“Im interested in buying your Tunrdra, but only if you’re interested in taking my 2007 Ford Explorer Limited on trade”.
This was told to me last week while showing my recently-repaired and refurbished Tundra to a prospective buyer, on a beautiful late spring afternoon, in the parking lot of Legion Stadium, in Wilmington, North Carolina, at the heart of The Cape Fear: the place I’ve called home for the past 28 years. I know that’s a lot of sentence, but Wilmington is that great.
I had bought the Tundra about a month or so ago from the tenant of the same person that sold me this wicked intelligent purchase a few years back. That tale of woe made more than a few of you chuckle at my misfortune in the comments and was a moment of humility for this guy. I’d suggest reading it for a good laugh and refresher if you have the click in you and the time.
The landlord seemingly has a history of money-challenged tenants leaving broken cars on his property after they vacate. Knowing an Autopian like me that is less scared and more willing to approach a vehicle in that state was apparently important enough for the guy to save my number for the last 2.5 years (since the above piece was published).
He called me up and offered it to me to quite broken but also for a wicked killer price. Not completely sure if I should pull the trigger, I posted it in our Autopian Editorial Slack channel to run it by the team and received this from my buddy (and Editor-in-Chief) David Tracy:
“It’s a Toyota truck. Buy now and think later!”
Anyway, this story is about an Explorer, and not about that Tundra, but how things come to be is important for background setting. The Tundra Tale is up next on The List Of SWG’s Wicked Evil Autopian Wrenching Adventures, to keep your eyes peeled in the upcoming weeks. Now, back to that moment in the parking lot at Legion Stadium.
Another Ford “Exploder?”
When you know a little bit about fixing them, it leads to owning them. I’ve had 162 cars over the past 31 years and 2 of them were Ford Explorers. Interestingly, both of my previous Explorers were the 2-door “Sport” models from the late 90s, which is the lower volume model when compared with the garden variety four door model.
Outside of wrenching on both of my Explorers, I also documented my wrenching experience on my neighbor (and one of my best buds) Thomas’ “Portofino Blue” 1997 Explorer in this wicked fun piece from three years back. It’s also pretty funny so I’d also recommend checking it out if you were busy on June 12th, 2023 and happened to miss it.
I love everything on four wheels which means you have to be choosy about which vehicles to allocate your time to; they have to be special and evoke an emotional response every time. There’s that old saying that if you don’t turn around to catch one more glance at your lover or your car while walking away from them/it, you’re dating the wrong person and driving the wrong car. This is true.
Explorers are to me, as my friend and Autopian Publisher Matt Hardigree says, “fine”. Matt uses that term in that manner when something is not at all, or in any way bad, but is also nothing special to write much more than that single word about. Those trucks are handsome and serve their intended purpose very well and make millions of owners happy around the world. Do they elicit an emotional response from me? No, they don’t. And that’s ok.
Considering the above lack of emotion and compounding that upon the fact that I already have 15 cars of my own that I can barely keep up with (and find parking for), taking what would be my third Explorer on trade didn’t seem like all that great of an idea. My initial response to the buyer was that I wasn’t that interested in taking his 2007 Explorer on trade. Lucky, he doubled down.
“Ok, Tell Me More”
“You sure, man? I just got it from the original owner and it only has like 60K miles on it,” I was told next. Any Autopian worth their key rings knows that hearing the above words on low mileage and on 19 years of original ownership is something quite notable.
Apparently the guy that wanted to buy the Tundra does home kitchen and bathroom remodeling and had recently done some work for an older lady on her beach house. He pulled out his phone and showed me a few pictures of it under a car port, in what looked to be a neighborhood that I couldn’t afford to live in.
Apparently, the beach house owner had purchased the truck as a beach runaround and had not really used it (nor the two Mercedes that were next to it) very much over the past 19 years. Only 60K miles. An extra set of floor mats on top of the factory floor mats. A super clean interior. No wear on the outboard edges of the driver’s seat. These are prime Little Old Lady Ownership tells to my trained Autopian eye.
Living in Coastal Carolina for my entire adult life, you immediately know that if someone has a beach house, they have some money. You really can’t get anything near the water for under a cool million these days (which is sad). People with money can afford maintenance and more usually than not, are better set up to take care of a vehicle (garages, car covers, full detail jobs, ceramic paint coating, “Suggested Maintenance”, etc).
He said he took the truck on trade for a discount on the beach house upgrades after his truck was rear-ended midway through the job. The beach house owner said she didn’t really use it, need it or want it any longer (she said the same about the two Mercedes next to it – their fate remains unknown).
The prospective Tundra buyer drove the Explorer for a few weeks as a temporary measure until he found a replacement truck (he’s in construction after all), which brings us up to speed on the Tundra sale/Explorer trade in the Legion Stadium parking lot that afternoon.
I agreed to buy it from him for $2K (his full asking price – he was definitely aware of the below issues – read on!) without any haggling and handed him the title and keys for his new Tundra. I was now the owner of my third Explorer; a car that I really didn’t want, nor need, but a car that was remarkably clean.
Let’s Wrench! Rear Suspension Noise
Upon getting in my new Ford, I was greeted by a nice-smelling interior in great shape, some cold AC, soft leather and…a loud clunk from the rear when I hit my first road imperfection while driving it home to my Evil Wrenching Lair (underneath that volcano in Wilmington, NC). Dammit.
Laying on my back under the rear of the truck, there is more than enough ground clearance to clearly see most of the rear suspension and it was very obvious that the rear sway bar link bushings had decided they no longer wanted to be involved with this truck.
That was actually a really great discovery! Out of all the difficult and expensive things that can cause a clunk in a rear end/rear suspension, those sway bar link bushings are probably the easiest and cheapest to fix.
Let’s Wrench! When Your Door Is Not A Door
The next item that was immediately noticeable as broken was the red “Door Ajar” message and light on the gauge cluster that was communicated and illuminated even when the door was closed.
A quick Google search showed that this is a hyper-common problem with this generation of Explorer and repair videos and parts are plentiful. Cheap parts and common knowledge on repairs are the classic hallmarks of Chevy/Ford/Dodge. Score one for the home team.
One $15 “Door Jamb Sensor”, one quick 10-min video watch to get myself up to speed on the repair, and about 45 minutes in my driveway pulling the door panel, latch and bad sensor and it was fixed!
Wicked, wicked easy and a great feeling when a repair goes so smoothly and exactly according to plan.
Let’s Not Wrench! Third Row Seat Motor
I also noticed that one of the electric 3rd row seat motors that are used to raise and lower the seats did not work and was stuck in the “down” position.
Not a hard fix, but I wasn’t going to keep this truck and the next owner may or may not need/use the 3rd row. I’ll leave the repair choice up to them. No need to fix a seat that may never be sat upon.
Exploring New Ownership
After vacuuming out all the beach sand from over the years, filling it up with fresh gas and oil and cleaning it up a bit, I posted it for sale. The truck immediately garnered massive attention due to its low mileage, great interior, excellent presentation and three-ish rows of seats from a good number of shoppers.
Unfortunately also from all the usual seemingly-unintelligent, mean-spirited, lowballing jerks with poor reading skills on Marketplace.
The above guy was just weird and kind of funny in hindsight but not mean-spirited or such. I’m mostly just so over the kind of person who offers less than half of the asking price even though the ad states that the price is firm then continues to berate you to lower the price while disparaging the car after you tell them to actually read the ad/the price is firm. I received a few messages from that crew as well. I cannot stand that guy!
Ok, I’ve recomposed myself and apologize for being saucy. I’m good now, promise. So, back to the story. A few hours after it was listed, I received a message from a guy that wanted to see it that evening. Fantastic! That was wicked fast. People love them some Ford Trucks.
I went to move the truck from my driveway (where I was vacuuming it) to street parking for a few hours before the showing. I hopped into the driver’s seat, turned the key, heard the smooth ignition of the 4.0V6 engine, hit the accelerator and…nothing. The gas pedal did nothing. The tachometer stayed at idle; the Check Engine Light came on with a taunting “ding!” Dammit.
I now had about 2+ hours before the showing and a truck that only idled. Greeeeeaaat.
A quick check of the OBDII system with my cheap-ass Wal-Mart scanner showed a throttle body code – of course! That explains the dead throttle response! Another example of how moving to electronic throttle from a wire/cable is tech making cars worse. I’ve only once, in 31 years and 163 cars had an accelerator cable snap (and that was in Miami in an ‘87 Escort Wagon), but that’s another story for another time, my homies.
Let’s Wrench, Again! Electronic Throttle Body
A quick search on the mobile apps of my local parts retailers shows that Advance Auto had a replacement throttle body about 2 miles from my house for about $230. I normally would go to the local Pick n’ Pull and grab one of one for ~$45 off one of the many Explorers they always have in stock, but there’s a chance that you grab a bad unit and the clock was ticking before the showing! I decided to not take any chances and just pick up the new unit.
The old unit was carbon-baked and electronically fried. It was also super easy to remove (air intake tubing, 2 electrical connectors and 4 8mm bolts) and I had the job done with more than enough time to shower, change and make the showing – thanks Ford Engineers from 2006!
Put Up & Show Up
I arrived at the showing with my now fixed-up “Grimace’d Out” purple Explorer to meet the buyer with a good feeling about the machine I rode in on. He lived close by and told me that we had a bunch of mutual friends on Facebook when he arrived. Nice guy.
He took it for a quick spin and remarked that he used to have a Mazda Navajo in high school and loved it as one does a first car. That’s when I knew that he was probably going to buy it and that he was also the perfect buyer for this truck; someone that would appreciate it for the low-mileage, barely-used machine that it was.
He said that he was looking for a low-mileage, 3-row SUV, and that he didn’t care about 4WD (it’s flat and doesn’t really snow here) and he said also that he loved it. He was the perfect person/ideal buyer for this specific truck in this spec.
He did say that he needed that rear motorized seat to function, so we struck a deal where I’d buy the part and deliver it to him for install when it came in 5-10 days after the sale.
He enthusiastically agreed.
Two-Wheel Driving Away (with AdvanceTrac RSC)
I couldn’t help but smile as I waved goodbye (while trying not to spill my celebratory Stanley Tucci Negroni) to the new owner and to that Explorer for the last time after delivering it to his house. It felt really, really good leveraging all the amassed Autopian /automotive knowledge and skills that I have spent 31 years culminating, curating and focused-upon (daily) to fix this truck up so quickly and to have it repurposed and pointed towards a brighter future.
Every article you read on this site brings a little automotive knowledge. To read every article, every day brings more. I try to read every one that I can. For example, Editor-In-Chief David Tracy’s latest eBay WW2 Jeep Build series is a treasure trove of wrenching knowledge, presented with that classic DT style alongside our own Aussie wrenching hero Laurence Rogers.
Learning brings a feeling of power. Putting it into action brings a feeling of accomplishment. Doing so efficiently, quickly and without any of your past wrenching hangups/mistakes makes for a feeling of advancement in the craft. I felt good about the rapid-fire resuscitation of this truck.
Yes, the door sensor, throttle body and sway link bushings weren’t hard jobs, but they were jobs that I was familiar with due to trial and error in years past. Jobs that I now know the parts costs, the time involved, the tools involved, the potential pitfalls involved and what each repair would add to (if completed) or detract from (if not completed) the sales value of the truck.
These items come from time invested and from experience.
I didn’t need nor really want this truck and had zero space for it, but fortune favors the brave and also favors those that show up and put in the effort. Those that try. There are so many opportunities out there to make a certain car a little bit better, or to give a car a better future with a new owner or set of circumstances.
If I hadn’t bought it, this Explorer may have been sold with the rear-end clunk, the about-to-die throttle body and the door that constantly dinged at you while driving to someone that didn’t have the ability or resources to fix it properly. They may have taken it to a predatory independent shop or worse and received a massive repair quote and decided that fixing it just wasn’t going to happen.
The truck may have met a much earlier end as a half-busted beater after a short life. I’m so glad that it didn’t.
I will always look back with a smile at the week that I owned my third Explorer. That one week when I felt really proud about showing up, putting up and about making something just a little bit better.
That’s what we, as Autopians, do.
Until next time, my Autopian Friends.
88mph into the future.
All images courtesy of Stephen Walter Gossin
- I Took On A Bad GM Design In A Hail-Mary Attempt To Fix My Friends Broken Suburban But It Was Too Little Too Late
- Sparking Joy And Plugs: How To Repurpose A 31-Year-Old Junk Buick
- What I Learned Restoring A $600 Dodge Ram With A Burned Up Transmission And Ruined Interior
- How I Bought A Broken Version Of My Dream Car For $300, Then Nursed It Back To Glory And Let It Free
- Proof That A $700 Car Saved From The Junkyard Can Make Someone As Happy As A New Lambo Can
- How I Saved My Buddys’ SUV After It Died At The Most Embarrassing Possible Time
- Rescuing A 75-Year-Old Car From An Older Car Enthusiast Reminded Me How Important Every Minute We Get Doing This Truly Is
- How I Rescued A Long-Neglected Citroen 2CV Covered With Bullet Holes
- Kumho Flew Me To The Mojave To See If Their New ‘R/T’ Tires Are As Good As They Claim
- How Learning Saxophone in 1990 Led Me To Rescue A Dead Xterra From A Bouncer’s Driveway
For as much as I am sure we all love the oddball, obscure cars getting rescued, it’s great reading about a quick flip that worked out well for all parties involved.
I grew up driving Rangers/B4000’s which these Explorers were based on and remember the front end sagging on so many of them in later years. Never got back into one but know they were solid from the beating I gave them as a teenager.
Love this story and so glad you were able to do someone a solid by finding them a well sorted cheap car.
I will say that generation of Explorer is probably rock bottom for the product’s history. I once drove one and it was one of the most uninspired driving experiences I’ve ever had.
Absolutely love tales of resurrected cars, where out of tens of thousands of moving parts and widgets, three fail, and would condemn an otherwise good car be destroyed. Here’s a happy ending where now a 4k perfectly good car exists, and everyone won here. We need more SWGs!
My (then) wife had a lovely long weekend flying into Wilmington and staying, even contemplating buying a place, in Carolina Beach, 12 years ago. I was glad we didn’t buy after a relatively mild hurricane that flooded the neighborhood we explored.
A few years later, we spent a lovely long weekend in Asheville and again contemplated moving there in our retirement. And… well, that would have turned out poorly as well. Hurricane Helene. A nice place to visit…
162 vehicles! I picked a username when I first joined the site. And now, FEW is doing a lot of work compared to you.
But keep it up. Always an impressive read.
Another riveting piece from SWG. Do I care about Explorers? Not a bit. Did I still just read two SWG stories about Explorers? Better believe it.
Thanks for fixing up a perfectly good vehicle with years of service ahead of it.
I wish your Tundra was a 1st-gen, so we could all anticipate learning about ball joint repair and structural rust management. You know, for no reason.
If you’d like to write such an article I may know a guy. He
probablymost definitely has a teal C4 with electrical issues in case the Tundra is too wimpy a project.WeYou and him could take the R107 to town for parts and beer.I love these articles so much. Just one comment:
Ah, but how many idle air controllers? Sometimes we add complexity in one way to remove it in another.
I also HATE fishing throttle cables, but I’ll gladly fix wiring. We all have our preferences.
141.6km/h into the future!
Solid point, and agreed.
Hey, thanks as always for reading and commenting DrunkenWrench, and excellent metric conversion on the tagline!
“It’s a Toyota truck. Buy now and think later!”
He forgot the part to hope for no metal shavings… That whole debacle has shaken my faith in the same statement…
Such great timing to stick it to Mr. “No Right to Repair” Farley. We need more home wrenching to keep affordable cars on the road.
I’m a 70 year old fanboy of Mr. SWG and proud to admit it. Waiting with baited breath for a article on a Toyota Tundra (which I never expected to see,)
Another win for SWG, I am a huge proponent of this type of environmentalism! I also got a kick out of the throwback to the Cougar and Juke. Keep up the good work, dude!
God bless SWG for doin’ the Lords work! 😉
Once again, Another neglected and forgotten automobile has been resurrected and brought back to life by his able hands to live a second life with its new owner.
Godspeed SWG!! 🙂
SWG is back. Great article. Always tickled to read of your automotive adventures. I look forward to seeing the story of the Tundra.
Another great article. Need more of your wit and wisdom one here.
I’m glad to see another tale from the wrenching lair. I’ve never messed with Explorers although we owned a couple of Rangers. I also appreciate easy parts for domestic cars as we nurse the family LeSabre to 300,000 miles. The 3800 is unkillable but the rest of the car wears out. I’ve also become a Fiat 500 expert because my wife fell for a scratch and dent example. I think we need another one to justify my AlfaOBD investment.
One thing that was fascinating to me when I worked in a car dealership a little over a decade ago was that this generation of Explorer was already considered basically worthless when the most recent ones of them were only just coming off of lease.
Huh, apparently that’s the exact same failure mode of the door shut sensor in the lovely ’05 Mazda B2300 I owned, except I sold the truck during the one random week during which the failing sensor decided to temporarily work.
Dammit I hate selling stuff on FB Marketplace. One of the few places where assholes are openly assholes, and call you an asshole when you refuse to participate in their assholish delusions.
You are far more zen about them than I am.
I wonder how much this phenomenon (A-holes on FB Marketplace) may be contributing to the success of online collector car auctions. I recently chose to sell my 500 Abarth on Cars & Bids mostly because I absolutely did NOT want to deal with time-wasting idiots. Plus, as an enthusiast car I figured that the auction would have enthusiast car buyers.
Stephen Walter Gossin, aka “The Automancer”
https://inkfoundry.net/resurrection-highway/
That person got a great vehicle for many future years. Did you happen to take pictures or videos of you fixing the 3rd row seat? I would gladly read even a short article about your wrenching adventures.
Your resurrection stories are an inspiration to not be afraid of cars that are just slightly old. I’ve got a couple early 2000s cars that are mostly solid and just need small fiddly bits every now and then, but are otherwise very reliable vehicles. *knocks on wood*
Thanks for a mighty rewarding read. And, I’m happy that your wrenching experience and innate talents and intellect allowed the repairs to proceed without too much craziness.
Cheers!
Another great story of preserving what’s truly worthwhile. And not just an older Explorer (I used to work on my father’s 2010).
Aristotle would call SWG’s art stochastic – roughly translated, “to hit a target.” As in, you don’t create the object with which you’re engaging; rather, it’s something that exists, and your job is to promote its health and well-being as best as you can. The big thing is all these objects are out there, and it’s a person’s intervention that makes the difference as to whether they do what they’re supposed to or not. I think this is one of the reasons why we enjoy SWG’s stories so much – they reflect personal agency and, at least for me, remind us that one person can make a difference.
Jack, your kindness, phenomenal writing and incredible literary knowledge continue to impress.
Many thanks, my friend.
A fantastic piece, Esteban! Beyond the chrystal-clear narrative style, I value your insight about knowledge as something gained through persistence, patience and sweat (and curses). And how said knowledge can be used towards great, positive goals.
Big cheers!
Well alright! Great work as usual. I can’t help but notice that you chose not to polish the hazy yellow headlights on this beast. It sold quickly, so it definitely worked out. I have always thought that clear headlights really spiff up a used car. I guess that the experience of moving 30+ cars on to new owners teaches a person what’s important to fix. And hey – any reasonably competent person with at least one working hand can pick up and apply a headlamp restoration kit.