selling Tercel to return to Corolla! Wanna buy a Tercel..?

[jkhaslam]

By the way my Tercel is for sale. I'm offering to deliver it anywhere in the USA for my cost. Check out http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayI ... 073wt_1343 if you are only interested in that -- otherwise I'll give you the story of my short Tercel ownership....

I'd always wanted a Tercel 4WD. My dad had them from when I was very young and I was looking forward to one of them becoming my first car, but then my dad sold our last Tercel to my cousin -- for $1 -- several years before I got my license! No matter. I inherited a Corolla all-trac wagon instead. I beat on it for over 2 years and nothing happened. Driving for miles at a time with my foot on the floor? No problem. Hitting small ponds at 60 mph? No problem. Driving down rutted roads at 70? No problem. Ramping the car up a hill where it got stuck with three of the tires high off the ground? No problem. Driving for half a year on a dying alternator? That turned out to be a problem. The car died at 2 am 100 miles from home. Apparently, it is wise to check the alternator once your vehicle gets to 200,000 miles or so. The car was set to be junked, but I went down with a friend, stuck a new battery in it, and raced at 85 all the way home. But my dad refused to get a new alternator since the car was rusted so badly my mechanic had been saying for a year it was not expressway safe.
So, since I had always wanted one, I bought a Tercel. I flew from Michigan to Philadelphia to collect it from an eBay dealer. Then I drove it home, detouring through Niagara and Toronto, for a 1,000 mile trip in sub-zero weather. The engine oil didn't even drop. And having flown strait from college, I hadn't even brought a sleeping bag or anything. I slept in the car, and it was literally about zero, give or take a few degrees, at night. With the way the Toyota heaters are, I would turn the heat all the way up until it was absolutely blistering. I'd be driving down the expressway, shirtless, and sometimes have to roll the window down a bit if I didn't think there was a rest stop coming up soon enough. Then I'd pull over at a truck stop, through my jacket on and catch an hour of sleep before I woke up from the cold. Hit the road and repeat!
Anyways, the Tercel has been a good car, but I don't have that special connection to it like to the Corolla. Which makes sense -- the Corolla was my first car -- and I experienced a lot in that car, made an incredible amount of memories connected to it, and it never failed me. Well the alternator went at 200,000 - but you could say that I failed it by not figuring out to check it. So now, I am venturing off on a new adventure which happens to take the form of a documentary project. (http://tourofpoverty.com). I need money for that, so I'm selling the Tercel. Given that I bought it with my own money and planned to make it my travel vehicle for years to come, I have not been rough on the Tercel like I was on the Corolla. I've hit 85 a couple times for short distances, but that's about the worst I've done to it. And digging through some snow. In fact, to see that little incident, check out
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OrPC4v7nTFg


So, it's a great solid little car. 6 speed (i'm sorry to be giving that up...) but I think I will return to the Corolla after my trip. It's currently parked as a parts car for another Corolla I convinced my parents to buy -- but so far the other one hasn't needed any parts! I think I'll put a solar panel on it to feed the battery and patch up all the rust... check out the eBay listing if you are interested in the Tercel!

[Neu]

Awesome photos, and amazing trip. I would love to do what you did to go get a tercel, sleep for an hour until the cold gets to you. That'd be amazing fun. Should have done it with a friend, but that would have cost more money.

Good luck, I really hope you sell it.