Tale of Travail - Auto Buying During the Pandemic

 

A few years ago, we had a motorhome. We had many enjoyable trips in it, but eventually, I was having too many job travel obligations, the wife was working full-time and back in college for her master's degree and our young daughter became involved in sports, her school's marching band, and numerous other endeavors so we had no time for the RV. It was so sad, just sitting there in its spot behind our house, never going anywhere. I put up some pictures and a description on an RV selling site and soon, a nice retired couple came down from Canada, paid cash, and took our beloved motorhome back up north with them. For the first time in a number of years, we were RV-less.

Fast forward seven years. I'm now retired; our daughter graduated from college and is working and living on her own; the wife is ready to retire in another year. And the wife has missed having an RV. Terribly missed. For the last several years, like a dog gnawing a bone - "We need to get another RV," "I really want another RV," "When are we going to get another RV?" I wasn't sure I wanted the hassle and expense of an RV. I've always enjoyed the simplicity of staying in hotels, and there is always the risk that warm recollections will be tarnished by the cold reality of the present but in order to get a little peace and quiet in my waning years, I finally gave in and agreed. A new RV was to be headed our way.

We did compromise some - instead of a motorhome, we would get a new truck and an RV trailer. That way there would only be one motorized vehicle to perform maintenance on and insure. So, I began heavy-duty research on new pickup trucks. I finally settled on one of the new Ford models. My grandparents and parents were Ford people so I grew up being a "Ford people" too. One of my favorite vehicles was a Ford truck that I still regret selling so a new Ford it was destined to be.

By then, the Pandemic was in full force. Big time supply chain issues. Very few auto's available anywhere. Three months of daily checking every Ford dealer's inventory within 200 miles of us resulted in no new trucks which met my criteria. Finally, one fine Thursday, at a dealer 50 miles from us, a 2021 F-150 Larriat was delivered. Powered by the new hybrid Power-Boost engine, 4-wheel drive, tow package, 360-degree camera, 7.2 kilowatt Pro-Power onboard generator and loaded with all the latest safety systems. I immediately called the dealer. Yes, they still had it. It had been delivered the day before and already 2 people had expressed interest in it and were trying to line up finances to purchase it. It was high noon when I talked to him and he said, "First one here with a decent down-payment get's it."

I called the wife at her work. "You've got to get off and come home right now so we can go buy a pickup! Hurry!" We arrived at the dealer at 4:00pm sharp. There she sat, still there, thank goodness - bright shiny red and looking beautiful. Parked right up front by the street, no wonder there were people already interested; you couldn't miss her. We were walking around the truck inspecting it when a salesman came up with a big smile on his face. "Can I help you," he asked. "I've been talking to Chris about this truck. Are you Chris?" The smile abruptly fell from his face at the vanishing of a possible sale. "No, I'll get him for you," as he walked away. 

Soon enough, Chris came walking up, the previous guy's big smile on his face, holding the keys. "I figured you would want to test drive her." I got in, started her up, and saw there was 26 miles on the odometer already. Chris explained two people had already test driven her. "We just got her in yesterday afternoon and people were asking to test drive her before we even got the plastic off the seats!" The wife and I took turns driving her around and brought her back with 48 miles on the odometer. I was looking at the window sticker when I asked what he would sell her for. $3,000 over the sticker! "What? That's way over the sticker price!" "Yes, sir" he replied, "that's the 'High Demand' price. Not many available and a lot of folks want trucks like this. But if you are 'highly qualified,' I can get you 0% interest for up to 6 years."

Fortunately, we fit into the highly qualified category, plus we had a decent downpayment amount available. After much wheeling and dealing and with a cash downpayment of more than half the price dangled in front of him, he came down $1,000. He was all smiles and then I brought out a coupon from Ford worth $1,000 off on a new truck purchase. Then I brought out a coupon from my insurance company for $500 off a new auto purchase. And then, just for fun, I made him throw in a Ford insulated mug for me and a pink Ford trucker's hat for the wife. We shook hands.

While waiting for the truck to go through final prep and filled up with gas, we ate their snacks and drank their cokes. With what I had just agreed to pay, it was the least they could do. I asked about the other people who supposedly were trying to line up finances, "Why didn't they take the 0% offer?" "They weren't highly qualified." 

"These are crazy times" Chris said. "We're a pretty small dealer, but we used to get in a couple of dozen new autos every week. Some of them would sit on our lot for several months. Now we're lucky if they drop off 3 or 4 a week and it doesn't really matter what they are, somebody buys them within a few days."

I wasn't happy about having to pay $500 over sticker price, but I had to consider I was lucky to find a truck that met all my requirements and more and I knew other folks were paying more than that over sticker price. And financing it at 0% interest, well, I'll take that deal all day long!

It's been a few weeks since we brought "Big Red" home and so far, all is great. No initial problems at all. She rides more like a car than a truck and we're pleased as punch with getting 24 miles per gallon. Heck, we're still learning all the things she's equipped with; still some buttons we haven't pushed and don't know what they do. And every month when I make the payment, I think about 0% interest and it's not so bad! 

All I have to do now is find an RV trailer that meets my wife's criteria. Maybe then my waning years will be filled with peace and quiet!

Road Trip to Woodstock & Beyond - Back Home

 Click HERE to go to Day 1 entry.

We had originally set out from Niagara Falls intending to stop in Rossford, Ohio to check out the shoes of Robert Wadlow, the world’s tallest man. The shoes are on display in the Rossford library, but when I looked it up online the night before, I found the library is closed due to Covid-19. Crossing Rossford off our list, we drove on toward our next destination – Galena, Ohio. Galena has been voted the "World’s Best Downtown Shopping" and was featured on one of my favorite TV shows, “Small Town, Big Deal.”

I took over the driving duties, set my portable GPS for Galena, and off we went. Unfortunately, the shortest distance between where we were and Galena is right through Chicago and "Shortest Distance" was what my GPS was set for. I hate Chicago traffic. No matter what time of the day you are on any of the freeways, it's bumper-to-bumper backed up traffic. I had documented a route that was a little longer but it went around Chicago. Unfortunately, Chip wasn’t aware of this alternate route. We were talking and I, not really thinking about it, just followed the GPS directions. The next thing you know, we’re stuck in Chicago traffic. Crap! The street signs list the highways by name, but the map lists them by number so there we were, in stop-and-go traffic gridlock and we couldn’t figure out a shortcut or the best way to get out of there. So trust the GPS to get us where we wanted to go. After a while, we saw why the freeway was so backed up. On the opposite side of the freeway from us, an 18-wheeler had literally destroyed a passenger car. Firemen were standing around and there were coverings over the smashed windows of the car. Somebody woke up that morning never knowing they wouldn’t make it back home.

After miles and miles of heavy traffic, Chip, looking at the spiral-bound atlas we had brought along, asked why we were going west when we should be going south. I told him we were going west to get to Galena and then we would head south from there. “But Galena is way down south from where we’re at now.” “I don’t think so,” I said. “The GPS is saying we still need to be going west.” “But I’m looking at Galena on the map here and it’s way south, not west. Your GPS is wrong.” Chip put the destination in the car's GPS and sure enough, it indicated to go south. Long story short, after a lot of back-and-forth, with Chip and the car's GPS insisting we needed to be going south, I finally said OK, we’ll turn at the next highway going south. I don't know what's wrong with my portable Garmen GPS. I've had it for over 10 years, I updated just before we left, and it's never been wrong before.” Being a good navigator, Chip found the next highway going south and said, “Turn left here.” I drove for a couple more hours, but we weren’t going through any towns that I remembered when laying out the route beforehand. Several times I said, "Chip, I don't remember any of these towns," but Chip kept assuring me we were going right.

We finally stopped for gas, and he took over driving. Before pulling out of the station though, I looked at the map, but couldn’t find Galena anywhere near our current southern route. Pointing, he said, “it’s right down there.” “Sorry, Chip, but I still don’t see it.” He looked closely at the map and pointed at a little bitty town. I looked closely. “Uh, Chip, that’s not Galena. It’s some town named Galatia. You've been looking at Galatia on the map and you put Galatia in the car's GPS, not Galena!" I looked again and found Galena way back up north where we had been several hours ago. We had been within just a few miles of Galena when we turned south!

In addition to missing shopping in the "World’s Best Downtown Shopping," we had missed several other destinations I had planned for us – the "Field of Dreams" baseball field, the world’s largest truck stop, and a town, Casey, IL., which has the world’s largest golf tee, the world’s largest rocking chair, the largest mailbox, and the largest pitchfork. I consider Chip to be my brother. We’ve been friends for 50 years now and nothing is going to change that. We decided to keep driving south toward home rather than backtrack for 3 hours, but there wasn’t much talking in that car for a while. You better believe I'll be ribbing him over this one for a good long time! I’m sure we’ll laugh about it later. How much later is unknown.

We stopped in St. Louis for dessert at the famous Ted Drew’s Frozen Custard stand on Route 66. The weather was hot and the ice cream was cold and very tasty. Well worth the stop.

We were 345 miles from home and it was just 3:00 in the afternoon so we decided to keep driving for a while. The later it got, the closer we were to home and the more sleeping in my own bed sounded real good. Chip started getting sleepy and tired about 9:00 and by then we were less than 200 miles from home. We stopped for gas and some food and I took over driving. We finally made it to my house a little after midnight. Tired and sleepy, we pulled into the driveway, left everything in the car, and went inside to crash. Unloading the car could wait for the next day.

Except for the last couple of days, it was a great trip and we had a lot of fun. We returned safe and sound, only a little worse for wear. Bucket list items got checked off, we saw some cool things, and we did some cool things. We had several bad food experiences, but we also had some excellent meals. We reminisced, we told stories, we had experiences for future reminiscing, we solved some of the world's problems, and we laughed a lot. Best of all, these two best friends got to spend some quality time together and you just can’t put a price on that. I'm already looking forward to our next trip!