Convince me I am right

With the miles you are putting on your truck at this point, why buy a new one when there is nothing wrong with the one you have? Like others said, do what you want, it is your money. It just would not financially compute for me. I have the same old 7.3 F350 CC I bought new back in 2002. I told my wife when we got that I will keep it until the last kid gets out of college and that just happened finally. It has 127,000 miles on it and I am in the same position as you that now it normally sees about 2500 miles a year, maybe. Would I like to have a newer truck with more creature comforts, hell yea, but financially that would be a bad decision for me especially with the price of a comparable truck. I could actually get by with a F150, but still does not make since. I have replace the torque converter and valve cover gasket on the old truck and that is it. I figure I can afford to fix a few things along the way and get another 19 years out of it. If I am still able to drive at that time, I will re access whether I need a newer truck...lol
 
CasterTroy said:
Absolutely. Different strokes


Says the guy who's rig hasnt seen street NOR trail in 2yrs :huggy:
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*Insert adult life excuses*

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NickMaul said:
Next time your jeep breaks down on the sand let me know :shaking:. We will have to finally meet:flipoff2:
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Since it lost a pretty important bolt for the 3 link that I rigged with a screwdriver and vice grips that got me off the beach I don’t consider that a break down. Is 2021 the year you get your pile on the trails and have some fun?
 
77GreenMachine said:
Just go buy yourself something for your current truck. Nice double din radio, tint the windows, LED light upgrades, something like that. Ain’t no way I could justify a truck payment with such a fine looking truck you got there.
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This^
Croatan_Kid said:
I'm still driving my 02 HD with 320k on it. Aint no way I'd ever go buy a new one. They're uglier than a fart in church! You've still gotta pay (more for) insurance on it, put tires on it, put gas/fuel in it, change the oil, etc. The novelty of a new vehicle will wear off well before the payment does.

There's NOTHING on your truck that could fail that wouldn't be way less money than a new truck. 6.0 craps out? I can build a solid 400 hp replacement for 5-ish grand or pick up a good used one, ready to rock, for 1200 bucks. 4L80E gives up? A few grand. Rear end? There's one for sale on here for 500 bucks and a ride to Winston-Salem. That's less than one month's truck payment. There's eleventy bajillion of those trucks out there and parts are plentiful.

I've done a bunch of stuff to mine because I wanted to. I want to drop 6600 bucks on a well built transmission to hold 850-ish HP. I want/kinda need to tear it down for a headgasket job. Even if I built a good, solid motor for it to the tune of 15k, I'd still be in it less than the cost of a brand new CCSB, 4x4, diesel, that's loaded.

With all that said...you could get a newer truck, but I'd NEVER buy brand new. It's never zero percent either. They're going to make their money. They've already figured in how much they want to make off of it. Zero percent is just a marketing ploy to make you feel better about diving head first in to a ridiculous amount of debt.

Convince me that I'm wrong :D
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And this^

Ain't no way I'd go out and buy a newer truck with a payment. Like @CasterTroy said, $600 month makes a big difference and as someone who just reduced my outgoing cost by that amount there's no way I'd go back to that. Only time I'd consider a payment is if it's something that makes money, even then I'd be iffy.
 
One thing to think about though.
A lot of people are saying, don't take a payment... or think about what else you can do with the money.. .etc.
Keep in mind that eventually the old truck WILL need repairs and it WILL need to be preplaced. Maybe not tomorrow, maybe not in 3 years.
The thing to look out for is not to fall in the trap of no longer budgeting money for your vehicle.
If you put that extra money into something else, then what will you do when you need a replacement truck, or when you have to drop $2k for a trans, etc? You won't be accustomed to having the payment and something will have to give way later. I think this is where most people get hung up and can never get ahead.

This is why I personally live by the rule of always making a "payment" whether it is for a loan for a car we bought, or to save for the next vehicle. We (wife and I) adopted a philosophy a long time ago to keep each vehicle at least 2x the length of the loan to pay it off, but never stop the payments. This way it snowballs w/o ever making a lifestyle change. By the 2nd car we only had to borrow half the amount to buy it. Next was only a small fraction. Last car I paid cash for... new. That was sort of a personal life goal to be able to do that (unfortunately you're not allowed to use a briefcase of bills anymore :shaking:) Now all my money is working for me instead of somebody else, and we have a stash for emergencies.
 
So, ballpark...what is "invoice" now in relation to MSRP, and what could I reasonably expect to pay cash out the door for the truck I priced out on the website just now? MSRP after the build was right around 43,500.
 
kaiser715 said:
So, ballpark...what is "invoice" now in relation to MSRP, and what could I reasonably expect to pay cash out the door for the truck I priced out on the website just now? MSRP after the build was right around 43,500.
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That's a hard call.
Trucks are selling like mad and dealers have very few reasons to negotiate much
It took me calling and getting it in writing before I could see a hard number.
 
I’ve seen guys talk about 8-12% off MSRP, but that’s for the new Jeep JL. I’d suspect trucks have similar popularity and are somewhat similar in the deal you could get.
 
Going through the same thing with my truck. It did more than Nickle and dime me. I wanted to sell if for a while and then I wouldn't. I looked a new trucks then I didn't.

It is a super hard call with almost no right answer. With the current climate and jobs and other projects I really didn't want a truck payment.

What ever you decide you are right!
 
I have been talking about replacing my 01 Ram CTD since probably 2010. I worked as an exhaust systems design engineer on class 8 trucks for about 11 years during the implementation of the DPF and SCR, so am not much of a fan of 07 and newer diesel trucks. I haven't ruled them out, but I'm thinking I would be better off with just buying a 6.0 gas Chevy since the most weight I will ever tow is 7,000 lbs. Every time I look at buying a newer truck I get sticker shock and change my mind (I am a cheap bastard who has a real mental problem spending money on depreciating assets). My biggest fear by far of continuing to drive a 20+ year old truck is getting stranded 2+ hours from home on a Sunday afternoon/evening while on my way back from a wheeling trip.

I bought my 2001.5 RAM CTD in the fall of 2006 with 166,000 miles. I think it currently has about 235,000 miles on it, so I have driven it about 70,000 miles over 14 years (It is not my DD). Here is a list of my expenses over the past 14 years. It has cost me about $418/year in repairs and wearable items. If I was only going to use this truck around town, then I would keep it another 20 years. I post this to show that you can keep an older truck going for a lot less money than buying a new/newish one. Many of the expenses below would be required with a new/newish truck over time too.

Dodge Ram parts history.jpg


I would keep your current truck.
 
drkelly said:
My biggest fear by far of continuing to drive a 20+ year old truck is getting stranded 2+ hours from home on a Sunday afternoon/evening while on my way back from a wheeling trip.
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My biggest fear is getting stranded after hours towing the camper with kids on board.

Towing a vehicle has never really concerned me because worst case is unload the rig and go find help.

I bought my first ever new truck in 2015. I had a dd car and a diesel truck that both had issues and was literally making myself sick with them. So I traded both towards a 1/2 ton DD truck. I got an excellent price on exactly what I wanted and was one of the best decisions I've ever made given the circumstances at the time.

Now I have that truck at 93k miles and my wife's 2005 yukon xl at 202k miles and am going through these decisions again.
 
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Am I the only one who’d be much more concerned about breaking down Friday on the way TO a wheeling trip, than Sunday on the way home?
 
Ron said:
Am I the only one who’d be much more concerned about breaking down Friday on the way TO a wheeling trip, than Sunday on the way home?
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Happened to @Chris_Keziah a couple of times. Never stopped him. Wheel with the right folks and they've always got your back. Even if it means dropping their rig off, and driving hours and hours to come get your rig and take it so you dont miss the weekend. Leaving the truck at a local shop
 
Ron said:
Am I the only one who’d be much more concerned about breaking down Friday on the way TO a wheeling trip, than Sunday on the way home?
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When you tow in a convoy with good buddies and have good buddies back home it's never a concern to get there or back. In the past year there's been 4 failures of some sort that would've ruined someone's weekend that our group worked around.
CasterTroy said:
Happened to @Chris_Keziah a couple of times. Never stopped him. Wheel with the right folks and they've always got your back. Even if it means dropping their rig off, and driving hours and hours to come get your rig and take it so you dont miss the weekend. Leaving the truck at a local shop
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Yup, I've driven the trail rig a few hours and also drove a few hours on a Sunday to recover a tow rig. All in a weekend of fun.
 
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