Owned

For the last five months or so I’ve been singing The Half-Ton Blues.

Basically, we bought a house in November and have been needing to get items to it from the old rental house, the storage unit and wholesale/retail establishments only to find that I had to ask for help because I only owned a half ton truck. Either I would have to hope for the store to have a delivery service available or ask for help from friends with larger hauling capacities.

The most pressing item was fuel for the pellet stove that The Wife and I purchased for the house with our tax refund.

(We bought ours with a Mahogany ceramic coating.)

For the uninitiated, pellet fuel comes in 40lb bags which you can buy individually (for $5.25+ per bag) or by the 50 bag pallet (for $4.50 per bag). As you can see by doing the math, buying a pallet at a time will save you approximately $40 per ton. Unfortunately, to get said pallet home, you need a minimum 3/4ton truck or make two trips in a half-ton, putting the retailer out and having to hope no one skived off your pallet between trips.

Then there is also just plain wood for the wood burning stove (which I don’t have yet, but am slowly chipping away at The Wife’s resistance).

I also have a camper sitting on a not currently running 1974 1-ton truck that needs to be moved, lest it continue to cost me a small but annoying monthly fee, and that I’d like to be able to tow Buddy the Jeep to the trailhead (mostly because of my bad luck in breaking parts on the trail and not wanting to have to spend a week’s pay to get him home for repairs).

I’ve been shopping around for a replacement for old faithful Goldfinger (aka: The Rocinante) for a couple months now, watching the local (and not so local) truck market. Seeing as how I haven’t had a truck payment for four years now, I’ve also been discussing with The Wife about how much I could afford to spend on one without having to put a pinch on the finances/savings.

With my printed dealer flyers of appropriately priced trucks in hand and a clear but windy morning ahead of us, we hit the road ready to be as critical as possible of any candidate vehicle (and salesperson), to test drive and to negotiate.

The criteria were as follows: No GM products, had be at least a 3/4ton Heavy/Super Duty, had to be either the Dodge 24 Valve 5.9L diesel or the Ford 7.3L diesel and an extra-cab/quad cab, and no dual rear wheel axle (for fuel mileage purposes). Would prefer a manual transmission as well as a canopy, and 4WD was OK but not at all necessary.

Also, it had to be less than $10K after trade in.
We started out on the lowest priced vehicle and the furthest distanced dealership. The truck turned out to be a completely worn out dog. We then tried a couple of volume dealers only to find rude sales people and more dogged trucks. I then made my way to South Tacoma’s auto row.

And now, I’d like to introduce to you all, The Silver Bullet, henceforth to be known as “Bull”

Last of the 7.3L Powerstroke turbo mills, built just before Ford’s changeover to the 6.0L handgrenade. 6-speed manual transmission, 4×2, 3/4ton, Longbed, Super Duty, Super Cab, with 70K on the odometer.

Besides the lower than average miles and the excellent interior that doesn’t even begin to show said mileage, the main selling point was that during a search for the original owners manual I discovered the single previous owner’s folder containing the records of every service since it was bought new (in Bremerton). Oil changes every 5K, the sales receipt for the second set of tires @ 38K miles, the sales and installation receipt for the overload springs, and the sales receipt for the canopy.

Pre-trade-in cost: $12,500. Down from $15,500 (through non-Jedi style aggressive negotiations).

After trade-in cost: $9500.

It would have been $9200, but I agreed to pay for half of a new set of tires during final negotiations.

While not numerous, the quirks to driving a manual diesel do take some getting used to. Being able to toole through residential neighborhoods at 750RPM in 3rd gear is a bit different. Also, the Peterbilt sound that comes during shifts is rather enjoyable and I’m going to have to learn not to shift so much just to hear it.

Btw, if anyone would like to purchase a near immaculate conditioned 1998 F-150 standard cab with the 4.6L gas engine and 122K miles before a wholesaler gets their grimy mits on it, I happen to know where one is at and how much it was bought for. I was going to advert it here before trading it in, but decided to try the market first. You will save at least a grand off the person to person price by not buying it directly from me.

Also, as a note to President Obama, if you’d let me keep more of my earned income instead of being flippant about the future raising of taxes, I’d have been more inclined to dip into savings and bought a new one.

Oh, and yes, I’ll be driving to the Gunblogger’s Rendezvous this year.