Episode #231 - The Actual Budget Overland Adventure
Another Pointless Automotive Podcast · Jul 1, 2026
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52:15
Place
Hollister Hills SVRA
This is a large state park in California specifically set aside for people to drive off-road vehicles like dirt bikes, Jeeps, and trucks on dirt trails and obstacle courses.
Concept
overlanders
Overlanding is basically long-distance camping out of your vehicle, where you drive deep into nature on dirt roads and carry everything you need to survive for days or weeks.
Car
F-150 Raptor
The Ford F-150 is a highly popular, large pickup truck made by Ford. It is used by millions of people for work, towing, and everyday driving.
Car
2003 Nissan Xterra SE
This is a boxy, tough SUV built by Nissan in the early 2000s. It was designed for outdoorsy people and featured a cool, bumpy roof and a built-in gear basket on top.
Part
locking diff
Normally, a car's wheels can spin at different speeds to help it turn smoothly. A locking differential locks them together so they spin at the exact same speed, which helps push the vehicle forward when climbing over slippery rocks or mud.
Car
Mitsubishi Montero Sport
This is a tough, older SUV made by Mitsubishi that is popular with budget off-roaders because it is cheap to buy but still very capable on rough trails.
Car
Isuzu Trooper
This is a big, boxy SUV from the 1990s that was built to be incredibly tough. It has a lot of cargo space and is great for driving on rough dirt roads.
Car
Ford Expedition
The Ford Expedition is a very large, three-row family SUV made by Ford. The first-generation version was built in the late 1990s and early 2000s and is known for being big and tough.
Car
Jeep Renegade
The Jeep Renegade is a small, boxy SUV made by Jeep. It is designed for daily city driving but has styling that looks like a traditional, rugged Jeep.
Car
Jeep Compass
The original Jeep Compass is a small, car-based SUV made by Jeep starting in 2007. It was designed for paved roads rather than off-road trails and is known for its budget-friendly design.
Car
Eagle Summit
The Eagle Summit is a small, inexpensive car sold in the late 1980s and 1990s under the Eagle brand. It was actually designed and built by Mitsubishi but sold by Chrysler.
Car
Jeep Wrangler
The Jeep Wrangler is a rugged SUV made by Jeep that is designed specifically for driving on rough, unpaved roads and trails. You can take its doors and roof off to drive in the open air.
Car
Nissan Pathfinder
The Nissan Pathfinder is a mid-sized SUV made by Nissan designed to carry families and cargo. Older versions were built like trucks for off-roading, while newer ones are designed more like comfortable family cars.
Car
Tesla Cybertruck
The Cybertruck is an electric pickup truck made by Tesla that looks like a futuristic, metallic triangle. It runs entirely on battery power instead of gasoline.
Car
Nissan Z32
The Nissan 300ZX is a sleek, two-door sports car built by Nissan, with the most famous version sold in the 1990s. It is known for its fast performance and futuristic design.
Car
Datsun 240Z
The Datsun 240Z is a classic, two-door sports car from the early 1970s made by Nissan (which used the Datsun name in the US at the time). It is famous for its long hood, short rear deck, and fun driving experience.
Person
Carlos Ghosn
This is a famous former car executive who was arrested in Japan. He made worldwide headlines when he escaped the country by hiding inside a giant box meant for musical equipment and flying away on a private plane.
Car
Land Rover Discovery Series II
This is a classic, boxy British SUV with a stepped roof and windows on the upper corners. It is amazing at climbing over obstacles but is famous for breaking down and having electrical problems.
Car
Wrangler Rubicon
The Wrangler is a rugged, open-air SUV made by Jeep. The 'Rubicon' version is a special model equipped with extra heavy-duty parts specifically for climbing over rocks and tough obstacles.
Car
Land Rover LR3
This is a luxury SUV from Land Rover that uses high-tech air suspension to raise and lower itself, making it very comfortable on the highway and highly capable on rough trails.
Car
4Runner Forerunner
This is an incredibly popular and reliable SUV made by Toyota. It is highly sought after by off-road fans, which makes even older, high-mileage models very expensive to buy.
Part
secondary timing chain
This is an internal engine chain that keeps the engine's valves opening and closing at the right time. On these specific Nissan trucks, a plastic part holding the chain can wear out, causing a loud whining sound like a vacuum cleaner.
Part
transfer case
This is a metal gearbox under a four-wheel-drive truck that splits the engine's power so it can go to both the front and back wheels at the same time.
Car
Dodge Ram
The Dodge Ram is a large pickup truck built for carrying heavy loads and towing trailers. It was sold under the Dodge brand name before the truck division was spun off into its own brand, simply called Ram.
LIVE
In a world with an diary too many shows about cars, this is another Pointless Automotive
podcast.
Oh my God.
God, we're doing it.
Thank God you're eating again.
We got the consistency that we have to make.
Oh my God, that beer fucking exploded.
Hi.
Hey, guys.
Welcome.
A little bit different.
A little different background today.
This background brought to you by Nissan XTERRA.
It is.
It is of both generations.
Look at that.
Represented.
Yeah.
Yeah.
The hell are we doing?
What?
Wait, what?
We are at the Hollister Hills SVRA here in beautiful, well, near Hollister, California.
It is.
I'm Hollister.
We started out in the morning in San Juan, but we're not here today.
We're here today.
We're here today.
We're here today.
We're here today.
We're here today.
We're here today.
It is.
I'm Hollister.
We started out in the morning in San Juan, Batista, lovely little town.
Absolutely.
We're in a goddamn campsite right now, which is very awkward trying to do this and not
seem like the most pretentious assholes on the planet.
Right.
We are pretty pretentious.
We're making it work.
It's okay.
It's okay.
Against all odds, based upon the activities of our neighbors and the people coming and
going, we are far and away not the most annoying people.
No, we are model citizens.
What is moving that bush right there?
It had to be a mouse.
We've got wildlife.
We've got active wildlife.
It's the goat suckers, the Chupacabra.
It's the Chupacabra.
It's happening.
I hope it's not just blood they suck.
Yeah.
Yeah.
What part of it?
No one specified what part of the goat is getting sucked.
I mean, let's be real.
It has to be the penis.
What an anus.
Two first guess.
Yes.
Yes.
There's no other answer.
I know.
Yeah.
1A and 1B.
So we've talked about it off and on.
Oh, we've got more wildlife.
Your yellow jacket is returning.
It's coming for this brownie.
We're going to put this guy over here.
But no, we're out here because we've got what we talked about last episode, episode
before that, our budget overlanders.
We did a whole day.
Yeah.
Yeah, we did.
Zero fatalities.
True.
Knight is still young.
Yeah.
We could still fuck shop some up.
But yeah, let's just, should we just talk about our day?
I think we should.
Okay.
Maybe even, let's go back a little bit.
What did you bring today, Frank?
What did you bring for a vehicle for this?
This is our, let's go back to square one.
Cheap overland budget challenge.
Yes.
$5,000 or less for the vehicle and the mods.
All in.
That's it.
Suitaments.
And we have the drive out here.
Fair drive, hour and a half or so.
There is a fucking creature.
Whoa.
substantial girth right there.
It's amazing how much is moving over here off camera.
It's wide.
But I can't actually see the thing.
It's literally a raptor from Jurassic Park.
There's some like micro, micro cryptid happening.
But no, we, yeah, so $5,000 all in.
With the goal of, let's just go take something out, go, not beat it up, but like just go do
some proper off-roading, overlanding, camping, however you want to draw it.
To really illustrate a point too, right, that you can do this on a budget.
You don't have to build an $80,000 rig to go out in the woods and have fun with some
bros.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
That's the whole point of this exercise.
And do so in a way, because I think it's pretty well established that you can spend
no money for an absolute box of garbage.
Like a pseudo dangerous shit box.
Oh, absolutely.
Maybe mine has the potential to pseudo dangerous shit box element.
But we've made it, we did the thing and we're here to discuss, were we successful, were
we not successful?
What do you think?
Well, we're here in the waning hours of the day and both our vehicles are behind us, not
rolled down a mountainside.
So rolled over.
Correct.
I would give us both passes for that.
So I think so far, we did some pretty killer trails.
We did some off-road like fun activities.
Sure.
We did the totter.
I roughed this up a little bit.
The teeter totter.
The slippery mud pit almost claimed us.
We did, yes.
It may or may not have been the cause of a warning light on my dash that just very recently
went away, which is great.
Oh, yeah, it's double back.
What did you bring, Frank?
What did you bring for this?
So if you're new here.
Water cooler's over there.
But also, yeah, it is a first generation XTERRA.
Specifically, it's a 2003 Nissan XTERRA SE supercharged, which is cool.
I underpaid for it and there were a lot of questions with that underpaying.
And I think in many ways those questions have been answered.
Many of them not positively.
But you know what?
Did the task.
Got here, got to the day.
Had to do a little bit more pulling and digging and wrenching than I had anticipated.
Literally in front of my house this morning.
Yes.
Yeah.
Yeah, exactly.
Boy, why is it struggling to idle?
That was the morning.
And then how about what did you, what players has entered?
So the fight.
The funny thing is too, we both landed on XTERRA without any, like I said, collusion,
any like pre-gaming a plan.
So we just came together.
We brought a second gen 2008 off-road trim, which is kind of the big boy trim for the
second gen.
You got the cool exclusive first gen and I kind of did the same with the second gen.
Just basically it comes at you like a TRD off-road.
It has a locking diff, skid plates, lower gearing, more substantial componentry, hill
descent, which I used for a little bit, kind of fun.
Overall, cool little truck.
They're priced a little more.
I got a deal.
I think we all know why we got a deal.
It was pretty hard on the eyes when I got in.
Sure.
Maintenance history that didn't exist in 180,000 miles, but you do what you do to get what
you can.
Yeah, and I think for, and we've talked about it in some of the run up to us doing this and
about some of our strategically, if you will, on making this happening.
And like, if you want to do it and be pretty about it, it's going to cost you a lot more
money than if you want to go out and drive the trails and get some mud on the tires,
whatever, do the overlanding thing and kind of be okay with some warts and dents and dings
and scratches and scrapes.
Because I think that's the way to do this, because guess what?
Then you're not afraid to use the thing.
You can go do what you sought out to do in the thing and you get to experience the thing
and not just like front the overlanding lifestyle, whatever.
That's the thing with the Overlander build too, is you got to get to the site.
You don't trail or in your rock crawler and then go have fun and then trail or back home.
Right, a toy hauler is a different task.
Different animal, all together.
So we drove highway driving mostly, pretty good traffic and no issues.
We got down here pretty good.
Sure.
I mean, threw up your fuel in the gas station.
Correct.
I mean, that was the thing.
Very visibly.
Okay, so visually is for site.
What is it for smell?
Smell your...
Smell your leak?
I'm going to go, yeah, that's definitely it.
That's definitely the scientific term.
Or, I don't know, there's a whole thing, whatever.
We saw, we smelt the reason why for my large evapolique code, which is I filled it up to
the brim and it pissed out probably a gallon and a half fuel directly onto the tarmac at
the gas station.
We sent it, we're still here.
It stopped leaking.
But yeah, that's something, again, answers to many of the questionable questions.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So it was cool and we also, we didn't stick to just the green trails, guys.
We did some blues and I will, I think it's the funniest thing.
Were we recording?
I hope we were recording on that.
I don't know if I was.
The very first trail we went down when we got here had this...
Yes.
Gnarly washed out section and we're like, how is this green?
Yeah, it was like, it was going to be a long, lucky day.
Literally dangling tires, sliding around.
It was wild, but we did some pretty good stuff, hilly sections.
We went on some obstacles and...
And distance too.
I mean, we went from, I don't know where the start of the trail is as far as elevation,
but I know it says right here on our handy map, which is our placemat, which is, yeah,
the overlook.
It's like, yeah, it's like almost 2,900 feet of elevation.
Yeah, yeah, nice.
There's a topo.
But yeah, and so we went up, we went distance, we did, we avoided the black diamond stuff,
which I think is completely inappropriate for most, like, not fully built shit.
Yeah, for stock, stockish vehicles, it's a no go for those kinds of trails.
Those are fully built rigged trails.
But no, we covered some good elevations, some good mileage, like you said.
Dude, super pumped that we both made it through.
Can we say you're on Skard?
A little Skard.
I mean, there's some light scratches.
I did have a temporary issue of my oil pressure light coming on.
It went away.
And it was after the mud pit that we played in.
We went through, you know, it's a man-made, purpose-built mud run.
Went through it, didn't get stuck, and then shortly thereafter it came on.
So I think a connector got wet, something was unhappy.
But yeah, no fatalities.
Yeah, no, good times.
Weather's freaking perfect.
It's absolutely beautiful here.
There's not really much of a vista behind us.
There's some public restrooms where we parked our exteras there.
I don't know if they're better looking than the public restrooms, but it's close.
Yeah, I mean, they're both...
It's a decent backdrop.
Would you say your exteras built like a brick shit house?
Absolutely.
Yeah, absolutely.
But no, like it's interesting.
And we talked a little bit about not like would we do anything differently?
Because I think that's a conversation for a different day.
But I do think could we have brought something, a different make model to the table and been
successful?
And I think we probably, or maybe even is there an even cheaper way to do this.
So successful in the confines of our challenge, right?
The sub $5,000.
Yeah, sub $5,000 show up.
Not a ton of options.
Not a ton of options.
Should we rattle off some?
Yeah, I mean, I mentioned Montero Sport.
Montero Sport is definitely chief amongst the...
Because you can score one.
Yeah, Chief Keef, Chief Kuifeven.
Oh, wow.
Yeah, Swag Exempt.
I know.
No, that's a good one.
I think a second gen trooper would be good enough for this.
They're larger, but not too big.
It's not like a hundred series or a three row SUV by any stretch of it.
Yeah, and another thing is we each have a little bit of mechanical sympathy in us.
But if you don't give a shit about what you're buying for cheap, and yeah, you can get like
second gen Explorer are free.
Right.
First gen expedition is worth no money, and you're going to damage that thing.
Ruin it.
Yeah.
But yeah, if you want something that you can keep doing this with, I think the X-Tera
ended up first or second gen.
Interesting Jeep.
Jeeps, if you could.
Patriot.
Renegade would be cool.
Yeah, it would be cool.
Or is it the Liberty?
Liberty.
Yeah, I would rock that.
You will die.
The vehicle won't make it out, but maybe it will.
What about quick?
Quick, because I love myself a good non sequitur.
Can we go full tangent?
Not full tangent, partial tangent.
What is the worst Jeep?
Is it like the OG Jeep Compass?
God, they were bad.
Like truly dreadful.
The Compass is bad.
The Patriot was pretty bad.
Yeah.
The base, right?
Yeah.
Ooh.
The Renegade's just a fiat.
Correct.
Yeah, but they made a...
Not the trimable.
Yeah, yeah.
But they made a...
Didn't they make a trailhawk one?
Was it called the...
Yeah, they definitely had the trail-aided badge on it.
Yeah, they made it with like the red tow hooks and all that.
The base would be so rough though.
Yeah, it's like a fiat.
Yeah, but anyways, you know, there are other options.
Probably Compass.
Let's go original Compass.
Compass.
But I would say like there's, you know, these are pretty known for being four-wheel drive
capable and I don't know that there was ever a situation that we got in today that were
like, oh, we're at an impasse.
Yeah, no.
There were some spots that were challenging.
We had to take some different approaches.
We had to like back up and take another run at it, but nothing super crazy.
And I don't think the delta of like between what we did today and getting us to the next
difficulty level of trail of a black diamond, I think in order...
You have to have something truly purpose-built to do a black diamond.
Yeah, and we're both effectively on stock vehicles.
I have a little bit of a lift on mine, but not like a suspension lift where I get extra
articulation.
So I have a little more ground clearance, but besides that, we're both like running
stock vehicles, which is...
It was like another like wonderful aspect of these Xterras, but yeah, no challenge really.
Like there were some challenging parts.
There were some difficult spots.
But not really for the vehicles, more for us, right?
Sure.
Yeah, I'm pretty green.
Like I've done this before, but it's been a long time and it's not something I do regularly
and I don't know these trails.
And I don't know...
This is the first time I've put any real miles on this truck.
But yeah, I think to do...
And we were like, as I said, we went to the overlook, like the high summit here, and it
was like, oh, here's the destination.
Let's go to this place.
Let's not do this man-made staircase thing for the sake of doing it, which I think is
a different mission than what we were trying to accomplish today.
Yeah, we really wanted to test our vehicles a little bit.
And of course, I knew I wasn't going to get on the top of mine.
This off-road trim is pretty capable.
I know I wasn't going to get there on the first outing with it.
Right.
I do want to say though, man, Hollister Hills has a lot...
This place is right.
Dude, there's a lot of track variants.
There's lots of playgrounds to get out and mess your stuff up on some obstacles.
It's really kind of like whatever you want to do.
If you're a dirt bike guy, this is like heaven for you.
Right.
Hiking trails.
Yeah, equestrian trails.
Side-by-sides.
Yeah, everything's out there.
Yeah, I'm kind of disappointed.
We didn't get a chance to like steal a horse.
We could have gone full horse thief and stolen a horse.
You're known for that, yeah.
Yeah, or you know, and I've seen like zero Boeing engineers around here trying...
The mister of the horses.
Yeah, trying to get fully hand-shrined.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
Okay.
But no, like honestly though, I'm surprised it's not more busy because it's like ideal
weather.
Shocking.
On a weekend.
On a Saturday.
Yeah, yeah.
During the summer.
And there's people here.
It's not like it's a ghost town.
Just some endowel pack of people showing up right now.
Yeah, exactly.
But there's like, there's an empty campsite right here.
Yeah, right next to it.
There's another one over there.
And so, and it was what, $5 each for us to get in here?
Yeah.
Like overnight?
Yep.
Oh, great.
Pretty dope.
Oh, and then we've got some noisy neighbors coming in, which is great.
Because that means we're not the noisy neighbors.
I mean, someone else gets to be worse than us, which is great.
Let's just let this play out.
Hold on.
Yeah.
When you want to play your radio for everyone else, right, do it while camping, folks.
And then add like an incredible array of flashing lights.
Yeah.
Oh, they're going to the shitter.
Any hope it's hard to wipe.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's like, is that a good thing to wish on your enemies?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Your bowel movement is hard to wipe.
Or you just get so like, you think there's, you know, like, you're
you think there's, you think there's someone out there like a bodybuilder who's just so
yoked that they can't, they can't work.
They have to have like a white boy or they have a blood boy, but we're like your ass.
They have a mounted brush.
They just kind of grind it.
I'm off myself on a rag on a stick.
Oh, um, old Bart.
Exactly.
I don't want to look like a freak.
Give me the Moo Moo.
That was the bang bang Bart episode too, I think.
Yeah.
It's a good one.
Um, hold on.
So, um, takeaways.
Um, we discussed this a little bit before, not like here, but just pre-recording about
like what do we do next?
Not like today, not like now, but like, are you going to keep yours?
Oh, are you going to make mods?
Am I going to keep mine?
Am I going to mod mine out?
Am I going to, um, instead by a side by side and drive it through campgrounds, bumping
the worst, absolute worst possible pop country music since Florida, Georgia line.
Am I going to do that?
I don't know.
What, what are your plans?
Like, what do you, what, what are your, what's your next, your next step?
Yeah.
Maybe I'll go drive that for him so we can get it out of here quicker.
It's okay.
I don't, I don't know if you can smoke a centrifugal clutch, but he's going to try.
Challenge accepted.
Yes.
All right, buddy.
Um, now that brought to you by the soundtrack that peaked in high school and the character
that did exactly.
Exactly.
I can throw a football over the mountains.
Hold on while I get a fresh beer.
So yeah, my ex-Tera, so I looked for the off road trim on purpose because the capability
out of the box and I needed a good fishing rig.
I needed a little off roader and it kind of fit the bill for the price point.
So my plan and it cleaned up pretty nicely, right?
I still need to do big jobs, which I couldn't in the budget timing chain.
We talked about that the last time.
Still, still waiting for me breaks, fluids, whatever.
Um, it'll still be an affordable off roader and a very capable off roader.
I plan to keep it.
I will do full suspension eventually get that real articulation.
That's probably it for the most part.
Like I like it as it is.
I think a little more suspension travel, like that's it.
That's all I'm going to ever need out of it.
That's all I'm going to ask it for.
It's a keeper, man, because it's like low maintenance.
I've already done the big stuff, right?
I'm not going to have to touch.
It'll be oil changes and gas.
Right.
And it's not like you've got 40,000 miles on it.
So it's got all this value that like now that you've cleaned it up,
you can turn it around and get like 10 grand for it.
Yeah, I could make a little bit on it from what I bought it for
because it is an off road.
But yeah, no, I think I think it's going to use it.
Yeah, I'm going to use the show of it.
So it's like the perfect thing.
Like what else am I going to get right now for that price point?
Sure. Yeah.
And this economy.
How about you, man?
What are you going to do with this fine machine behind us?
Ooh, that's fix all those fun things you talked about.
Yeah, I mean, I've got, okay.
So I've got a fuel tank that likes to put fuel on the ground.
I have a, and this has been an ever evolving thing and it's cropped up.
There's been a lot that has happened since in the last week,
since we last recorded to this time.
All right. So I did the timing belt, timing belt service.
I found a lot of fuckery in there.
Missing fasteners and stuff, which I kind of knew, but just like, oops,
the lower timing cover was just like hit by a truck and then hammered back
together and had half of it cut off with tin snips.
And the, you were off by a whole tooth.
The timing belt was off by an entire tooth as it turns out.
And I still think, and this is continuing to evolve,
So think it, man.
That the distributor seems to be off by a full tooth.
We might have been in an effort to get this thing to actually run with the,
one of the cam being off a full tooth.
Yep. Yep.
The AC compressor has, as it turns out, the relay was jumped.
And so it was just on at all times and then frosting the lines over.
What, like, there's, it has been an absolute comedy of errors.
Somebody else's errors.
Yeah.
And so I don't want to say that, like, it has made me fall out of love with the
truck because now that I've had it out today, it's been, it's been great.
It's been really good.
It's been, it's done everything I've asked of it today and more.
And I also, very last minute, like two hours before I ran out of time yesterday,
I got tires on it.
So I did put some, a set of used because it was the only place in town that can
get me tires installed within like the hour that I had to work with.
And they were actually performed well, just some like Goodyear Wrangler
ATS's and they performed admirably.
Yeah.
There was nothing where you were hurting for grip today.
Yeah.
And so as far as what I'm going to do with it, I, I'm kind of, I'm at a,
a decision point because.
Don't say it too loud in front of the truck,
my friend.
It's like, it's like literally say something and I will fucking break.
I will break something.
So it's already broken.
And that's the problem.
That's the thing is like, um, I've corrected a bunch of fuckery.
It runs good enough and even better as it's hit right now, even with.
The timing still out of spec, the ignition timing, because this thing,
we just maxed the distributor and it's still, the timing marks are still off the
charts.
This guy at my house at eight in the morning, you got a timing light.
You got a scanner.
My friend.
You got a timing light.
I got you.
Uh, and then I've got the evapolique thing.
I've got a funny thing is we guys, we couldn't find the timing marks and I'm
looking and I'm like, Holy fuck.
He's like, what?
I'm like, they're like all the way to the left.
Yeah.
Like we can't see them not because we're blind, but because they're so far off the,
off the grid.
Um, so there's that, there's the air conditioning snafu, which we, we
swapped relays and it didn't fix it.
So it's not a relay problem, but it was jumped at the relay.
Weird.
So is it, um, it's not the pressure switch because what it was like, maybe it's a
switch in the dash.
I don't know, but there's, there's something.
So there's a lot of.
Kind of smallish things to fix.
And it's got a pretty significant oil leak.
Yep.
Power steering lines are leaking.
Do I want to fix all that and hang on to it?
Do I want to fix none of it and just have it be the trail beater?
Do I want to fix all that shit and sell it?
Do I want to fix some of it and sell it?
Do I want to sell, fix none of it and sell it?
So many options.
Um, and I, I don't know.
Part of me thinks I do want to move it on in whatever capacity, fix some or none of it.
Move it on.
But then hold out for like a nicer example.
Like this is, this truck has kind of taught me.
Really double down on the, the concept of buy the nicest one you can find.
Oh yeah, sometimes.
Because the nicest first gen XTERRA on the planet is like an $8,000 truck.
Sure.
Yeah.
Low, you're talking low mileage, super clean.
Like low ish, not like, not like delivery museum mileage, but like.
Don't even know if that exists.
A 90,000, 120,000 mile truck in the right color.
That's been really well maintained and like not really fucked like mine is like.
Yeah.
Had a lot of questions when I bought it.
They've been slowly entering themselves with bad answers.
And so it's, it's, I don't know.
Um, I don't, I'm okay with the color.
I don't love the color of it.
It looks good.
It looks good dirty.
It does look good.
And it, it, it, it does okay.
But I don't know.
Like I'm, I'm a little bit on the fence.
Interesting.
Or you get it decent, like take care of all the, like the legit, like real issues.
Take care of those.
Put some trail mileage on it.
Sure.
While you save for that good one and hunt for that good one.
Cause you know, it's, and then anything you repair is going to be the same shit.
You're going to be doing on that nice one eventually, right?
Yeah.
At some point or another.
Well, maybe.
Well, even nice one.
I'm not like in a pick and pull.
Yes.
Doing half a timing belt job so I can harvest the fucking lower timing cover
because I got to pull all that shit off.
I got to pull the crank pulley in a fucking pick and pull.
Sure.
But you're going to get a killer deal on that clean one.
If you do the timing belt yourself, if you do those little jobs that now you have.
Plenty of practice doing.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Last minute.
Yeah.
Under huge amounts of caress.
Exactly.
Yeah.
Under almost a literal gun.
Yeah.
No.
It's, and so I like the concept.
I like the truck.
I like what we did.
Yeah.
Great truck.
Um, but do I want to continue to soldier on and do it with this particular example?
Because it's kind of, it's kind of kicked my ass.
Yeah.
Like I made it work and here I am.
You also waited a lot longer.
To address the biggest.
Sure.
Yeah.
Like you tried to compress.
Like, hey, can you do this, this whatever, like this specific weekend?
I'm like, I'd love more time, but I know I'm not going to like lift the fucking finger
until it's like 10 days out.
So we've had these trucks for months.
Right.
Yeah.
Like that's.
Yeah.
If you would have stretched out the maintenance, I think it would have been more a more
palatable swallow, if you will.
Sure.
Yeah.
But the surprises aren't like that's the thing.
Like the more you dug in years, it was like a can of warm scenario.
You took that timing cover off and you're like, oh, right.
Good thing you did.
It turns out it's got the wrong fucking AC compressor.
Good thing you did because you saw the water pump.
You saw the water pump.
You're like, I think it's good.
And then you saw, when you sent me the picture of the timing marks, I'm like,
that is a complete tooth off.
Yeah, exactly.
That is not good.
Yeah.
I don't know.
I'm just making sure I'm not insane.
This is a full fucking tooth off, right?
Yes, sure is.
All right.
Guess I'm doing the timing belt and then the layers of the onion.
Oh boy.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And then like putting it back together.
Oh, this brand new belt isn't fitting because they've got the wrong AC
compressor on here and it doesn't match to the supercharger.
It's, it's well, luckily the crunching of rocks and leaf debris has covered up my
supercharger wine on my non supercharged.
Correct.
Next to there.
So I still have that timing chain for me, but these are all that's maintenance stuff.
That's the maintenance thing.
It's not, but it is right.
It's a non yes, now an issue.
But yeah, it's like a, it's a known, it's a known thing.
And you're like, there's difference between like, oh, here's some deferred
maintenance or here's a repair that I need to do.
But when you're like, why is this like this and this shouldn't be like this?
Like there's some fuckery involved here.
And you're like, you're having to like reverse engineer some of the most like
redneck bullshit possible.
Mm hmm.
Um, that's when it, it becomes frustrating.
Um, and it's just, I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't want to say this truck is cursed because guess what?
We made it through the day.
Dude.
Yeah.
And, and did so well.
I would say so.
Um, but yeah, it's, it's, it's an interesting vibe.
Yeah.
It's cool.
I mean, and X, like we got to celebrate the exterior, right?
Cause right now it's, it's probably like the screamingest modern ish four by four deal.
I think it really is for me in a world of Toyota four runners.
Sure.
But when you cross reference like capability, cost, maintenance, reliability, I
think it like excels at many things.
And I think it's super slept on.
I think cause Nissan had a brand as a brand has taken a bit of a dump.
I think we all agree.
And like your generation, the second gen, they made that for fucking ever forever.
Like everything they did during that period, three 70s.
Let's, let's talk about it.
Was 2015 the last year?
Did it make it that far?
Yeah.
I think it was, I think 2014 or 2015 was the end of the second gen.
Uh, was 2015.
Yeah.
I'd say it's 15.
I want to say it sounds about right.
So yeah, it's been gone for a while over 10 years now.
Uh, but these things are just hanging out there.
And honestly, it doesn't take a lot to get them back on the road.
Like if it's been mistreated, it's parts are super cheap parts are available.
It's a very approachable vehicle to wrench on.
There's a lot of pros going for it.
Like my truck, I was like, oh man, like for some absolutely asinine reason,
somebody decided to just chop up the lower fucking timing cover and then run it over
and then hit the shit out of it with a hammer and then slap it in place in a way
where it's grinding on the belt itself.
The belt tensioner.
Yeah.
Damn.
Now I have to go source this part.
Man, just go to pick a pull.
It's $35.
Yeah.
Cool.
Like, and you can just like parts are shared with other, other other trucks,
you know, frontier and, and Pathfinder in the case of mine, yours is a VQ,
but it's a VQ 40.
So, you know, same frontier Pathfinder.
Pathfinder.
Armada.
Yeah.
All that shit.
Wait, was that an armada?
No, Armada was all V8, 56
Yeah.
But regardless, like their parts are out there, they're cheap, they're available.
They have enough of a following where if you have a concern, like what is this noise,
you're like, oh, it's my timing chain.
There's like a near cult following for the exterior, which is kind of interesting.
Once I started to dig in, because I knew, I always thought they were cool.
I think we both agree they're pretty cool looking vehicle, very unique.
So that's kind of a cool itch to scratch.
But yeah, there's some serious deep dive forums that are like, it's still a heavy and
the community seems cool because.
Yes, it does.
Yeah.
Yeah.
We're right at 29 and a half minutes over here.
So we're, I don't think we lost a, I don't think we lost a second.
That is brilliant.
But no, like the forums are there if you need, like, if you have like a mysterious,
like one off issue that's really concerning.
Right.
You can jump on there and plenty of people, but dude, in the aftermarket, right?
Like you got Z1 off road, all the other big names.
Let alone the afterlife.
If you don't, if you don't maintain your exterior, you can end up there a lot sooner.
But no, it's such a cool platform, man.
No, it's good.
And I am, I feel like we touched on this before, but like maybe when we were talking
about resurrecting Nissan or their impending resurrection.
It's coming.
I'm interested in seeing when the new one comes out, assuming,
actually maybe it doesn't matter if it's good or if it's bad, but like if that will
actually shine light on these older X-terras.
I think it always does when a nameplate returns, right?
There's like that, that attention put back on, oh, I haven't thought about this for so many years.
And now there's a fresh new, and the fact that they're keeping it like historically based on
what we have parked behind us right now, it's probably the coolest that, well, they've already
said, they've already said, dude, no, it's not, it's not like, remember when the
Cybertruck was like $40,000?
Can you please stop bringing old Nissan to the table?
This is a new Nissan frame.
That's behind us is old Nissan.
No, but the thought is back.
I think they're, if it comes out with a V6, the body on frame, the thick thoughts,
body on frame, V6, let's go, just full four by four trucks.
No one else has been really cool about this, not to mention the fact we both ended up on
Xterra is seeing a Gen 1 and a Gen 2 running together.
I think that's super cool.
But the Gen 3 comes out, that'll be super cool.
Third player center of the game.
Yeah, hell yeah.
A much more youthful and spelt player probably, but probably heavier actually,
it's probably less spelt.
Yeah, yeah, it's gonna be heavier.
Future creep for sure.
Yeah, it's probably gonna be way nicer inside.
But comparing like straight up, when you can get two generations together of a vehicle
and run them through the same test is such a cool feeling.
We can turn around and we both conceptually know what a next Xterra looks like each generation,
but to see that Gen 1 and Gen 2 part next to each other and see how much is still the same,
but the tweaks they made, right?
I think that is working ton.
The silent cues, what carried over, because it's a very iterative design.
It's not like the second generation from the first one was revolutionary and way different.
Which was smart.
I think that was a killer move by Nissan.
Yeah, no, it's...
And it will be really interesting to see on this new generation what the
cues will be left over and what won't be.
I have hope because I think they did a good job with the current Z.
They did.
With some like Z32 callbacks and the taillights and obviously...
240Z front end.
Yeah, yeah, S30.
What's some...
Stuff on the front end, yeah.
Do drugs?
For state kid on the third gen Xterra.
Oh yeah, that's gotta be there.
How cool.
You gotta have the roof basket.
You gotta have the stadium seating.
I think those are an absolute must.
The Givens, flared fenders.
Definitely.
Could be really good.
Really plastic interior.
Oh, absolutely.
Because the price point, right?
Like now they're building a 30 to 40,000 dollar vehicle,
which is the equivalent of building like, what, an 18,000 dollar vehicle in the early 2000s, late 90s?
Yeah.
So to be real, it's...
Let's be true.
Who knows?
Who knows?
Yeah, yeah.
Excited.
This economy?
I did this.
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah, and it's all, you know what?
That'd be really funny to do the, I did this thing, but with like Carlos Goat.
Yeah, reaching out from like a musical instrument box.
Yeah, exactly.
RIP.
Or the...
They still live, dude.
RIP.
Or the, allegedly.
Do we actually know if he's still like Argentina or wherever?
Did he make it to, he made it to South America, huh?
He is, yeah.
He's like...
I thought he was like in some weird like area before that, and then he was like in like
non-contestable waters for a while and...
Oh, he's in like the Principality of the Netherlands.
He's like international.
No, I thought he just fled to Argentina where like, you know, famously nobody ever
fled from any sort of bad misdoing.
No mustached SS badge where...
No, no, no, that never happened.
That never happened.
Not a larky.
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah, big if true.
It is.
But like, I don't know, it's gonna be interesting.
It's gonna be a hitlero.
Exactly.
Seniors Bilbergo.
But no, it'll be really interesting to kind of see what we each end up doing with our
respective X-Jacks.
Yeah, no, I'm telling you.
I was telling you you're hanging on to yours for a while.
Yeah, I'm like...
I commend.
I'm into that.
I liked it.
It's fun.
It's been a fun project and like, it needed a bit and it still needs a lot of work.
But dude, it's such a capable truck and I really do enjoy driving it.
Like, to me, I mean, that's a big thing for me.
Like, you get in a car and drive it, does it feel special or does it feel like you're
just driving a car and it feels special each time?
It's just, I don't know, something about the exterior, man.
It's cool.
It is.
It's worth a whole non-new.
It's worth a whole non-new.
No harsh my exterior.
So no regerts?
No regerts.
Zero regerts.
So no regerts on this purchase, dude.
I think this was a fun extras.
I'm more about the message we're pushing across this time that you can get into overlanding.
The message.
The more you know.
Yeah, there we go.
It's just like, you can get into this, like, it seems like there's a lot of barriers to
entry, but there really isn't.
Like, you can get a capable truck, put a little bit of elbow greasing yourself,
which earns you a little respect for it, and you can go out and have a blast.
Yeah, and like, I just kind of like thinking and like looking around what we've seen today.
There's been a lot of like, you know, high dollar dick-swing toys.
There's been the noisy ROV things, which are fun and they're capable and they're cool, but like,
there's zero utility in that.
They're a 100% pure play thing.
It's a trailer to in here.
You got to have a trailer.
You got to have a tow rig.
You got to do all that shit.
And so it's, you know, and especially the ones here, as you saw and heard.
A lot of it is very like flexing.
It's like off-road, conspicuous consumption.
Sure.
You don't have to do that.
We have seen some other stuff here.
There's a pretty clean, just like medium blue, soft, like bikini top, YJ over here.
Disco 2.
A second gen four-runner with a modest lift and a Disco 2, a seemingly stock Disco 2 over here.
We saw like a late 70s D200 Dodge pick up.
What else have we seen?
We saw a two-wheel drive Tacoma.
We did.
There's been some stuff like proven this out.
This is not necessarily an original idea of ours.
No.
It is one that's like good to just double down because it's like,
you know, a lot of the car people we talk to in the circles we run in, it's just like,
oh yeah, I'm going to do the Overland Build thing.
It's like a huge check.
Well, Overlanding has gotten super fresh like in COVID, right?
So I think we did see a resurgence of these, these adventure rigs that really
high dollar builds, right?
Like as a common thing, but just to show that you can do it, if you do it right,
like if you, if you try, you can get in, out there.
And there are some unrecognized vehicles you can tap into that.
And that makes them cool, right?
Like, yeah, you know, there's something, there's something cool about it.
You don't, we're the only XTERRAs out here.
And I'm sure people are seeing our XTERRAs going down these trails and are like, that's cool.
Like that's a cool sight.
I've never seen that.
Yeah.
Or even if they have, like, I don't, they're not like a rarity and they're not like not known for being
off the trail.
Sure.
But they're not, they're not like the two year old Tacoma.
No, but they're out here running together on these trails as a site, right?
Like they're looking, first, I bet most people are like, what, A, what the fuck is that?
I think people know.
You think so?
I'm here, I think people know.
I don't think the guy in the Rubicon knows always.
I don't think he looks at it and goes, wow, he's on XTERRA.
That's a capable, he's like, no, that's a little crossover.
Maybe the four by he that was here, that guy might not.
Yeah.
I don't know.
I think, you know, whether they're out here a lot or not, I'm not sure.
But like, I don't know, it's interesting.
And it's not like we were doing this every weekend to get like a really good barometer on
what is and what isn't out here.
But it's definitely like on the absolute bottom of the heap of the dollars spent to be out here.
So I think that's-
And we're going to the top of the hill and we're doing all the stuff that's like even
remotely conceivable for an on-road vehicle to do.
I think therein lies the value proposition, right?
These things are undervalued because they're under-recognized.
I think a lot of people don't understand the capability.
So once it's like fully fleshed, fleshed lighted out, it's going to become a very
popular truck and then with a new one coming out.
It's popular as a fleshed light.
Well, yeah, and very popular.
Used ones are great.
Great value too.
Community.
Family.
Is that worse?
That's worse.
Oh man, yeah, that's like-
Why does Diesel say that as he passes it to his son?
Family.
Exactly.
Yes, yes, it was that.
Don't clean it out after.
Yeah, that's actually how we lost Paul Walker.
Dude, dude, dude.
That's the second Paul Walker conspiracy theory I've heard today.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, you've only been hanging out with me all day.
Oh yeah.
But like, yeah, I mean, it's interesting.
You don't have to spend a ton of money to do this.
And in fact, I think-
And should you?
Absolutely.
Spend a lot of money?
No.
Spend a little money.
Get outside, hit the trails with your cheap piece of shit rig.
Because guess what?
You'll drive it through the mud puddle.
Yeah.
You'll do, you'll like get scratches down the side of it,
not give a writ.
Yeah, not an option.
You're going to get it fucked up.
What do we got?
What do we got?
You're not going to carry this?
What do we got?
Coming in.
Cummins?
What are we coming in?
No, no, no.
No?
No, no, no.
We're stroking.
Are you sure?
It's a power stroking even.
Yeah, it is.
It's like 4 to F-250.
I heard Diesel before I saw.
Oh, it's got the 6.7 Diesel, yeah.
Yeah, we're doing it.
It's a girthy boy.
It's got, it's got premium girth.
I don't know if it's a King Ranch.
Oh, it might be.
King Ranch?
Ranch or relax, though.
It's like they're here to use the shower.
Question.
Are you, are you shower while camping guy?
I don't shower at all anyway.
Fair.
Yeah.
I'm not going to break that streak.
Only golden.
But like I release the tapes.
But does the, it's not the same.
I don't, I think.
It's weird, dude.
Well, first off, most places I go camping don't have shower.
No, absolutely.
But if they do, I'm like weird.
Yeah.
Yeah, I don't, I think I've, I think I've done it once.
And it was just like a 10 day trip kind of thing.
The shower.
Like, oh, okay.
Yeah, thanks.
I'll scrub my juridder, you know.
Showers I avoid.
Baby showers, camping showers.
Yeah, that's it.
Yeah, that's it.
I draw the line.
That is it, end of, end of, you know, golden doesn't matter.
Nope.
That's all there.
Yeah.
Are there other showers?
Bridal showers?
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I'll go to this.
Groomal shower.
I threw, I threw my brother a Groomal shower.
There's a bridal shower.
You got to have a Groomal shower.
I thought that was the, we played, we played Nintendo 64 and $800 in Taco Bell.
Oh, shit.
Back when Taco Bell was like.
Affordable.
Yeah.
I was going to say right now that's like three meals.
Mm-hmm.
Essentially.
Yeah, three squares.
Gorditas.
What are we missing?
Are we missing anything?
Are we missing anything?
I don't know.
I don't know, folks.
Are we missing any vehicles?
Probably.
We're probably missing some cheap option.
We're pretty good though.
We scour the, we scour the marketplace quite, quite feverishly in the night.
Yeah.
I think, I think, dude, I'm going to say it again.
I think capability and current market prices, XTERRA is the best bang for your buck.
Might be.
It is.
Might be.
I think it is.
And there's a lot of flavors.
Like our, our trucks are similar, eerily similar, but also very different vehicles at the end of the day.
Yeah. I mean yours is, I would say the better vehicle.
I prefer the first gen just because I think it's.
It's a little weirder.
A little weirder, a little more iconic, I think.
Oh, iconic.
It's, yeah.
The second gen's really just the first gen that like walked into a 7-11,
grabbed a handful of boner pills.
Right.
Chugged them down with four locos.
That's what the second gen is.
They're local for that local.
They're fucking.
They're fucking, they just doubled down on the butchness.
But what, yeah, no, I think the XTERRA,
I think the XTERRA is the best buck we got going in the off road.
Yeah.
I mean, we did talk LR3 before as an option before doing.
I just don't think it, the reliability is not the same, parts are not the same price.
But the capability probably.
Capability's great.
Maybe more.
Oh.
Not the off road trim.
You got the air suspension and stuff.
Yeah, maybe not.
Little bit more upturn nose kind of a thing.
Sure.
Nice air interior for sure.
100%.
For the ones that last, cracked dashes aside and seats that shadow.
It is funny, like looking at either of these trucks and then somebody just like spending
20 grand on a third gen forerunner.
It's true.
For a very similar level of performance, right?
Yeah.
You're like almost the same.
Honestly, they're probably benchmarked a little bit.
I know Nissan.
You know Nissan looked at forerunners for the benchmark.
Is the interior of a third gen forerunner a bit nicer than a first gen XTERRA?
Material wise, yeah.
But like reliability?
Pretty similar.
Pretty similar.
I mean ethos, right?
Four times the cost, really?
Same power.
Like you can get a very nice first gen XTERRA for like five to six grand.
Oh, absolutely.
And you're spending three to four XSAP for the same, for a late 90s, early 2000s forerunner.
Yeah, and as you want.
And yours is like more comparable to a fourth gen forerunner.
Like a TRD off-road one, not so much.
And the newer one.
So not even a base, right?
So yeah.
And then you're really talking.
And I'm a Toyota guy.
I love Toyotas.
Yeah, when you start throwing TRD badges on Toyotas, though, that freaking dollar value jumps up.
We'll just pull one on your fucking XTERRA.
Put the TRD badge on it.
I'll write the word turd instead.
But no, it's, I think, Dx.
I think when you're just rebadged, like completely rebadged, like Toyota,
you know, put SR5 instead of like off-road on the road.
So bad.
Yeah.
Oh, cool.
Cool 400.
Wow, thanks, man.
Yeah, it cost me 30.
It's a body kit.
It's got a fucking body kit on it.
30 custom, man.
No, they're, I mean, I like Toyotas, too.
I think I've owned quite a few of those and Lexus products, but.
Yeah.
They're very, very good.
They're something about these XTERRAs.
They're like, thanks for your bug.
Also, like the fact you turn around and look at one of these trucks.
It's a lot of truck for the price we paid.
For what we're doing right now, both of us under the 5k budget.
Oh, budget reveal.
Ooh.
Do you know where you're at?
Ballpark?
I mean, you still have to fix stuff.
But you did the adventure, so it's up to this point, really.
Yeah.
So where we sit right now?
So recap, I paid $2,500 for the truck.
I had to spend, the math gets a little muddy.
Yeah.
But I had to spend like roughly $400 in back to registration.
Oh, that'll get you.
Yep.
I had to spend fucking, let's call it a timing belt tensioner
and a timing belt cover, the lower timing cover.
That's like $100.
Probably another $100, so that's $3,000.
Call it $31,000 for some miscellaneous,
accessory belts, fluids.
And $504,000 for the tires.
That was mounted and balanced because it was just used.
Right, that's right.
So that's at $3,600.
I'm probably, I mean, I did some other shit.
I did a fuel cap before I realized it was shitting fuel
all over the ground because that was my evapolite.
It was like $7.
Post fuel cap.
We got a bunch of basic shit like that.
So I'm in probably, I'm probably in a $3,500.
So that's really good.
Yeah.
You're way better than me on budget.
Yeah, probably, and maybe I'm, yeah, probably,
I'm probably in it like $3,500.
But there's, I've, you know, I blew some prion in it,
some basic shit.
I know there's gonna be, there's very clearly some other stuff
I still need to do.
Sure.
So as it sits right now, I'm in $3,500,
which is a very good place to be for what we just did.
And it's a supercharged one, so it's the desirable one.
And sure, it might have 100,000 miles rolled off the odometer.
And yeah, it might be pissing oil all over the place.
Like it's imperfect, but you know.
Compliments to the fuel.
I took some chances when I bought it at the price point
that I did and some of the, it's kind of bored some of that fruit out.
And you're what, you're like $4,999.
It's pretty close.
So I, the opposite of usual, I spent almost the whole budget
on the truck because I tried to get the best thing I could get.
Right.
Which is a different strategy.
Which is not the lesson that I learned.
A good strategy, but not something I'm used to.
So, but I was able to recoup like 400 bucks
in selling that brush guard with the lights and the old wheels and tires.
So I got a little bit in the green there.
The benefit of mine was that it did come with the original wheels
and brand new tires that hadn't even been mounted yet.
So I had to mount those.
Bought everything to do the coolant system, which is the known issue.
A bunch of gaskets and things like that.
So I was able to get rid of all this because it did have a good oil leak,
much like yours.
Valve covers were just absolutely water falling,
which X-Teras are kind of known for that, right?
First and second gen.
So it took care of all those issues.
I'm right there and I had to buy brake lights today.
I am flirting with that budget.
I'm probably, realistically, I'm probably 30-some bucks shy of it.
But the truck is very solid.
I would drive this cross-country right now and have zero.
I have zero issues that are outstanding except for the timing chain.
So I will be doing like the timing chain,
which is the secondary timing chain on these trucks fails dramatically.
So I want to fix that.
Before it failed dramatically.
Yeah, absolutely.
Because once.
Make a noise.
But once I fix that,
it'll never have an issue again, right?
Like that's it.
So it will never have an issue again.
I mark my words.
Yeah, oil changes in gas from this time out and brakes eventually.
But no, it's killer.
I'm happy, but we're both sub-five.
You definitely beat me on the budget front though.
Right, but I've got more.
Yours is a more capable thing.
Certainly right here right now, it's been more trouble-free and it's
projected to continue to be more trouble-free than mine is.
But you know, that's part of this deal.
And if you're going to do the cheap thing and you get a really good deal on something,
there's a certain amount of rolling of the dice in that.
And I rolled the dice.
And we did the thing and got to the finish line.
It was a little more painful than I wish it was,
with regards to the hoops I had to jump through to do it.
Sure, yeah.
Again, that's part of the deal.
And I'm still roughly $1,500 under the budget.
That's killer.
Yeah.
And I got an off-road really cheap, I think.
I think that's it.
If I would have gotten a vanilla second gen,
I think I could have done that for a lot cheaper.
I think I got a steel for it being an off-road.
But then again, it does have the second gen issues.
Nothing was rectified maintenance-wise.
And we'll take care of that.
But if you guys aren't showing up at your buddy's house at eight in the morning,
asking for a timing light with your off-road rig,
yeah, what the fuck are you doing?
What are you doing?
Yeah, he's probably sniff glue.
Yeah, but once you hit your-
Smoke scorpions, perhaps?
Even though we're past the challenge part of it,
like when you hit 5K with this truck,
it's going to be pretty polished.
You're going to be golden for the things you need to fix,
which I think you'll be able to rectify.
I think you will.
I'm a little curious of what skeletons are still left in his closet.
Sure, but once you get to that point,
you're going to be at a higher level than you are right now,
like condition or reliability, I think.
So both of us under 10K for these two trucks and what they can do.
Fuck yeah, dude.
There's no way to lose on that one.
Almost no way to lose.
I mean, I can still lose.
My timing chain could get a lot louder and a little slapier.
But that is the thing though too,
like how many people spend a huge amount of money
on an expensive rig and then have something go sideways?
Yeah.
And ours like, oh no, I lost my entire $3,500 investment
because of burn to the ground or whatever.
Like that sucks, but like-
It's not life altering.
Yeah, a transfer case.
If my $80,000 rig rolls off a mountain or gets stolen
and I don't have insurance on or whatever, or like-
Crack your transfer case on a rock out here.
It's going to be more of vehicles, right?
Yeah, or like I, you know, my ship burns to the ground,
but they're like, okay, here's your, oh, it's a Dodge Ram.
Here's $25,000.
Yeah.
Oh, but I have $30,000 in custom parts and equipment on it.
Sorry.
We don't recognize that.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So yeah, it's, and yeah, and I think spending less
makes you more likely to actually use the damn thing.
Absolutely.
Should we wind us down?
We should probably wind it down.
I see a battery light flashing on my camera.
That's a great sign.
Oh no.
Yeah, okay.
Well, that's, we believe it or not,
we have no ads to quiz upon each other.
Yeah, no, no quizzing.
So we're doing that.
And this entire exercise is PCP.
It has been a lot of PCP.
And the sun is setting and we should just start doing PCP.
Yes, that's a campground activity.
On that note.
Cheers guys.
Salute.
Cheers to you, sir.
Later guys, catch you next week.
Roll the beautiful bean footage.
Dude, guys, come on.
I know, I wish we had a quiz.
I wish you were quizzing me because we got the Bush's Bake beans here, guys.
We've got the Bush's Bake beans.
We have this Corona, which was in my Xera when I purchased it,
and it's been in the truck the entire time, collecting sun.
Wonderful.
On that note.
Catch you next time, guys.
Peace.
Bye.
About this episode
Broadcasting straight from a campsite at Hollister Hills SVRA, the hosts put their sub-$5,000 budget overland rigs to the test. Armed with a first-generation supercharged Nissan Xterra and a second-generation Xterra Off-Road, they tackle challenging blue trails, a slippery mud pit, and steep elevation climbs. Along the way, they debate the merits of cheap off-roaders, share trail mishaps—including a dramatic fuel leak and a temporary oil pressure scare—and brainstorm alternative budget-friendly platforms like the Montero Sport and Isuzu Trooper. It is a gritty, real-world look at how to overland without breaking the bank.
Original notes
Enough edging up to the act, the boys are finally going on their budget overland adventure. How they both ended up with Nissan Xterras...the world will never know. Xterra Boys, roll out.
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