Freed by 50

Two years and only six tanks of gas ago I decided to replace my completely useless, leased sedan with a slightly more useful ’87 Chevy C10. The idea was that I was trading a lease payment for no payment, an impractical car for a semi-practical car, and eliminating most needs to deal with mechanics. Here’s to the best laid plans.

Since buying the truck, I’ve had a third child and replaced my Toyota Highlander with a massive Ford Expedition (to avoid the pitfalls of my situation, if you ever plan to have three kids in car seats at the same time DON’T GET THE CAPTAINS CHAIRS!). I then doubled down on new car stupidity when we started to realize that only having one car to haul the kids was causing problems when we needed to be two places at once. We now once again have two leased SUV’s in our driveway (we can argue about why I keep leasing cars in another post) plus the pickup truck.

I don’t tend to give the pickup much thought aside from making sure the battery isn’t dead from disuse, which it currently is since it’s the dead of winter. This year, rather than let it get rained and snowed on I decided a car cover would be prudent. So every few days I have to go put the cover back on after the absurdly strong winds we routinely get here rip it off the car again.

It’s inspection expired about 8 months ago, and when I brought it to be inspected, the mechanic refused to even touch it until I had all four ball joints replaced. This is a job I can’t and won’t do since it’s very labor intensive and I’ll most likely either drop the truck on myself trying to do the job with a jack, or will wind up with the car jacked up for weeks while I source parts. Because the inspection has been expired so long, the registration is now expired too. It needs a new front brake hose (easy), a washer fluid pump (easy), possibly a front break caliper (easy), the ball joints (hard), and a mechanic needs to replace the linkage between the steering column gear shift and the transmission because it’s never been able to go into park (hard). It’s also going to need a paint job at some point, which I’m told by multiple mechanics will cost about as much as the truck, and I’ll be lucky if I can find anyone that’s not going to rip me off.

We don’t drive it in the winter because it’s RWD and tends to slide all over the road if its wet. For that matter, we don’t drive it in even a drizzle for the same reason no matter the season. I occasionally very slowly take the kids around the neighborhood in it, just to keep the battery alive, and we use it as our neighborhood golf cart to go to birthday parties and BBQ’s in the summer. The trips to Home Depot are few and far between. Since I don’t feel safe taking it on the highway, I wind up taking the Expedition if I have to go further than a few miles to pick up large items.

All that said, it’s no surprise that after a few glasses of wine the other night, my wife started asking if I’m ever going to drive the truck and why we still have it. I found myself struggling to give answers, and ultimately realized I was arguing a point I couldn’t defend. I never, NEVER, have the time to work on this vehicle. Even the smallest job takes a few hours, and I just don’t get that kind of kid free time at this point of my life. In the best conditions, the truck is wildly unsafe and unpredictable. When everything is functioning properly it’s super easy to accidentally launch the car from a dead stop, spinning the tires and racing forward. The combination disc front brakes, drum rear brakes with a super light rear end makes stopping an adventure, often involving a skid and some praying. Driving in mild traffic at 50 MPH or greater is a white knuckle experience, and everyone seems to want to jump out just ahead of the big old pickup coming down the road that they have no idea couldn’t stop for anything at that speed.

At this point, it’s looking a lot like the experiment is over and it’s time to part ways with the truck. The only point I have left to defend it is that it’s really cool, and given a couple of years and about $10,000 it could be a great truck to tool around in. That’s not going to cut it.

It took me almost two years to finally find a decent “square body” pickup for under $10,000 in my area. The truck I found was a comparative steal, and I know I can still sell it for a profit even after the six tanks of gas, brake jobs, oil changes, and header replacement I’ve put into it. It’s just going to be a hit to my pride to let it go. Now I just have to get around to telling my wife she was right.