Always.
So when my husband convinced me to ignore my beloved 1988 Ford Bronco in favor for a 2002 BRIGHT RED Dodge 3500 dually 4x4 in 2004, I balked. $425 A MONTH! THAT'S INSANE AND WASTEFUL. But he wanted me in something "safer" and since he had a 2001 Dodge 2500 diesel it kinda made sense. Also we'd just started living together and I figured I had little say in this; it wasn't like we'd end up together, right? My past told me the stars were stacked against it, but hey, if he wanted to spoil me why not.
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| The Urban Assault Vehicle |
It was also a killer deal.
That truck was awesome, I loved it. So nice. I wasn't riding much but I had my old TB, Athos and a 2 year old AQHA that I was retraining to sell. Sure, why not?
When Hurricanes Rita and Katrina hit the gulf coast, gas prices skyrocketed. Diesel was over $4.00 a gallon and approaching $5.00 with me driving from south Houston to College Station daily for work. Our fuel bill for me was reaching $1200 a month. Something had to be done and as much as I hated to say it, paying for TWO diesels in that time was not going to fly.
I traded the red beast in.
It was a sad day but I convinced myself that with a yearling human baby and the other big truck, we needed a more family friendly vehicle. Something that could hold dog crates would be nice for my dog showing hobby too. The Saturn Outlook was a sexy crossover option with some smart features. We bought that one and now had $600 a month payments. But with the money we saved in fuel, it was justifiable.
The Outlook sucked from day One.
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| Le suck. Day One |
I hate to say it, but it did. It was a FABULOUS vehicle, well thought out, fun to drive, sleek, shiny, wonderful for dog shows. But it had issues from the start- annoying little things here and there, but HEY! they're covered under warranty so whatever. It was working out the kinks, no? We had an extended warranty and sure enough, at 65,000 miles the evaporator coil exploded. Freon and all sorts of fun gasses filled the vehicle while I was driving back from Ft. Worth one day. In July. I was so miffed but managed to limp the thing home once I figured out it wasn't an engine issue. When I got home we looked for estimates for the repair. $4000-6000+. Apparently the sleek vehicle was badly designed and to access those parts, you have to remove the entire dash. The.entire.dash. of the vehicle. W.t.h.
So I traded it in angrily as is for a new 2011 Ford F150. My husband had had a Ford work truck that he'd driven all over these four states and put 50,000 miles on it in less than a year with no whimpers out of it and just regular oil changes. I wanted reliability! My new truck was pretty basic. I was hoping to keep the mpgs from the Outlook as much as possible and was hoping by compromising on the engine (I went with the little V6) and no 4x4, and just power windows/locks/cruise and the one "fun" thing as the SYNC system, that I could save some on the payments. Yes, we were about to pay $800 a month. For a $30,000 truck. I was mad. I felt stuck. I wanted my old Bronco back.
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| Trusty fella |
We got it and I was extremely thankful for our dealership for working it out, they were truly supportive and wonderful. As a previous car salesmean myself, that's saying something. So I drove the F150. It was reliable. It was comfy. It was great. We put a cap on the back and the dogs rode in there 3 months of the year and in the cab the other 9. I drove that truck from here to Missouri for a week long dog show. It was a champ. Within two years though, I was approaching 40,000 miles. What? The warranty was out and it was hitting the break even point on the Blue Book Value. It was time to decide to keep it forever and end up with a truck not worth a thing later on, or trade it in now.
I will admit, it is amazing being able to pay $800 a month, I'm extremely thankful for the situation I'm in. The younger version of myself thought $800 a month would buy something more like a BMW, Corvette, really really nice diesel truck.
Hold the phone!
If I was going to be bleeding out the wallet, I wanted to be like HELL YEAH THATS MY TRUCK! So I thought about what would be my dream truck and without hesitation, I was like KING RANCH DIESEL! I decided to keep an eye on local truck dealers for a nice used King Ranch. Hopefully it would have all the accessories on it as I always like those, but never put them on. Within a few weeks, the wonderful dealership that had sold us the F150 had one roll in. It was big. It was sexy. It was my big sexy beast.
When I stopped at the dealership after work that day, I went right to the finance manager. "Can we work the numbers?" He was accommodating and in my insane shock, he said yes. The payments were barely $100 more than my F150. My mouth went dry. It was like all those years of paying off debt were suddenly paying off. The golden retriever of a salesman then asked for the 500th time if I wanted him to go drive it over from the other facility. I paused. Naturally they let me take it "no pressure" and I glared. "Fine." 20 minutes later it pulled up and I swear, my heart skipped a beat.
Hello you sexy beast.
My husband was there by this time (gosh that man must love me) and got in grumbling. I assumed it was the money or something but we drove off. The next day he was still miffed and I confronted him. "I want something nice and shiny like this!!" Ahh! I asked him what he'd rather have than his truck (it was his dream truck out of college) and he paused. "Fine, get the damn thing." We signed the papers the next day after I nit picked every tiny thing that was wrong with it. They agreed and we got a killer interest rate and a bad ass truck. 2019 can't get here soon enough for this to be paid off! *dies
Up next, trailer? Poor husband.
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| Teh Sexy Beast |
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