Afternoon everyone….

For a little over a week my truck has been making this weird fluttering sound as it changes gears. It’s not a stick shift so that rules out several things.

I brought to a friend of mine who owns a mechanic shop. He took it for a ride with me and told me almost immediately. My transmission was about to go. The V chain was slipping and that’s what the noise was.

When that happens he recommends a new transmission versus a rebuild. Because there are so many metal shavings floating around and it will be hard to get them all.

A new transmission with gaskets, filters and fluid cost for just the material was just over 5K. That didn’t include the labor at all.

I asked him how long before it went? He said it’s pretty loud, could be a week, could be a month, could be tomorrow.

FAK……

Not that I didn’t trust my friend, but I decided to bring it to another place for verification. It was instantly confirmed. The guy actually told me not to drive it very far just in case.

His estimate for the work was $8400, and it would take atleast two days.

Well……

There was no way that I was putting 8K into a truck that had a blue book value of 12K - 20K. So my only option was to get a new truck.

Sounds easy enough…..

NOT…..

First off trying to get a straight answer from a dealership is impossible. They all want you to come down so they can try and sell you something they have. I needed a truck with an eight foot bed for cabinet work.

After getting frustrated Thursday on the phone, I went out looking. I wasted most of the day driving around in my moms little putt putt Honda Civic. Just in case you want a comparison, I’m six foot two inches tall and weigh in the mid 200’s. So it’s like driving a go cart to me.

After hitting 7 dealerships with no luck at all. I gave up for the day and headed home.

Friday was a significant snow storm here with just under ten inches of snow and brutal wind. Late Friday night a sales manager from one of the local dealerships I went to called me. He said that a truck of vehicles just showed up, but wouldn’t be unloaded till after they closed for the night. He told me that an eight foot bed F150 was on that truck to be offloaded.

Fingers crossed…. And no sleep…

I headed over to the dealership to pray it was what I wanted. I was pretty close to what I currently had but without a bed liner.

SCORE….

Well not exactly……. Because of the scarcity of vehicles, there’s no negotiating price pretty much at all. Not only that most dealers are charging anywhere from 3% - 7% over sticker price.

Bullshit to that…..

My current F150 had a sticker price of $41,505. It was a 2016 model, so in just five years the sticker price jumped over 10K.

That’s ridiculous.

Between negotiating a price for the truck, and negotiating a price for my trade in. I was there from 9am until 2:45pm.

Uuuuggggghhhhh…..

But I did walk out with a new truck today. It’s got more bells and whistles standard then my old truck had. Plus Ford has an app that syncs with the truck. You can remote start it with the app. You can lock and unlock the truck from anywhere in the world with the app as well. There’s more but I’m still figuring it all out.

Since I’ve probably put you to sleep already, I mind as well show you the new truck.