It may come as a surprise to many of you, but moving when you own 10 cars is challenging. And when you have an emotional attachment to many of those machines, it becomes borderline impossible. But I’ve accomplished the impossible on multiple occasions before, so surely I can slay the dragon again, right? If you weren’t able to belt out a hearty “right!” in agreement with my previous sentence, then I assume you need a bit more information. So here it is: Here’s where I stand with just one week before departure. I’ll be honest: It’s not looking good.
Here’s the current situation with Operation DT Leaves Detroit: It’s a shitstorm.
Out front of my house sit two cars: a 1994 Jeep Grand Cherokee (five-speed manual) and a Scion XB “Autopian Test Car.” The first is a vehicle I’m trying to get to California, except I’ve been unable to secure a loaner press vehicle to act as the tow rig. My plan is to try to get it operable enough to be shipped to CA, though that’s going to be very difficult. The second car, the cubic little Scion, will be parked in some public parking spot until my colleague Jason Torchinsky can get a replacement title and then sell it, possibly to a junkyard.
Out back are three vehicles: a 1992 Jeep Cherokee, a 1985 Jeep J10, and a 2001 Oldsmobile Alero. The Cherokee is my first car, and I’m too emotionally attached to it to part ways, so I’m storing it for now. The second is the greatest pickup truck of all time; it will be the honeymooners’ romantic chariot for the ultimate cross-country roadtrip. And the third, the Oldsmobile, is where things get strange.
Here’s the thing: If I can’t tow that 1994 Jeep Grand Cherokee, which I’m going to be building into an off-road machine for this year’s Easter Jeep Safari, then there’s really no reason for me to drive across the country, except to help my two friends navigate their first trip to the U.S. I’m keen to do this, as I want to show them cool things and help them feel comfortable, especially since they’re hauling a truck full of my junk for free. But I’ve been told that going three-wide in a pickup truck with honeymooners is a bit odd, so I need a different car. That car could be a rental car, but I’m too cheap for that. Instead it will be the Alero, which I’m hoping to purchase from my landlords for dirt cheap. (I bought the car for $1 (hence how it got its name) and traded it for my landlord’s totaled Kia Rio, so I’m hoping I don’t have to pay much for it).
I will drive the Olds with my honeymooning German friends for a few days, then ditch it at my brother’s place in Oklahoma (where he can hopefully sell it), then fly to LA and wait for my friends to arrive in the romantic truck full of my junk. It’s a ridiculous plan riddled with risks.
Things that could go wrong or that are currently wrong:
- The Oldsmobile can, and probably will, fail. That’s what it does.
- The J10 could theoretically fail, though it’s a tank.
- The J10’s heater doesn’t work, so things could get chilly for the honeymooners.
- The J10’s brakes need some service. I need to get on that.
- The J10 needs snow tires to keep the honeymooners safe. I have those. They need to be installed.
- The Oldsmobile needs new tires. I’m working on getting some winter rubber.
- I still don’t have a great plan to get the 1994 Jeep operable
What’s more, my garage still looks like this:
And I have a party at my house in five days with an estimated attendance of over 100 people. Plus I need to run this website, which will launch ads for the first time since its inception this week!
There is good news, however. First, I sold the Tracker to this lovely couple!:
View this post on Instagram
And second, my 1992 Jeep Cherokee is set to be towed away after my party by a reader with an acre of property a few hours north. So really, I just need to ditch the Scion somewhere nearby until Jason can pick it up, get the Grand Cherokee running and driving well enough to get onto a trailer, then hit the road in the Olds alongside my friends in the J10, and pray.
This is logical, right?
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Can’t you pay your current landlord to leave the Scion with him for a few weeks? Unless it is so worthless that you don’t even want to spend that much on it.
David, please let them drive the Olds with heat, and you drive the J10.
The “party with 100 people” is going to turn into 100 people each picking up 3 “items” in David’s yard/garage/house and putting it in a dumpster (then chugging a beer and scarfing a piece of pizza).
“My Plan To Finally Leave Detroit Is A Convoluted Mess”, David, we didn’t expect anything less. I was betting that you’d find another rusty Jeep along the way.
I figured that you, Jason, Mercedes, and maybe another writer would drive all your vehicles in a little convoy with the most drivable ones pulling one or two of the others behind them. A bonus if you used white shoe polish to write “IN TOE” on the rear windows like all the little convoys of junkers across Arkansas and Texas headed to the Mexican border.
You don’t need 3-4 people to drive the “most drivable ones”
“A $1 Oldsmobile in Oklahoma.” Isn’t that a country song?
Once drove my old man’s 61 Chev Bel Air with an inoperable heater in winter. Drove it 150 miles and thought I was going to get frostbite or die. Sending your German friends through the Midwest in that POS Jeep is irresponsible.
I need some help here. You are the third person now to tell me that one of your vehicles doesn’t have heat. How? Please help me with this. I am really confused. Engines create a ton of heat. Is it a blower motor or switch or something? I want to learn.
Likely a bypassed heater core (because it started leaking and bypassing is way easier than replacing).
Thank you. That makes sense.
I am starting to get the feeling that the Greep isn’t going to be ready for EJS this year.
Make sure that everyone that attends the party leaves with one or more things from either your yard or your garage.
And by “things” we mean “vehicles”
I suspect you screwed this up. With hindsight you should have towed the ZJ behind the J10 and when torch towed the golden eagle. It woulda been slow, but fine. Let your friends drive the sketchy af mustang. I suppose your friends could rent something and you could tow the ZJ
The J10 makes 112 horsepower and sends that through 2.73 gears.
It can barely get out of its own way.
I think your plan sounds great! I was just making plans earlier today to possibly go to Arizona and drive an Ebay-special VW Brasilia roughly 1500 miles back home, also with a stop to see family in Oklahoma. My wife thinks this plan is dumb. My daughter thinks it’s awesome. I’m thinking it’s a great time for me to help my daughter with a strong sense of self-confidence in her own opinions.
Anyway, there is one minor quibble with your plan that I have based on experience – I’ve done long distance drives in old cars on several occasions without heat in the winter and would never, ever put anyone else through that. It can be the worst – you get to a certain point where the giant cup of coffee between your legs isn’t helping the growing numbness in your fingers one bit. You forgot about your toes 40 miles back and the old-car charm is quickly giving way to thoughts of ohfuckitscoldshititscoldohfuck. You say it that way because you can’t really move your mouth that well anymore.
So, get those brakes up to snuff. Then pull a couple of all-nighters and re-build the heating system from scratch if necessary. Or, idk, maybe throw a couple of strategically-placed Fresnel lens on the outer glass for days and a big pile of handwarmers (they’re not just for hands!) for nights. Or mount a generator in the bed and use it to power a squirrel-cage fan-blower ventilation system which could blow across hot some coals resting in a custom-made fire-pit carved out of the floorboards when activated. Have it be as convoluted as the plan itself! Just make sure they have something for warmth.
1-877-KARS-4-KIDS
Here’s my suggestions:
* Rent the largest Penske truck available,
* Put the J10 in the box with your house full of Jeep parts
* Pull the Cherokee on a trailer behind the Penske truck
* Let your landlord keep the $1 Olds. You don’t need it, and it is currently someone else’s headache.
* Give the honeymooners a fancy press loaner in exchange for writing an article about sharing their honeymoon with a rust encrusted fellow that smells of used oil and trenchfoot
I’ve done that with a smaller box truck. I’m pretty sure if you rent a 26,000# GVWR 26′ box truck and tow a 7,000 lb GVWR trailer with it, it puts you into CDL territory, irrespective of whether you are actually over 26,000 lbs combined.
At least it works that way in my state.
Where I live it’s weight rating too. Over 11,000 kg gvwr or 4,500kg towed.
Sending your friends across a huge, strange country in your old (let’s be honest – very cool , but a bit questionable) truck is a BAD plan, especially since you will not be with them the whole time. I think you are just asking for trouble. If it were just you, I’d say “have fun”, but it isn’t. I feel like you are just poking the bear with that stupid Olds. RENT A DAMN CAR for your friends so they can actually enjoy themselves. Drive the J10 if you want and leave that unholy Olds where it sits.
Come on, we all know that “Nothing runs as badly as a GM for as long as a GM”. It’ll get there, probably on 2 cylinders and 3 wheels but it’ll get there.
If you send them out make sure it is with proper provisions. AAA has a nice list.
There is probably a more delicate way to ask this with less likelihood of me getting banned for being a dick to one of the founders, but… Do you ever wonder if airing your dirty laundry like this makes your coworkers and business partners question your ability to run a functioning website? Ask your landlord how good their insurance is, because you should torch it all.
That being said, I have a barn in southwest Michigan where you can stash the Scion. Just don’t tell my wife.
Scion man cave in a barn….. what’s not to like?
I’ve never been ashamed of being silly. Not when I was a student, an engineer at Chrysler, Sr. Tech Editor at Jalopnik, or editorial leader of this website.
Sure, sometimes folks will question my sanity just as they do every time I endeavor to undertake a seemingly impossible project (see Project POStal/Cactus), but results are all I care about.
And also don’t forget: Without this questionable sanity, this website wouldn’t exist in the first place!
“Sure, sometimes folks will question my sanity….”
I assure you none of us question how sane you You have more than amply demonstrated your level of sanity.
Apropos of nothing -did I ever tell you my theory that Florida and California are full of “differently sane” people because the oceans keep them from going any farther?
No, let’s hear it!
The term “International incident” comes to mind, concerning your German friends driving certain vehicles with safety / reliability concerns.
Isn’t CA HOA hell, your concern shouldn’t be how to get them there but immediately the neighborhood association harassing you when the rust bucket fleet arrives at your new home.
Won’t be an issue in David’s neighborhood. Kinda surprised that he didn’t pick someplace cheaper. Do a Street View around the 100 block of South Avenue 57 in Highland Park and you’ll see a dozen aging examples of beat-up American iron resting comfortably on both sides of the street… and they’ve been there FOR YEARS. I’d love to meet the owner and find out how they’ve managed to keep them all from being towed or vandalized. I doubt most of them have moved in ages.
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These the same tech companies who laid off 10% of their workforce with promises to lay off another 10% this year?
It’ll cost you a bit more but you can ship a non-running car as long as the brakes work and it’ll roll.
Or rent a two wheel dolly makes loading a lot easier.
Honestly….I could have cared less about saving my very first car. In fact mine was sitting in a junkyard I frequent for year untill someone picked it up ( 71 dodge D100) . Everything you’ve done has been to the extreme to get some vehicles to Cali and trying to save others… While it makes for good story telling and write ups…. It was painful to watch/ read…
In my opinion… I would have driven the mustang to Cali and called it done…and sold EVERYTHING else. If you don’t think you’d run across some holy grail again, you’d probably be right. But at least you would y have 4 of them that didn’t run and cause you misery dealing with while trying to move. And I’m sure there are a bijilion capable piles of shit within a few hundro from your new location begging to sit at your new place.
Just saying I would have adios’ed everything but the mustang.
THIS!!!
I couldn’t imagine sending honeymooners across the Midwest in winter without heat…I just wouldn’t be able to do it. Especially considering the cold spells we’ve had recently (it’s the middle of the afternoon, sunny, and it’s still only 14 deg in KC currently).
“Welcome to America. Here is a POS with no heater that may break down on you. I hope you don’t freeze to death”.
Honeymooners won’t object to sharing body heat (hopefully!).
I wholeheartedly agree. Even with functioning heat, a vehicle that old and uncomfortable on the highway is not a nice way to spend your honeymoon. I love my old F150, and it is dead-reliable, but I would never send a newlywed couple across the country in it because it rides like an 30 year old truck. Nothing should go wrong with it, but I would feel TERRIBLE if it did break down.
Especially honeymooners from across the pond. Europeans experiencing normal Midwestern winter for the first time seem to think we’re all nuts for living here, and I haven’t the heart to point out there’s a whole Plains area colder and windier to our West and an entire country to our North.
Yeah its not just Europeans who think your nuts for living there. Several states are full of people who agree.
I believe there should be no recognized time between midnight and 6am and noone should live where you need a thermometer that goes below zero at worst.
I’ve started using Celsius personally because honestly, once it’s under 32 it might as well be 0.
Some of Europe is in the arctic.
I’m a European who worked in the mid-west US over winter and thought it was very Christmasy.
Don’t make your friends drive your junky truck, I mean your beloved J10, across the country. They are likely to ditch the truck in Illinois and that friendship thing. I wouldn’t count on keeping that either. It’s winter David. Even if you fix the heater, and the brakes and the tires, it’s, well….just no. While it’s nice to start out a marriage together with an adventure, that adventure shouldn’t be a re-creation of the Donner party’s trip across our great land.
I almost agree, but I think the junky truck is part of the charm of roadtripping the USA. It would just be boring driving in a rented Hyundai.
Frostbite is so quaint. Who needs a full nose, anyway? Think of it as a defining characteristic!
Simplify, add lightness?
I mean, you could get 75% of the experience with a decent condition B-Body Caprice and approximately 90% less of the pain and suffering.
Having just driven from California to Florida and back one month ago in a new Camry, on a winter cross-country trip I can say that I’d much rather be warm and confident in my car’s abilities than freezing cold and enjoying the novelty of an obscure truck of questionable mechanical condition.
I’m sure it’ll be fine. The Donner Party got trapped in November. Completely different.
That party sounds like a doozy. Like the one we had a long time ago where we cut a Ford Fiesta in half and drove the front half around the neighborhood. None of the ladies were impressed. There’s a VHS tape of it somewhere
Guess I’m not driving the fiesta Saturday.
Ads?! On the Autopian!?
Noooooooooo!
Those writers gotta eat!
I just assumed they survived on motor oil and shower spaghetti. And not the fancy shower spaghetti…the cheap stuff.
You mean shower sketti?
Have you seen the price of motor oil lately? And David (surprisingly) takes the expensive, small batch stuff – Metro Magic or whatever Jason calls it.
It seems like the right option is to rent or charter a,car carrier. A dually pickup with a gooseneck can haul 3 cars, or you could have gone full send with an 18 wheeler. As it stands, there seemsto be enoughstuff in the house that a moving truck and car trailer solves both the move the junk and move the Jeep issue
Agreed….. get them transported safely, there will be time for Jeep shenanigans later. I know its costly but also ensures peace of mind with so many other moving things going on, been around this block owning 2 hoopties and having to get them across the state without billowing of smoke.