Soon-to-be owner of a 2006 SLE cosmic blue convertible
Just wanted to introduce myself; I'm Jim. I have agreed to purchase a 2006 Solara SLE convertible from someone about an hour from my house. He's having some dings taken care of, then I'll be buying the car from him. If all goes well, I should be driving my "new" car by the weekend of the 24th!
I see that there is a lot of information here; thank you to everyone who has contributed!
My last convertible was a Miata, which I absolutely LOVED! I am not much of a "car guy", but I really enjoyed adding little touches to it to improve its handling, ride comfort, performance, and sound (I'm a "stealth" mod kind of guy; nothing TOO flashy). Unfortunately, we got rid of it when my wife was pregnant with our first (of two) son. The boys are now old enough that they're in "regular" car seats, so we went with a Solara since it actually has a real rear seat and trunk! The only other car that even came close to a true 4-seater was the Mercedes CLK, and that was a tight squeeze.
I am looking forward to driving the Solara and figuring out what I think it needs (if anything). So far, the car is a stock SLE with factory nav. I plan on adding a back up camera (that rear window is TINY!) as soon as I can afford one, and hope to have it integrate with the factory nav. I have seen that people have had luck with the Eclipse BEC-10x series of cameras and hope to get one soon! Any other recommendations?
I enjoy driving, but we recently moved and my home is now only about 10 minutes from my office. That makes it difficult to justify any mods that are more than a few hundred here or there. So, with that in mind, and also keeping in mind that this is a semi-family car (weekends, etc.), if you had it to do over again, what would you do to your car?
I see that there is a lot of information here; thank you to everyone who has contributed!
My last convertible was a Miata, which I absolutely LOVED! I am not much of a "car guy", but I really enjoyed adding little touches to it to improve its handling, ride comfort, performance, and sound (I'm a "stealth" mod kind of guy; nothing TOO flashy). Unfortunately, we got rid of it when my wife was pregnant with our first (of two) son. The boys are now old enough that they're in "regular" car seats, so we went with a Solara since it actually has a real rear seat and trunk! The only other car that even came close to a true 4-seater was the Mercedes CLK, and that was a tight squeeze.
I am looking forward to driving the Solara and figuring out what I think it needs (if anything). So far, the car is a stock SLE with factory nav. I plan on adding a back up camera (that rear window is TINY!) as soon as I can afford one, and hope to have it integrate with the factory nav. I have seen that people have had luck with the Eclipse BEC-10x series of cameras and hope to get one soon! Any other recommendations?
I enjoy driving, but we recently moved and my home is now only about 10 minutes from my office. That makes it difficult to justify any mods that are more than a few hundred here or there. So, with that in mind, and also keeping in mind that this is a semi-family car (weekends, etc.), if you had it to do over again, what would you do to your car?
- JimGo
- Just Licensed SolaraGuy
- Posts: 32
- Joined: Tue Sep 29, 2009 9:03 am
- Location: Philly 'burbs