new member

[pphhss]

Hey! I am new to toyota and glad to find this site. I recently bought a 96 avalon and am looking forward to learning more about it.

[TrailDust]

Welcome to Toyota Nation, and to the Toyota brand as well! I've got a 2002 Avalon XL myself, and it has served me well all these years. I don't see getting rid of it any time soon because I like it so much. Hopefully you'll enjoy the same experience with your Avalon.

[Kiwi-Corolla]

to TN!

There's an abundance of information in the Avalon forum, so you're bound to learn all sorts of interesting things about your car. Feel free to share some pics sometime too

Enjoy the forums!

[pphhss]

I'm having trouble narrowing my search results in the forum. More search words seem to make the list longer and less applicable. Is this normal, or am I overlooking something?

[TrailDust]

Originally Posted by pphhss

I'm having trouble narrowing my search results in the forum. More search words seem to make the list longer and less applicable. Is this normal, or am I overlooking something?

The software for this forum is generic for the internet, and unfortunately the search tool is not very good. You're correct about using several words together, and that search tool is much more effective if you can narrow it down to a single key word. A search option/feature that offers better results is the Google Custom Search located at the upper left of any forum page just below the ToyotaNation.com logo and to the immediate right of the blue Cruiser. That is powered by Google and will often return much better results. If at any time there's something you really need to find and just can't get good results, then shoot me a PM and I'll take a stab at it. I've gotten pretty good over the years at searching the forums....

[IronNam]

welcome to Toyota Nation!

[Kiwi-Corolla]

Originally Posted by pphhss

I'm having trouble narrowing my search results in the forum. More search words seem to make the list longer and less applicable. Is this normal, or am I overlooking something?

In addition to what TrailDust said, I'd highly recommend clicking the 'Advanced Search' button, as opposed to just typing it in the little drop-down box at the top of the page. The advanced search gives you a much higher chance of finding exactly what you're looking for. Type a single keyword into the advanced search box, choose 'Search Titles Only' from the drop-down box below it, and then hit 'Search Now'. So instead of searching for "ignition switch", simply search for "ignition". The beauty of this is that it will only bring up threads with the word you've searched for in the thread title, rather than every thread with that particular word mentioned somewhere in it.