1995 Lexus SC400 - Happy Wife, Happy Life



My wife and I knew when we bought this 1995 Lexus SC400 from the owner of this ridiculous house outside Cleveland, Ohio that the pricy Nakamichi sound system didn't work. Ok. Fine. But the intermittent glowing of the "TRAC" light, that's independent of the traction control system being on or off, the ABS light occasionally going on and the power adjustable mirrors not working all conspired to have both of us taking a deep breath followed by, "oh, god, what have we done?" The problems all being intermittent, save for the dead mirrors, even the radio works sometimes, assuaged our anxiety but only so much.

 

One of the weirder things our "Lexie" also did from the get go, I guess we deliriously failed to notice it on our test drive, was when we'd roll up the driver's side window a muffled yet sharp "crack" sound, like a rock hitting the windshield, would emanate from deep behind the genuine wood trimmed door panel. Also, from inside the driver's door, there was a strangely pleasant sound of small maraca's shaking when we drove at speed on the highway; no such pleasantries came from the passenger side door panel. Something was definitely up inside the driver's door but hakuna matata, right? No worries, it's a Toyota and nothing ever goes wrong with a Toyota.  

 



One recent morning, my wife called me annoyed and semi-frantic that driver's side window got stuck about half way up. "Relax," I purred, "It's nothing." Of course, I had no idea at the time what was wrong but knowing my wife's reaction to whatever is wrong in situations like this is directly linked to my reaction, I played it cool. Besides, how bad could the problem be?

I dismantled the door and found the regulator had broken. Actually, from the looks of it, it was probably hanging on for dear life for quite a while and that mariachi band playing was its death throws. What dismantled my stomach lining was the difficulty I had not only finding a replacement regulator but one that was affordable. The first one I found was on a website that had the cheesy look of a site you don't admit to perusing but at just shy of $300 I knew I had to be able to due better. I was further traumatized when the big Lexus dealer in Cleveland quoted me $1162.86 for one. Oh. My god. The junkyard I get 99% of my parts from didn't have one either. The hell was I going to do?

 

 

Keep calling junkyards, that's what I did. I don't know how these places work but it would appear that they're all not on the same network. My regular yard in Cleveland didn't have one nor could find one but a yard in Youngstown hooked me up with one off a 1994 SC300 that was, get this, in Cleveland. Best was they wanted just $75 for it and that included the motor - not that I needed it. I even got to swarm all over the donor car for other parts I might need. Unfortunately, there wasn't much left to pick off the poor thing.

 

Anyway, the replacement regulator went in without drama except for the fact that the window sticks up out of the door by about an inch or so. Blame that on the part coming from a '94 and not a '95 - apparently Lexus altered the body slightly mid year 1994 - who knew? Frustrating but it is what it is but since this has become the wife's ride and she could care less, I have better things to do than fuss over something that she finds inconsequential. She's happy and that's all that matters.

 

 

Happy wife, happy life. Let's fix that radio next.

1969 Pontiac Catalina - Sometimes The Good Old Days Were Actually Good

The week after the fiftieth anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing, I stumbled across this fifty year old Pontiac Catalina for sale at a little used car lot down the street from my new office in Youngstown, Ohio. Ambitiously priced at $7,500, it's far from perfect but it's in pretty good, rust free condition. I wish I took more pictures of it but a guy from the lot's sales office came out and stood on top of me as I slobbered all over it - tire kicking with no intent of buying something is fine but I don't feel comfortable taking a boat load of photos with someone breathing down my neck. It's a used car lot, after all, and not some car show. Still, I should have. It's in a bad part of town and the lot stores all their cars inside a big garage after hours so there's little chance I'll be able to take more photos of it without some sales person on top of me. Oh well. 

It's rust free because it's an Arkansas car and I didn't ask why and how it's all the way up here in god forsaken Youngstown. She sure is big too - two hundred and sixteen and a half inches long and unlike many big cars from that era that are actually quite cramped inside, the interior felt cavernous and airy. Behind the wheel I didn't mind the lack of a power seat adjuster either - just a door to door bench seat drenched in "Naugahyde"; a very catchy name GM called their wears-like-iron vinyl upholstery back then. The height was fine for me and the steering wheel angle too despite no tilt or telescoping adjustment. Front seat was a little springy, though and offered absolutely no support what so ever. The test drive, although short, was epic.

Driving an old car is a trip back in time that even trumps walking through your childhood home after decades away since most likely a lot of your home has changed. I know mine did to the extent I barely recognized a square inch of the interior. An original time capsule like this? Surreal. Don't get me wrong, this is a horrible car although it sounded great and its 400 engine pulled it off the line like a freight train. The steering was incredibly over boosted - not  unlike it was like when new. The shocks were dead, though, and did little to cushion me from the undulations of Youngstown's legendarily horrible streets. That along with the springy seats made for what I would imagine would be an exhausting car to drive. Even with new shocks. And springs for that matter. Still, that big V-8 in a very good state of tune was a hoot to peg.

Our literal golden oldie has one of two Pontiac 400 cubic inch V-8's offered in 1969, hence the 400 on the fender (if you can see it).  Standard was a 290 horsepower 400 that required premium fuel while a no cost option 265 horse version was also offered. Why? Who knows. A four barrel 400 was offered as well that made 330 horsepower while a 428 engine making 390 hp topped the engine lineup. Those horsepower number sound like contemporary numbers but keep in mind these are generous SAE "gross" ratings - subtract forty percent of the gross to get reasonably close to what the "net" would be. So, if our Catalina here makes 290 gross horses, she'd make approximately 174 net. The math makes sense considering contemporary road test results of this car with a 400 "two barrel" engine have it going from zero to sixty in 9.3 seconds. It felt much stronger than that because the lion's share of the engine's torque comes on right off idle. That's always fun.

For 1969, the Catalina was Pontiac's middle model in their full size triumvirate between the entry level "Executive" and their top drawer "Bonneville". Sharing underpinnings with the Chevrolet Impala and Caprice, Oldsmobile 88 and Buick Wildcat and LeSabre, the Catalina was part of one of my favorite eras and types of American automobiles - GM full size cars made between 1965 and 1970. Somewhat ironic although I've come to fathom it a total coincidence, I was born in 1964 and these would have been my first experience with brand new cars. Epitomizing GM styling at its high point, these cars were bolted together quite well too and had interiors that were equally as handsome being devoid of injection molded plastic. In a time when the size of a car was still a bragging point, GM's replacements for these cars come 1971 may have been bigger but they certainly weren't better. In many regards they were literally gigantic steps backwards.

Driving this big old Poncho, really all cars of this era, aside from the beauty of their "Coke bottle" styling, I was amazed at how primitive it is compared even to cars that would be made not ten years later. Please note I didn't say they were better but driven by myriad circumstances, those later cars had engineering advances that were seemingly moon shot like compared to this car that hearkened from a by gone era of automobile design that placed form over function. Sometimes the good old days were actually really good.

Juxtapose this car and cars just like it against Apollo 11. While it's been said the Apollo space ships, had less computing power than a modern iPhone, the damn thing still landed on the freakin' moon for crying out loud. Meanwhile, mortals down here drove automobiles that had more in common with a Conestoga Wagon than a moon lander.  So, where the Apollo's advanced for their time or were cars like our Catalina stuck in an automotive stone age with no impetus to evolve in 1969? Me thinks, like so often is the case in life, the answer to that question lies somewhere in the middle. 

2019 Nissan Rogue - What's In a Name?

The only way I can make peace with the growing ubiquity of cross overs is if I tell myself that they're an evolution of the automobile as opposed to some sort of new "vehicle segment" that's taking over the world. If the growth in their popularity was more incremental, that evolution would be more  obvious. The last time the automobile industry saw a seismic change like this was in the 1930's when they shifted, very quickly, to all steel bodies.

I admit I do get, to some extent, what people appreciate about cross overs - that being utility with an elevated driving position and in some cases a dollop of style. I actually (swallows pride) really like some of them too although they're usually higher end models like the Porsche Macan. What I don't get, however, is what anyone sees in what has become the quintessential, bread and butter cross over poster CUV, the Nissan Rogue.

Based on the platform that underpins the compact Nissan Sentra, the amorphous Rogue has been around since 2008. Nissan redesigned it in 2014 to be less androgynous and they gave it a fairly substantial update in 2017. That tweaking apparently worked wonders - Nissan has pushed out nearly a million Rogues since.

In Nissan showrooms, the Rogue occupies the middle slot between the subcompact, Versa based Kicks and the "full size" Altima\Maxima platform based Murano. Yeah...many vehicle manufacturers now have a full line of cross overs akin to the line up they used to have of sedans. Oddly enough, Nissan still sells the Frontier pickup truck based Pathfinder but that's considered an SUV and not a crossover. Nissan tops their cross over and SUV portfolio with the Titan pickup truck based "Armada" and it, remarkably, doesn't look like a PED juiced up Rogue like the Pathfinder does. Instead, it looks like something off the set of a 1990's Mighty Morphin Power Rangers TV show.

What's mind boggling is that the Rogue sells well in spite of other vehicles in its segment offering a superior seat of the pants experience, more up to date features and tech and that are, subjectively in most if not all cases, better looking. The Rogue's styling, at least through my eyes, looks as though it's not finished and is the embodiment of modern day bland although the 2014 and 2017 models are way superior to the 2008 models. Compared to other vehicles in what has become over the last ten years a very hotly contested segment, they're no bargain either. Nicely equipped the way most people would get them new, they run north of thirty five grand. Same price as the Toyota RAV4, Honda CRV, Jeep Cherokee and probably the best of the bunch, the Mazda CX-5. There's a a myriad of others out there too. I just listed the best ones based on road test reviews.

The Nissan Rogue is so popular these days that two women my wife works with not only bought two together at the same time, they bought two identical ones. Same color and all. SMH. What's more, a guy I work with told me that his mother and sister did the same thing albeit they got different colors. Seriously. Ladies, what the hell?

Perhaps I've touched on something - is there some correlation between its ominous, foreboding name and women? In my experience, women say they want a partner who's edgy and exciting but in reality, they want someone who may appear to be dangerous but is primarily reliable and steadfast.  The last thing in the world most women want is someone who's actually a "rogue". Oh, again, they may say they do but, c'mon. They really don't.

Perhaps it's the name of Nissan's mid sized cross over that I have the biggest beef with and not so much the vehicle itself. I think the name is great - if only it wasn't festooned to something so mediocre. If the Nissan Rogue truly was "rogue", it should at least be capable of doing something quasi exotic like going from zero to sixty in three and half seconds, pulling 1.0+ g's on a skid pad, have the capability to climb a mountain side or at least have styling that's at least somewhat evocative. What's in a name? If its driving sales, as I believe it does to some degree here, than in this case it means everything.