Elise in Indiana!

https://www.ebay.com/itm/315358071473?itmmeta=01HXWH74KDJJC4R5SPHC8XEY4Y&hash=item496cce4ab1:g:1eYAAOSwq15mPubm&itmprp=enc%3AAQAJAAAA0IlDXCIOPv%2BE9oCagtqwUEqTx2CweKsIEpWxboTYGbDY5ogpKU2Tje%2FOA4zYeLXlb96IJyw%2BcpIdWi13Bgl53GHblfULaB0EC5Wi3mngyrOZiLhGYG2C2tZEcsW0D3OHo0z2gPrlTxH5%2Fayo%2Ft%2FAcuBTO1COgid89McA4zyTS7v2zVGEg7qC90rBNUqzCBplOKE1Vu7iu1yFctaVQnMlKj7O5%2BgAkuJcidNzo9jP4vdDYxaKHFgTWOzRtHyl8U8qrDCQHXhXbJCIGT0BcGSfkfQ%3D%7Ctkp%3ABk9SR-TJnJHvYw

Plenty of Nissans driven by a certain demographic around here.

I'd still buy one of these if they were cheap

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Quote from: Morris Minor on May 14, 2024, 02:55:39 PMI was having a nostalgic moment thinking about it. My late dad came with us to pick it up from the dealer & sat next to me on the way back home. The cars he bought when I was a kid were worn out by 30,000 miles, and even if not worn out, bodywork rust would be poking through by year three.

The Pilot's been all over the place & followed my son through his time in the Navy; it's been registered in Georgia, South Carolina, Maryland, Connecticut, Hawaii, Massachusetts and California. Just after he arrived in Boston people used to stop him and ask about the Hawaii plates.

Quote from: MrH on May 14, 2024, 07:16:59 AMThat's a strong run for the Pilot.  20+ years and a quarter million miles is impressive.

I was having a nostalgic moment thinking about it. My late dad came with us to pick it up from the dealer & sat next to me on the way back home. The cars he bought when I was a kid were worn out by 30,000 miles, and even if not worn out, bodywork rust would be poking through by year three.

The Pilot's been all over the place & followed my son through his time in the Navy; it's been registered in Georgia, South Carolina, Maryland, Connecticut, Hawaii, Massachusetts and California. Just after he arrived in Boston people used to stop him and ask about the Hawaii plates. 

I wanted to get my old Mazda6 into the 200k-250k range but buying a Miata was much more fun.

I should pull a CarFax report on it and see if it's still registered and running around.

Quote from: CaminoRacer on May 14, 2024, 09:29:36 AMIf the other tires have a lot of tread left, TireRack should be able to shave the new tire to match the tread depth and then you'd still have a perfectly matching set of 4.

That's my plan! I'll have to get a depth measure tool, shouldn't be too much.

Nice!

(my 2003 Odyssey had 260k+ when my ex sold it recently)

If the other tires have a lot of tread left, TireRack should be able to shave the new tire to match the tread depth and then you'd still have a perfectly matching set of 4.

Part 35: Suzuki Equator


Suzuki always had a very dubious business case for existing in North America.  As far as I can tell, their sole reason for being here at all was to supply Vitaras to General Motors, who rebadged them as Chevrolet and Geo Trackers.  Once GM stopped buying the Canadian-built Vitara in 2004, Suzuki's financial position in North America became even more tenuous.

Without the General's cash rolling in, Suzuki needed to find a new revenue steam.  That usually means finding more customers willing to buy your cars.  The problem was Suzuki was a very niche brand with a limited model range and a sparse dealer network.  The only way they could do this was to flesh-out their product portfolio but, with Suzuki's core business being in Japanese kei-class cars, they lacked the sort of product Americans were inclined to buy.

The immediate, quick-and-dirty solution was to strike another deal with Big-Daddy GM and buy a bunch of Korean-built Daewoos and slap some Suzuki badges onto them.  This worked for a little while and Suzuki experienced a temporary bump in sales until early-2000s Korean build quality came back to haunt them.  By the time the 2008 Great Recession blew-up in everyone's faces, Suzuki was in deep doo-doo.  They needed something, anything, that cash-strapped Americans were still willing to squander their kid's inheritance to buy.  But what?

Well, Americans love their pickup trucks.  A truck seemed like an obvious way to get customers in the door and parting them from their money.  Knowing most Americans would never consider a Suzuki Sambar mini-truck, they needed to come up with something more America-friendly.  That something turned out to be a rebadged, Tennessee-built Nissan Frontier.

Why buy a Nissan-built truck from a Suzuki dealer as opposed to a Nissan dealer?  Hell if I know?  Nobody else seemed to know, either.  Production ran from from the 2009 model year through 2012, although Suzuki gave up trying to flog these in Canada after 2010.  2012 also coincided with Suzuki's withdrawal from the US car market.  Maybe if they had bothered to import the Swift or the Jimny, both of which get rave reviews overseas, Suzuki could have carved out a small, profitable niche for itself?  Alas, we'll never know.

Because sales were limited to the USA and Canada, you're unlikely to see a Suzuki Equator in any of the Equatorial regions around the world.  You'll just have to settle for the equivalent Nissan.

Quote from: Morris Minor on May 14, 2024, 05:27:12 AMOkay they bought the Odyssey - immaculate EX-L, 32k miles and the rear entertainment add-on. The new tires are Michelin CC2s - so that's good.

This means the end of the road at last for the 2003 Pilot. I bought it new in 2002 when my son was 13, & it now has something like 260k miles on the clock.

That's a strong run for the Pilot.  20+ years and a quarter million miles is impressive.