3 years ago I was driving a truck, an extended cab four wheel drive truck; sure it mustered a lowly 12.5 MPGs and made Al Gore turn in his bed at night, but it was my piece of so called Americana. It was a hunk of metal hastily made in Detroit, and was probably one of the most problematic vehicles I have ever owned. After I got sick of the repair bills I decided it was time to try something from the other side of the pond, no I don’t mean Europe, they aren’t known for reliability, and I didn’t need an ultimate driving machine. So what were my other choices? A Korean car? Nope. That leaves us with the land of the rising sun. I was no stranger to Japanese cars, I had already owned an Acura and 2 Hondas by this point and none had ever let me down (save for the multiple burnout induced transmission replacements in my first car, an 88 Honda Accord but I digress.) So I knew I wanted to give the notorious Japanese reliability a shot again, I had thought about getting a car again and had the list narrowed down, Nissan Altima, Honda Accord and the Nissan Maxima….. GREAT!!!! I had a game plan, time to search for a car. I hopped online with my trusty iPhone…..and exactly a minute later I found what I was looking for, a 2006 Toyota 4Runner with 47,xxx miles on the clock…..wait, I wanted a car right? Oh screw it, lets go test drive it, the price is right and I knew that the 4Runner was a rock solid performer for soccer moms so why not a 25 year old (at the time) single firefighter like myself? I arrived at the dealer and saw the 4Runner positioned ever so eloquently in front of the dealer, I took it for a test drive with the salesman, and right away I was sold, but we’ll get back to that.