Adventure Mechanic

As the sun set, and after some Chick-fil-a my sister, a friend, and I finally pulled into the parking lot. There it is! The 4Runner I saw in the add. As the sun was setting I looked it over in excitement. This checked off a lot of boxes for me if it turned out to be solid. 4wd, a slight lift, a sunroof, space to haul things (compared to my Honda accord this would replace), good aftermarket support… It looked good.

To be honest, I was so excited that this pre-buy assessment was mostly blind. On the first look I crawled underneath and didn’t find any significant rust on the frame. I could see that the catalytic converter was stolen at least once. There were a couple cosmetic things, but it drove. I was told that the first gear was having troubles, but after driving it I had doubts about the assessment from the salesman. It didn’t feel like a gear issue. But to be honest my mentality was, “I’ll see about that when I start digging into it.”

Yes, I was growing more excited about the 4Runner. I did what I shouldn’t and let my mind buy it before leaving my house. I probably should have taken more time. But what type of adventure would there be if it was spotless?

So I bought it and instantly began to learn what secrets it was hiding.

I did the paperwork, handed the money over, thanked Jesus for this opportunity, received the keys, threw my stuff in, and drove off. It was running ok for a 4runner that had been left on top of a mountain for a bit.

But, after the sun had already set, the engine shut off in the middle lane of the freeway. There were cars on all sides, and I had my sister in the passenger seat. My speed immediately started abandoning us. Thus was the beginning of the first adventure in my new 95 3.0 4Runner.

Stay tuned for the next part.

What do you think caused my engine to shut off suddenly? Put your guess in the comments.