Non Boring Transportation Appliance?

Doesn't the taco with 6 spd standard ONLY come with the short Box?

Yeah, unless you get an extended cab. A guy on my street has a crew cab long box 6spd 4wd Frontier, says they are super rare. I had an automatic 4.0L Tacoma for 5 years, can't say I miss it.

You mentioned the Touareg at the beginning… I bought a 2012 TDI new and still love it. Like most folks with an SUV, mine doesn't venture off maintained roads very often but I've happily taken it up FSRs when desired and it does so quite well without complaint as long as you don't have to forge massive water bars. Torque is great (fun!), fuel economy great for its size, drives pretty sporty (again, for its size), and it's very comfortable for the pax. Friends like it when I drive. I'm kind of waiting to see what happens with the whole dieselgate scandal and what they offer on the 3.0L diesels in Canada. But even if they offered me a bunch of money to buy it back, my biggest thing is that I don't see much else on the market to buy right now.

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

I feel like there's a cultural difference in trucks between Van and my neck of the woods. Out here a "regular" truck doesn't signify anything, apart from someone thought a truck was the right vehicle for them. In Van it seems like people feel a need to make an excuse to buy a full size truck or have to defend the choice because there's something wrong with buying one.

In Telkwa ya gotta have a diesel, extra points for a chip/a lift/ big tires/no muffler

double bonus points for a confederate flag somewhere on the vehicle

How does fun to drive work in Vancouver anyway?

When your overhead reads…

:fu:

Canyonero?

I always wanted a full-time 4wd system in a truck ala the old Grand Cherokees (afaik, they don't exist). Can do both part-time, full-time 4wd. Or maybe these are considered an obsolete system now. But part-time 4wd is no good on highways (or least it was), and that is where I would want some traction ala a full-time system.

IME at highway speed on ice [HTML_REMOVED] snow a front WD car that handles well was safer than a top heavy/short WB suv or truck

the key to being safe is to slow down to 90kph on the frozen water

You mentioned the Touareg at the beginning… I bought a 2012 TDI new and still love it. Like most folks with an SUV, mine doesn't venture off maintained roads very often but I've happily taken it up FSRs when desired and it does so quite well without complaint as long as you don't have to forge massive water bars. Torque is great (fun!), fuel economy great for its size, drives pretty sporty (again, for its size), and it's very comfortable for the pax. Friends like it when I drive. I'm kind of waiting to see what happens with the whole dieselgate scandal and what they offer on the 3.0L diesels in Canada. But even if they offered me a bunch of money to buy it back, my biggest thing is that I don't see much else on the market to buy right now.

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Great info! I'm still interested in the Touareg TDI - it seems to be a great blend between comfort, luxury, fuel efficiency, and mild/moderate off-road ability. How many kms do you have on it now and any issues with it? I've owned 4 or 5 VWs in the past and they've all been great. I know some people have issues with their reliability but maybe I've just been lucky with mine… And I have a great VW mechanic which increases the appeal and peace of mind a bit too…

Given the Audi is the same as the VW SUV are there better deals on used Q5/Q7 compared to the Millennial love of VW that drives up VW prices?

The Range Rover Discovery would be cool. Years ago I knew a RR mechanic and he swore by the Disco just as much as he warned us all against buying anything else in the RR lineup.

The Sierra CrewCab I was driving in the snow the other day had 2WD, AWD (If I recall), 4Hi, 4Lo on a switch.

Great info! I'm still interested in the Touareg TDI - it seems to be a great blend between comfort, luxury, fuel efficiency, and mild/moderate off-road ability. How many kms do you have on it now and any issues with it? I've owned 4 or 5 VWs in the past and they've all been great. I know some people have issues with their reliability but maybe I've just been lucky with mine… And I have a great VW mechanic which increases the appeal and peace of mind a bit too…

I've got just over 80,000km on mine. It was flawless until the AdBlue heater failed recently, which pissed me off given that I live in Vancouver and don't enter into temperatures requiring DEF to be heated very much. But if you look on the internet, it's a pretty common problem right around the 80k mark so worth thinking about that $1000 hit (or be willing to drive around with the engine light on). It's been my third VW/Audi product and I'd say they've all been pretty good and I haven't done anything special other than stick to the maintenance schedule in the manual.

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Given the Audi is the same as the VW SUV are there better deals on used Q5/Q7 compared to the Millennial love of VW that drives up VW prices?

The Q5 TDI would be awesome if you like the size of it (a coworker of mine has one and loves it). It's a bit smaller than the Touareg and more like the Tiguan. I could never wrap my head around the look of the Q7 but to each their own. And I think the Audi interiors are nicer. I had an Audi A3 a while back and I thought the "user interface" of the buttons and rollers and such were a bit better than the VW even though I was moving to a more expensive and newer vehicle.

I'm now in the same boat as OP, but I can take the offroad requirement out of the picture.

4 adults, AWD, luxury, not ridiculous money.

I can list off all the cars that fit into this category, be they the $40k mid-level brands or the $65k luxury brands. My issue is they're all the same to me. The closest anything comes to generating any interest for me is the Subaru Forester with the 2.0L turbo.

I'm now in the same boat as OP, but I can take the offroad requirement out of the picture.

4 adults, AWD, luxury, not ridiculous money.

I can list off all the cars that fit into this category, be they the $40k mid-level brands or the $65k luxury brands. My issue is they're all the same to me. The closest anything comes to generating any interest for me is the Subaru Forester with the 2.0L turbo.

I don't know if Foresters grown recently, but for Subarus I prefer a Legacy/Outback as they have more cargo room and a functional back seat and are still a very manageable size.

I am in the same boat - want a family vehicle that drives well in the city but also has decent offroad capability (for basic FSR type stuff). The Forester is the vehicle I am most seriously considering but I do wish it were a little bit bigger (basically the size of the outback). I would just get an Outback but I prefer the styling of the Forester. Subaru recently announced that 3 row bigger SUV they are developing but not sure I want to wait 3 years for it to be released.