Miles of Smiles

I sold the Xterra.

With 291,743 miles on it, I sold it to a good family.

The man needed a car to take his kids to school because they couldn't all fit in the truck now that a baby is in the picture. I told him it's a stick shift and asked if he knew how to drive one. "That's part of the appeal," he said. "That way my wife won't drive it." 

The Xterra has been a good car, despite it's weak engine. Nissan corrected the 170 horse-power engines somewhere around 2008. My Xterra struggled to go up hill. I could be cruising along at 55 mph, but on the incline, I'm doing between 25 and 40, depending on grade. 

I bought the Xterra in the Spring of 2019. It had 172-something thousand miles. That means I got about 119,xxx miles out of a $2500 vehicle. 

Did I put work into it? Yeah. I'd given it new beefy tires in 2021, brake work right at the start, and maybe new sparks and wires along the way. I did the regular oil changes, too. Oh...and added a new timing belt and a few other odds and ends along the way. 

It was a good car.

It took me down Smokey Mountain Road twice. That's an 80-mile wilderness trail through one of the remotest parts of Utah. 

It pulled my peach trailer.

It was a fun car that gave me the freedom to get a lot of places I wanted to be.

I'll miss that orange Xterra.