New to Forum, not to the yaris or cars

[Leegamer]

Hey everyone,

I'm Lee, a 24 year old IT nerd from Ashland, VA (Just north of Richmond). I've had my Yaris since I bought it new in April, 08 but just started coming on here a few days ago to get information.

My car is a Bayou Blue 3 door hatch with a 5-speed transmission. The only mods I have done to the car are a Scangauge II, which I installed right after purchasing the car, and I also removed the relay for the DRLs yesterday after seeing the thread on here.

Future mods are a Glow-shift tach, which I ordered and will install in the next few days and eventually maybe some upgraded shocks/struts and springs and a rear anti-sway bar. The interior of my car is pretty worn due to me using the car as a pickup truck to carry all my music gear, which includes an 8x10 bass cabinet. I'm no longer playing in a band and don't plan to anytime soon, so I may be on the lookout for replacement interior panels to return my car to its stock neatness.

I've had a lot of other cars in the past. My first was a 2000 Chevrolet impala LS, which I drove until it had about 220,000 miles on it and the transmission died. I sold that to make a downpayment on the Yaris. I've also had a 1986 300zx Non-turbo 5-speed, an 1985 300zx Turbo 5-speed, a 1984 50th Anniversary Edition 300zx Turbo 5-speed, a 1984 200sx notchback 5-speed( which I swapped a KA24DE into), a 1987 200sx hatchback parts car, a 1991 240sx coupe 5-speed with a J30 VLSD, and that's about it.

The yaris is all I have now and it's a pretty good car. It's reliable, comfortable, and gets great gas mileage, though I would like to improve upon the handling in the future, hence my plans for upgraded suspension. I'm fairly handy at working on cars due to all the old Nissans I owned so I do my own maintenance.

Here's the only few pictures of my car I have handy at the moment, but I can add more later:

http://i569.photobucket.com/albums/ss131/LeegamerZ31/DSC_0013.jpg
http://i569.photobucket.com/albums/ss131/LeegamerZ31/DSC_0014.jpg
http://i569.photobucket.com/albums/ss131/LeegamerZ31/DSC_0018.jpg

I look forward to chatting with you fellas!

[Thirty-Nine]

welcome!

[why?]

welcome to the forum! Interior parts are boring, you should keep them out anyways, gives you slightly better gas mileage to boot.

[jpmck03]

Welcome and nice ride! Almost looks brand new!

[Leegamer]

The outside still looks pretty good aside from the rear bumper from me loading and unloading my bass gear. Lol.

[Killchain]

Welcome,friend! This is a great forum.............:thumbsup:

[bronsin]

How did you come to the Yaris after all the Zeds?

They are nice, no?

[Leegamer]

How did you come to the Yaris after all the Zeds?

They are nice, no?

I had 2 Z31s already when I bought the yaris. I wanted a reliable DD with back seats. I ended up selling all my other cars to use the money for wedding expenses. I'm getting married on May 19th.

[bronsin]

I was afraid of that! :biggrin:

Excellent choice of car in the Yaris however. You wont be sorry. :headbang:

[mr_miles]

welcome to the forum! Interior parts are boring, you should keep them out anyways, gives you slightly better gas mileage to boot.

Not *all* interior parts are boring!

Welcome to the forum! :D I am jealous of some of your previous cars....

[Leegamer]

Thanks. It's treated me well so far, though I do miss the character of 80s Nissans.

Not *all* interior parts are boring!

Welcome to the forum! :D I am jealous of some of your previous cars....

Thanks. Both the 85 and 84 AE turbo cars I had were not in the greatest shape. My 86 NA Z31 was beautiful. I sold it to a very close friend and he was unfortunately t-boned by an old man and it was totaled :eek:

Out of all the cars I've owned, I miss that 86 NA the most. What a great car. It had 230k miles on it when it was totaled and was probably capable of a lot more. The VG30E and VG30ET are great engines.

[Leegamer]

Reviving this ancient Thread-

6 years later I still have my yaris with 150k miles on it. Just replaced the water pump and passenger side front wheel bearing.

Car still runs great and gets awesome gas mileage. Paint on the roof and side mirrors started to fade about 6 months ago all of a sudden (not sure what happened there).

A few months ago I was about to buy new tires and my brother-in-law wrecked his scion XA that had borbet wheels and brand new hankook tires. The wheels have tons of curb rash, but I got them for about the same price as 4 new tires.



Future Plans for the car-

-I ordered a prius wiper stalk so I can have intermittent wipes
-Thinking about plastidipping the cowl cover and side mirrors, which are both very faded
-I never got around to buying a tach. I don't know if I really need one at this point. I initially wanted one because I had trouble shifting due to the rev hang, but 10 years later it's second nature.
-I would like to replace shocks and struts but I'm not sure how far I want to go, ie. coilovers vs. performance struts and a performance spring
-Drive it until it blows up then swap the motor for something else (hopefully this will be at least 10 more years)
-Post on here a little more frequently (more than once every 6 years)

[Leegamer]

https://i.imgur.com/tc9zcXMl.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/apnuCNll.jpg

[ern-diz]

Welcome back!

[Leegamer]

Thanks!

My brother-in-law hasn't had much luck selling his wrecked scion so I'm thinking about seeing what other parts I may be able to scavenge off of it.

From what I've seen it looks like the xA shares a platform with the first-gen vitz, so I don't expect much to match up with my yaris, but the front seats are really nice and I'm thinking of comparing the seat rail mounting points to see if they'd fit in my car.

[Leegamer]

Installed a 84652-48060 prius wiper switch today. Easiest swap ever using http://www.yarisworld.com/forums/showthread.php?t=15512

Unfortunately I still only have high speed wipers, so next I'm checking the motor. I wanted to add intermittent anyway, so I had already planned on buying the new switch before my wipers started giving me trouble.

[zimmer]

Great to hear it is very reliable to you! She deserves those mods.

[Leegamer]

Checked the connector for the motor yesterday at lunch and cleaned it. Reconnected and still only getting high speed with the stock stalk and the prius stalk.

I checked the fuse again and it's not blown. I need to find my multi-meter and test the connectors, but when I had the cowl off and turned the wipers on the motor was audibly wining so I'm fairly certain the motor is on its last leg.

I forgot to mark the wiper positions when I took them off so re-aligning them was a bit of an adventure, but very comical when I first turned them back on and the wiper on the driver's side swung way past the windshield and got stuck.

[ern-diz]

:laugh:

[bentjazz]

Thanks for the update, Lee. Long live your Yaris!

[Leegamer]

New wiper motor in today and now have fully functional wipers and adjustable intermittent speeds thanks to the prius wiper switch. Feeling excited about having a feature that has been standard on most cars for 25 years, lol


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Leegamer]

On Thursday I am getting a new windshield...man 275 dollars with a 30 dollar coupon. I only have liability insurance so no help from them.

Upcoming projects for the winter:

1. The plastic cowl cover is very faded, now that I've mastered removing it I'm thinking of sanding it a bit and spraying on a few coats of plastidip. If it goes well I think I'll do the same for the backs of my mirrors, which are very faded. I think black would look cool.

2. My carpet is disgusting, as are my floor mats. I have 3 kids and honestly I'm a bit of a slob when it comes to the inside of my car. I'm going to get some new floor mats and steam clean my carpets to bring some life back into them.

3. I've been reading up on using a cheap android tablet as a gauge cluster. It's not necessary but I think it would be fun to rig up something and mount it where the storage area is behind the steering wheel. I think it could be wired to apply power when the car is on, like the radio.

4. My stock radio is garbage. It always thinks there's a CD inserted so I'm going to do the scion radio swap.

[ern-diz]

Sounds like you're tidying it up nicely.

[Leegamer]

Sounds like you're tidying it up nicely.

I need to be better about taking pics. I know all text posts are probably boring, but at the very least it's a good way to create a timeline for myself in the future.

[Leegamer]

We have had some really cold days for Virginia here lately and I've noticed a few funky things:

1. My heater core seems to be squeaking like a mouse before it gets warm
2. The locking mechanism on my hatch has been freezing up a lot lately.

I suppose I may need to replace both of these before next winter just to be safe. The squeak is really annoying.

[Leegamer]

A few pics of the yaris in front of the new garage (https://imgur.com/gallery/oy8zdYH)

[myfirstyota]

What a shop! Jealous!

[Hamster]

Leegamer - A couple years ago, the driver's side door lock on my car kept freezing up in extremely cold weather, too. The problem eventually went away. I suspect some water or moisture got inside the locking mechanism, and would ice up every time the temperature dropped below freezing. And then the water must have eventually evaporated, and the problem never came back the next winter. So, I wouldn't be in such a hurry to change out the locking mechanism right away. Wait it out, because the problem might go away on its own.

[zoidberg444]

We have had some really cold days for Virginia here lately and I've noticed a few funky things:



1. My heater core seems to be squeaking like a mouse before it gets warm

2. The locking mechanism on my hatch has been freezing up a lot lately.



I suppose I may need to replace both of these before next winter just to be safe. The squeak is really annoying.

1. Is it your heater core or is it your fan motor? My fan motor makes odd noises when its very cold sometimes.

2. Mine did that a few years ago. I fixed it permanently by squirting WD40 into everything including inside the lock.

Your paint discolouration is quite noticeable. Seems like something got to the clear coat.

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[Leegamer]

Not sure if it's the motor or core, it usually goes away once the car warms up so I haven't worried much about it. I'll try that with the wd40, I have can of it in the car right now.

I have no idea what happened to the paint on my roof and mirrors. 2 years ago it looked brand new and then over a period of a few months it started to peel and has a really rough texture. I've been thinking of plasti-dipping the mirrors and roof.

[ern-diz]

A few pics of the yaris in front of the new garage (https://imgur.com/gallery/oy8zdYH)

That comment though lol.

[Leegamer]

That comment though lol.

haters gon' hate, lol

[myfirstyota]

haters gon' hate, lol

Wasn't hatin buddy. It's a nice garage. Lots of space.

[Leegamer]

Wasn't hatin buddy. It's a nice garage. Lots of space.

I think he was talking about the comment on imgur, if you click the link there's a comment about putting the yaris in the dumpster. lol

[myfirstyota]

What a dick! That's a fine automobile!

[Leegamer]

What a dick! That's a fine automobile!

Dude probably doesn't even have a car, so I'm not mad.

[zoidberg444]

What a dick! That's a fine automobile!Probably a Chevy guy or a Dodge dick. [emoji1787]

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[Leegamer]

Probably a Chevy guy or a Dodge dick. [emoji1787]

Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk

Maybe I'll reply "My other ride is your mom"

[ern-diz]

haters gon' hate, lol

Word!

[Leegamer]

Got the garage organized enough to pull the car in for its first oil change at the new house. It was pretty overdue. https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20190416/415539859c567d97febda194c64dcefd.jpg


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[ern-diz]

Nice

[kimona]

Looks like you have a nice piece of property there... and a great garage!

[Leegamer]

Looks like you have a nice piece of property there... and a great garage!

Thanks! Just need to step up my tool game now.

[Leegamer]

I have had a mysterious clunking for about 6-7 years on my car that I couldn't track down. I checked all the bushings several times and everything seemed secure and I never wanted to just start throwing money away at replacing random bushings.

The other day I figured it out. I had my bumper partially off to fix an alignment issue with the driver's side fender and hear something rattling around. I reached in there and pulled out a small plastic trim piece/absorber of some sort that has been rattling around in their for the majority of my ownership of the car. No more clunks.

[ern-diz]

I have had a mysterious clunking for about 6-7 years on my car that I couldn't track down. I checked all the bushings several times and everything seemed secure and I never wanted to just start throwing money away at replacing random bushings.

The other day I figured it out. I had my bumper partially off to fix an alignment issue with the driver's side fender and hear something rattling around. I reached in there and pulled out a small plastic trim piece/absorber of some sort that has been rattling around in their for the majority of my ownership of the car. No more clunks.

Nice! I thought it might be this (http://www.yarisworld.com/forums/showthread.php?p=824440#post824440), which Trevor revived recently, coincidentally.

[Leegamer]

I was thinking that, too and was planning to check them in the next few weeks. I am definitely relieved.

[yarisisawayoflife]

Sometimes wipers can be very funny and fill our hearts with joy.

[Leegamer]

Well, the yaris has 175k miles now.

Still seems to be running fine. With everything going on I have only driven it about 10 miles in the last 2.5 months. A family member gifted me a 2013 Veloster with 100k miles on it and I was thinking of selling the yaris and DDing the Veloster.

Honestly though after driving the veloster a bit I don't like it much.

The fleet is now-

"Eustis" the 2008 Yaris - 175k miles
"Old Bess" the 2005 Pontiac Vibe Base Model - 270k miles (going to be my 16 year old's car)
"Bogey" the 2016 Hyundai Tucson that we just picked up - 17 miles
2013 Hyundai Veloster 6MT - 100k miles
1985 300zx Turbo -unknow miles- pretty much stripped at this point and I'm not sure what I'm going to do with it.

[ern-diz]

"The fleet"...I say that to people that own multiple cars, too.

Does the Vibe have a 1ZZ?

[Leegamer]

"The fleet"...I say that to people that own multiple cars, too.

Does the Vibe have a 1ZZ?

It does. That is the most reliable car I've ever owned (knock on wood). If it ever blows the 1ZZ I will just put another one in it.

[Leegamer]

Mostly posting an update for myself so I can look back on it one day.

The end of December 2020 the battery crapped out on my car. It was a duralast that I bought at least 7-8 years ago. We had a colder winter than normal and I think that finally killed it.

Yaris sat until today. I finally decided to go buy a new battery Tuesday, but the hook bolt that goes from the front of the tie down to the tray would not come off! The nut had rusted solid. PB Blaster took care of that, but then I found out the threads were screwed. The nut would just spin and spin and spin, so I ended up cutting that bolt off with a hacksaw (carefully).

Ordered a generic replacement from amazon which came yesterday, then ran up to walmart and picked up a cheap-o battery for 70 bucks.

She's alive! She smells awful inside though and I think my hatch is leaking a little, so time to clear everything out of the car and air it out. Spring is coming so I should have plenty of opportunities to find the leak.

After that I'm not sure what I'm going to do. I got a truck with 4 full sized doors recently...and with 3 kids, a wife, and a dog that loves rides I don't know how much use the yaris is going to get. I'll be working from home pretty much permanently now, so I don't necessarily need a car with great gas mileage anymore.

My problem is this- I love my car. I bought it brand new in 2008 when I was making 10 dollars an hour (wtf was I thinking?) It has served me well and it's the only running manual car I have. If I sell it I will use the money to get either my 85 300zx Turbo on the road or my new project, a 73 super beetle. I'd love to have either of them on the road but I'm really struggling with letting go of the yaris.

We shall see, but if I sell it I'll put it up here first and it will be for pretty cheap!

[bentjazz]

Oh man. Leegamer without a Yaris. That's just depressing to think about. Sometimes I feel like a huge loser because I plan on keeping my Yaris for another 20 years and it seems like so many people here are ditching their Yari. I love this little car.

[06YarisRS]

Oh man. Leegamer without a Yaris. That's just depressing to think about. Sometimes I feel like a huge loser because I plan on keeping my Yaris for another 20 years and it seems like so many people here are ditching their Yari. I love this little car.

No ditching of Yari permitted! :laugh: I don't want to be the only one left at YW.

[ern-diz]

I'm not going anywhere! :laugh:

Even if I eventually get a new car, which I have no use for, the Yaris is worth more as a project/second car to me than what I'd get for it. Only way it's leaving me is if it gets wrecked. Fingers crossed that never happens.

[NYC-SE]

I'm staying too. Yaris4Life

[06YarisRS]

I'm not going anywhere! :laugh:

Even if I eventually get a new car, which I have no use for, the Yaris is worth more as a project/second car to me than what I'd get for it. Only way it's leaving me is if it gets wrecked. Fingers crossed that never happens.

:w00t: I'm guessing you'll be here for a while. I forsee more mods to your amazing hatch!

[06YarisRS]

I'm staying too. Yaris4Life

Yay! There's still so much to do and talk about!

[zoidberg444]

Even if I had another car - I would probably keep my Yaris just in case. You never know your fortunes in life and you might need it one day. I got mine when I was making £6.50/hr. She got me through some hard times. I think it would be jinxing myself if I sold it.

[Leegamer]

Worst case scenario I can take the insurance off of it and just let it sit, starting it every once in a while.

It seems to have more value to me than what I would get for it if I sold it. All of the clearcoat is dead, the interior is not in the best shape from me carrying tons of music gear back when I was a more active musicians, and it has 180k on it. I'd be lucky to get 1500 bucks for it where I live.

[06YarisRS]

I like your thought proceses here gents. :thumbsup: :laugh:

[bentjazz]

We few, we happy few, we band of brothers (and sisters).....

[Leegamer]

Well, I was actually prepping the car for putting it up for sale but I ran into a few random issues and then gas prices started to go up with the pipeline being hacked + summer travel increasing.

For now I'm going to hold onto it. Filling up my truck costs like 50 USD right now and there's a chance I could be returning to the office for work sometime in the next few months.

Random issues I found lately-

There's a leak somewhere on the passenger side, I think it's the door weather stripping but I have not been able to track it down. I found some wet spots and mold in the passenger floorboard and cleaned them up. I checked the plugs under the car and they seem fine.

Also my front speakers just stopped working randomly. I had been having a lot of issues with my head-unit for years, including the CD player thinking a CD was loaded all the time even if one wasn't. I actually noticed the front speakers not working right before I unboxed a replacement OEM headunit. I put in the new HU and now I can listen to CDs but need to spend some time checking connections to figure out why the front speakers gave up on life!

Time has been limited lately as we're redoing a barn at the back of our property, but should be finishing that up soon then I can move some of the junk from my garage back to the barn and finally start working on cars again!

[ern-diz]

Noice that you're keeping it. Bummer about the leak and speakers/head unit. I have an OEM CD/MP3 unit in my closet that I'll never use again and would be willing to part with for very cheap, if interested. I can totally understand taking the opportunity to replace it with something better, though.

[Leegamer]

Noice that you're keeping it. Bummer about the leak and speakers/head unit. I have an OEM CD/MP3 unit in my closet that I'll never use again and would be willing to part with for very cheap, if interested. I can totally understand taking the opportunity to replace it with something better, though.

Thanks man! I actually put in another OEM unit that works fine, so must be something going on with the speaker connections. From what I've seen the front speakers aren't on a separate fuse or anything. Just seems weird that both would go out at the same time. I know I can get some oem-ish speakers from walmart for like 30-35 dollars so I'll do that worst case.

[mitch9521]

$50USD to fill? Must be nice, at $1.30/L its about $125CAD to fill my F150 from dead empty. Glad its not a daily driver and only gets filled once a month at most with this whole pandemic stuff.

[Leegamer]

$50USD to fill? Must be nice, at $1.30/L its about $125CAD to fill my F150 from dead empty. Glad its not a daily driver and only gets filled once a month at most with this whole pandemic stuff.

That is insane. If gas ever gets that high here I might just go buy a 90s ford festiva or something.

[Leegamer]

Well, I added my daughter to our insurance and my wife's car and my truck both need new tires. Decided to go ahead and put the Yaris up on marketplace and see if there was any interest.

There was a lot of interest and I ended up selling it yesterday less than 12 hours after I listed it. I will miss the car and I would certainly consider getting another one in the future to do the 2ZR swap, but now I am going to focus on getting my Z31 back on the road and maintaining the other cars in the fleet.

I'll still be around here, though...mostly to keep up with the big projects going on and helping to answer any maintenance questions if I can.

Cheers yaris fam!

[bentjazz]

Good luck, Lee.

[brownnick]

My sister has exactly the same car.. even the color!
https://i.imgur.com/tc9zcXMl.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/apnuCNll.jpg
https://nexthash.com/
https://swcpoker.club/
https://elly.com/pos/en/smart-pos-system/

[Leegamer]

My sister has exactly the same car.. even the color!

Hopefully she enjoys it!