Canyon – Tombaugh.org

Mar 15 2019

Upgrade to LED Headlights

Trucks / By Brad Tombaugh / March 15, 2019 / Canyon, GMC, Headlights, LED, Trucks / 2 minutes of reading

One of the most noticeable changes when switching from the Touareg to the Canyon was the headlights. The Touareg had really nice self-leveling High Intensity Discharge (HID) headlamps. By comparison, the OEM halogens in the Canyon felt like driving with a flashlight… I found that this was a common complaint discussed on forums like ColoradoFans forums and took one of the recommendations. It surprises me that for a high-end pickup that GM builds it with such crappy headlamps, when more modern, brighter LED headlights cost under $75 retail. GM could certainly have done better for very little difference in cost. I was also surprised to find that even aftermarket HID conversion kits are only about $250, much cheaper than the $1,200 that many manufacturers charge for upgrading to HID lights. I went with the LED for simplicity, as well as cost, since the HID lights require an external ballast, so they are a little more involved to install. I ordered a set of Sealight X1 from Amazon, which were only $70 for both low and high beam. I ordered them on Friday morning, and they were delivered early this morning. It took about a half hour to install, and was fairly easy. The hardest part was getting under a rubber cover on passenger side, which I think directs cold air into the air filter intake. Even in the daylight, I could tell that they were brighter, mostly due to the 6000K color temperature being bright white instead of yellow. I’m going to go […]

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Back to a Diesel Pickup Truck

The lease on the VW Touareg is about up, so we decided to start looking at our options. I was considering buying out the Touareg, as it’s been a very comfortable vehicle, it’s big enough to tow the trailer, but small enough to fit into the garage. We had to go to a VW dealership to get the details on the buyout, since we’re within 90 days of the end date. The residual was about $25,500, but the “deal” that McDonald VW presented to me had about $6k in fees and crap added to it, making the cost over $31k. Their “offer” for me to buy the vehicle that I’ve been driving and paying for the past three years was about $500/month with $4K down! I quickly realized that I could get something brand new for that much… I had been looking at options for SUVs that could tow over 7,000 lbs. and there isn’t much that isn’t full sized, or over $75K. I thought that if I wasn’t going to be able to fit it into the garage, and was going to have to pay that much, I might as well look at another pickup truck. My last pickup truck was a 2005 GMC Sierra K2500HD Crew Cab Long Bed with the 6.6L Duramax Diesel, which would cost over $65K now, with similar equipment. In my search, I discovered that GM has a smaller 2.8L inline 4-cylinder Duramax Diesel that they offer in the Chevrolet Colorado or GMC Canyon mid-size pickup