As I mentioned in last week’s post, I took the afternoon off last Friday to meet up with my cousin Nick and his girlfriend, my aunt, and my mom to go up to the lake house for a quick weekend trip. My wife’s family purchased a lake house last summer about three hours North of our house and it has been a ton of fun to go up there over the last 10 months or so as an affordable getaway, especially during the pandemic.

My father-in-law bought a Can-Am Maverick Trail last September that I helped him transport up to the lake house. Alicia and I have had an absolute blast with this machine on the trails up there and we’ve really taken a liking to the hobby and the lifestyle that comes with it. We’ve really been wanting to have a four seater version so that more of us can enjoy the trails, but like everything else fun these days they have been very hard to get a hold of. Alicia’s dad recently found a 2021 Can-Am Maverick X3 Turbo at a local dealership that someone had ordered last summer and decided not to purchase. Side by sides are about 8-9 months out if you order them new right now, so we were really excited that it worked out.

We needed a way to get it up there, so my cousin volunteered his Dodge Ram and a friend’s car trailer to help us out. We loaded up just outside Detroit and made it up the the lake house just before dark. We unloaded the new machine and were excited to try it out the next morning.

When I first took the new SxS out for a drive, I realized that it wouldn’t let me exceed 25MPH. After some research online, we found that the dealership neglected to reflash the key for us to the performance setting. I figured we wouldn’t get to drive it at all for the weekend, but fortunately we found a powersports dealer about 40 minutes away that was able to flash the key for us before the closed Saturday. This allowed us to get out and enjoy it a bit which was really fun. It’s crazy to ride in this thing- it feels like a limousine.

On Sunday, we loaded up the two seater and took it in for service on our way home. I am eager to learn more about these things and do the maintenance work for my father-in-law myself, but both are currently under warranty so it only makes sense for the dealership to do it. Soon enough though! It will be fun to learn to work on something different for a change.

However, as of now this is not an off-road vehicle blog- this is about S13s! As much as I wanted to sell my cars and get some four wheelers or something last weekend, I forced myself into the garage Tuesday night since it was unseasonably warm out and felt like summer.

I finished tightening everything up with the rear axle and suspension as I sort of quit half way through the last time I worked on the hatch. Then I installed my Auto Collect Storm fender braces up front and rolled my fender lips flat. I thought I remembered having more success with a roller on my coupe, but I ended up using a rubber mallet. After adjusting the ride height and front camber a bit, I was able to sit the car on the ground and take a step back.

Seeing both cars on the ground together again for the first time in a few months sent my motivation through the roof. It’s funny how you can put something off that will only take an hour or two for weeks, causing your mind to wander and making you feel like you should be giving up. I continually let this happen without learning my lesson.

On Wednesday when I got home from work I managed to toss the battery in the hatch and pull it out of the garage to drive it a bit. I completely forgot how much fun this car is since I’ve only really been focusing on the coupe lately. The hatch is a bit louder than the coupe and just feels and sounds a lot sportier. I forgot how cool power windows are too.

The past couple days it’s been starting to sink in: I have two functional S13s. Neither of them are without issues that need to be addressed and things I need to finish, but I sat down, turned the key, and drove both of these cars on public roadways in the last week. I really can’t believe it! I definitely have a huge feeling of accomplishment and am really looking forward to continuing to button things up so that I can finally start enjoying my cars properly.

The registration document should finally be here for the coupe next week. Aside from that, I just need to get some details hammered out before I drive one of the cars to work for the first time. I’ll likely begin with the hatch since I trust it a bit more and stick to shorter local trips for the coupe until I get it a bit more reliable.

Thanks for bearing with me through the ups and downs as of late- I know it is probably annoying to read sometimes, haha- but hopefully you can relate to my madness. I hope you have an excellent weekend- see you next week!

Damon