Hello from Arkansas and many Thanks!!

[fltwd56]

Hi All!

I've been reading posts here for about a year now and decided I'd introduce myself. I'm Jeff and I bought a extremely nice, fully loaded, low mileage(for the year) one-owner lunar mist 2000 Avalon XLS with 112K on the clock. The car is extremely clean(looked near new inside and out) It came with a maintenance history, which mainly included regular fluid changes...no real routine maintenance had been performed other than tires, a tune up, and oxygen sensor replacement by Central Toyota in late 2008@ 92K. I knew after I had purchased it that I would need to perform some required maintenance right off the bat from my research here and on the net. Three days after purchase I had the timing belt, waterpump, tensioner, actuator, and oil seals replaced and dropped the transmission pan and changed the filter and fluid and changed the oil. It is really a dream to drive...such a smooth powerful car. A few weeks later I really tore into it and had the entire suspension replaced. I noticed the rear of the car really hit hard over bumps(too much so for my liking). I chose to use KYB struts for the replacement since they seemed to be highly regarded and also replaced the mounts while I was in there. Also swapped out the sway bar links for some heavy duty Deeza greaseable units and polyurethane sway bar bushings to top it all off. A leaky power steering pump was also addressed at that time and a reman unit installed. The rest of the front end was in really good shape so I did not address it any further other than having an alignment done. I also purchased a new battery and alternator not long after, but that was due to me overloading and overheating the alternator so it was my fault....lol Battery was thrown in just for good measure because the other was several years old. In rural Arkansas the car mainly see's local city driving conditions so I have been changing the oil between 2000-2500 miles using synthetic oil and either Puro P1/Bosch D+ filters...I don't want any sludge issues to occur and my OCI may be overkill, but that's fine by me. Last week I swapped the dry rotted Cooper CS4's for Yokohama Avid touring tires...which made a night and day difference in noise level and ride comfort. So I guess now that the book is over I'd like to say thank you to everyone who posts here because without this site I wouldn't have known what to look for from the get go. I know it probably seems like a lot in a small amount of time, but I wanted to make this car ride and drive the way it looked. I hope everyone had a great new year!

Jeff

[TrailDust]

Thank you, Jeff, for the compliment about TN's forums. We do our best to try and bring some good, helpful forums to a lot of people. Welcome to the nation, and let me or one of the other staff members know if you have any questions about the forums.

[eyeball96]

to TN Jeff

[FlawedLegacy]

Yeah, I'm gonna be honest... too long to read, so and