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:





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.............

[bronsin]

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

They are nice, no?

[Leegamer]

Originally Posted by bronsin

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!

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

[mr_miles]

Originally Posted by why?

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.

Originally Posted by mr_miles

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

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]

[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.