Been awhile, Half a motorcycle, Approved
I have a long history of working on my vehicles. I documented a lot of my trials and tribulations on my YouTube channel as well. Out of my 10 most viewed videos on the channel seven of them are vehicle related. It’s been a very long time since I have had to do a significant repair on my vehicles. Since I bought my 2016 Tacoma and sold the 99 Tacoma I haven’t really had to fix anything. All I have done is install upgrades and mods and not that many of them. Since I bought my first Tesla in 2019 I haven’t had to fix anything on them either. So when I decided to address my failed backup sensor issue in my Tacoma of course I needed to make a video of it. I sort of dreaded the task though as almost every automotive repair/project I take on turns out being a major PIA. Plus, I just haven’t done it for awhile, maybe I didn’t have the will power/determination to see the project through to the end. From my research I could just throw $500 to a dealer to fix the problem for me.
As I anticipated, things did not go smoothly. The four sensors in the bumper that are used by the system can not be accessed easily. I had to remove the bumper covers to get access. In the process I wound up snapping a number of connectors, luckily I had enough unbroken ones to put everything back together. If you watch the video you will get a good sense of the frustrations I worked through. In the end I got the problem fixed which was somewhat surprising. In total if I include the trim tools I bought for the job I spent less than $100 on the repair along with roughly three hours of my time.
My new (to me) wheel arrived on Friday. Over the weekend I put on some parts that were removed for shipping. The wheel has a few warts like a bent and unusable kick stand, a slightly crooked headlight, a missing charge port cover and a charger that has something rattling around inside. None of these things are huge issues.
The wheel is HUGE. It legitimately seems like half of a motorcycle with it’s massive 100/90 tire. I only got to ride it for a couple minutes just to verify base operation. It feels very stable and planted based on that ride but I need to get a real road test in the books. Overall I am pleased with the outcome of my trade.
Elsa’s one dog bed has a small hole in the top of it from either her or Mia digging at the bed with their claws. I bought them a new bed over the weekend. It looks/feels like an oversized marshmallow covered in faux fur. After a brief WTF is this when they first saw the bed they quickly realized how soft and comfortable it is which made me happy.
I skipped doing the HIT training workout on Sunday. Saturday morning I walked between a mile and two on the beach with my girlfriend first thing and then went to play pickleball afterward. That combination left my body feeling all sorts of aches and pains that made submitting it to that intense exercise circuit sound like a very bad idea.