Wednesday, September 29, 2010 - Tough, But The End is Near!

After a pretty crummy night's sleep, and a big comfort breakfast at the Denny's next door, we headed out to the towing office to get an update on the work that needed to be done. Since I stopped so quickly, we managed to avoid some really major damage, to it looks like just replacing the bearing and some other parts will do the job. We told them to change out all of the bearings, just to be safe. Then we headed out to a nearby used car dealer that had an ad on craigslist, only to learn the truck we were interested in had been sold two nights before. Then we arranged to meet the seller of another truck out at a fairgrounds venue known as West World. It was priced relatively inexpensively because there was some damage, which the seller claimed was only cosmetic. We took it for a test drive, and it rode rather hard, actually worse than the Ford, which surprised me. When we got back, we started looking more closely at the damage. Most of it was around the wheel well, which was fiberglass, and likely caused by a tire blowout, but the tailgate was off, and the seller had said that it had been damaged when the owner's mother had jackknifed a fifth wheel. I thought the tailgate would have a dent, but it didn't, so I started investigating, trying to get the tailgate back on, and discovered that the damage was much more extensive, that one side of the bed had been bent outwards, and the bumper was badly bent as well. He insisted the frame wasn't bent, and it may not have been, but it certainly would have explained why the ride was so rough. We decided to go have a cup of coffee and discuss our options. This had been our first choice from craigslist, and our other options seemed only to be Dodge, which really wasn't my first choice, but we had to solve the problem. So we found a McDonalds nearby, ordered an iced coffee, pulled out the laptop and checked out craigslist again to look at the latest list. Lo and behold, a 2003 GMC Sierra 3500 had been listed since I had checked it this morning. It was well within our price range, and the pix made it appear to be very clean. We called, then headed out immediately, to a dealer down in Tempe about 30 minutes away. They had only just listed it about 30 minutes before, and the pix had actually been provided by the previous owner, who was the only owner of this truck, and he had traded it in the night before. With only 92K miles, it was in fantastic shape. It was pewter in color, not the white which was our preference, but it actually matched the accent points on the RV perfectly. We took it for a test drive, and at once, Hubby commented on the smoothness of the ride, which was the first time he finally understood what I meant about the difference between a GM truck and a Ford (when I drove wreckers in my college years, I always preferred the ride of the GMC, and it hasn't changed). If I'm going to be in a truck for 8 hours a day, I want it to be a comfortable ride! The dual wheels made it very stable, the diesel 6.6 would provide all the power we would ever need to easily tow the RV up any mountain, all while being able to run the A/C. It was EXACTLY what we needed, so we quickly started the paperwork. Things dragged on and on, though, the recon and detailing, so just before 4:00, we left, saying we would be back first thing in the morning with cash in hand. We had to get some hay out to the horses, and to check on the progress of the RV repairs, which we did. The horses, particularly mine, seemed to have swollen eyes from the day before, probably from too much dust flying in from the desert, so we had picked up a couple of fly masks and a bottle of antibiotic spray this morning, so we treated them before heading out to the RV. I climbed in to get our cash and a few items for the night, before heading out to the Hampton Inn, where I had reserved a much better room for the night. After dinner at Olive Garden and a quick trip to Walmart, we had an early night, climbing into a much more comfortable bed in a very clean room, which I expect (and always get) from Hampton. Too exhausted to be as excited as we should be about our new truck, looking forward to a better day tomorrow!