPG of 39.4. Adding another 120 odo miles, it now shows 38.9, and I'm wondering why, since these 120 miles have been exclusively city driving. But the short trips mean turning the key to start the car several times more than what prevailed to include that highway trip.

I can't complain about getting more than three times the MPG of the old Trooper. What to do with that old Trooper? It's going to cost me an extra $1,000 per year for insurance and registration. Still -- it's a sweet ride, but I'm only going to take it out of the garage about 4 times per month.

Here's an observation or story. I was trying to keep a low profile for the RAV4 in my neighborhood. I have a neighbor who has two Mercedes sports sedans -- beautiful cars, well-maintained. Suddenly, it looks like she's trying to sell either one of them -- she was showing both cars to visitors to her house I'd never seen before. Keep up with the Jones-es? Why does she care if I suddenly acquired a new Toyota? Maybe I'm just imagining this, but I watched her give the grand tour to those visitors for both the Mercedes . . . .

The RAV4 doesn't have the "status" that many cars on my street have -- we've got a couple Tesla vehicles, a Porsche electric, etc. etc. My old Trooper was the oldest vehicle on the street.
 
jmagg said:
Why would her possibly selling a car make you believe she cares about your new Toyota.?
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Timing and her fondness for the two sport sedans, which I had previously observed. I said I tried to keep the RAV4 under a low profile. I may just be speculating and imagining that I have more attention than I want or deserve in regards to how I spend my money.

See -- I don't really want to care or even think about "class distinctions" anymore. My life is over. I have enough income. I have an investment portfolio. I don't care about what people think. But I observe their behavior.
 
We have nice cars, nicer than most of our neighbors anyway, and I am friendly with everyone on our street and I’m reasonably sure they don’t care what we drive. I wouldn’t spend another second on that line of thought personally.
 
BonzaiDuck said:
Timing and her fondness for the two sport sedans, which I had previously observed. I said I tried to keep the RAV4 under a low profile. I may just be speculating and imagining that I have more attention than I want or deserve in regards to how I spend my money.

See -- I don't really want to care or even think about "class distinctions" anymore. My life is over. I have enough income. I have an investment portfolio. I don't care about what people think. But I observe their behavior.
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Cars are meaningless, along with $50k watches and $5k suits. What I envy is my neighbors lawn. That guy has a front a yard that's manicured, the grass is perfect, not a weed or loose leaf to be seen, cross mowed, and he does it all himself. Whereas my front yard just squeaks into "presentable" territory.
 
Greenman said:
Cars are meaningless, along with $50k watches and $5k suits. What I envy is my neighbors lawn. That guy has a front a yard that's manicured, the grass is perfect, not a weed or loose leaf to be seen, cross mowed, and he does it all himself. Whereas my front yard just squeaks into "presentable" territory.
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Ha! I understand all that en-TIRE-ly!

I had a high-school classmate -- now deceased since 2022 -- who would always thump his chest about making $8 million in his best year. He had to hold forth at length about his Falcon 2000 jet and how he flew his wife to Vancouver, BC so they could have Alaskan crab fresh from the ocean.

And he had this story about his $20,000 wrist watch, recounting how certain women he would meet might know about his watch, and how he "had to be careful" because of all the gold-diggers.

Of course his son was wanted for murdering his girlfriend and became a fugitive in Guatamala. And it seemed that he only got caught when his dad was on the verge of dying.
 
Greenman said:
Cars are meaningless, along with $50k watches and $5k suits. What I envy is my neighbors lawn. That guy has a front a yard that's manicured, the grass is perfect, not a weed or loose leaf to be seen, cross mowed, and he does it all himself. Whereas my front yard just squeaks into "presentable" territory.
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Lawn is meaningless.
 
Greenman said:
Cars are meaningless, along with $50k watches and $5k suits. What I envy is my neighbors lawn. That guy has a front a yard that's manicured, the grass is perfect, not a weed or loose leaf to be seen, cross mowed, and he does it all himself. Whereas my front yard just squeaks into "presentable" territory.
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Historically speaking, the whole point of a lawn is precisely to display of wealth. It is space that is not agriculturally productive in any way.
 
Fenixgoon said:
Historically speaking, the whole point of a lawn is precisely to display of wealth. It is space that is not agriculturally productive in any way.
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Truth and it is a big waste of water. We got rid of all our grass a few years ago and went with a drought tolerant desert landscape. I hate grass, so glad it is gone.
 
JulesMaximus said:
Truth and it is a big waste of water. We got rid of all our grass a few years ago and went with a drought tolerant desert landscape. I hate grass, so glad it is gone.
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I did the same when I lived in California. A couple days a year to blow the leaves and prune and I was done.
 
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