We Bought a New Pickup!

Now that we are over the excitement of a new grandson and recovered from COVID, we are catching up on some old news--including a big purchase!

We have enjoyed our Honda CRV for six and a half years and 109,000 miles. But considering that it had been towed for an additional 40,000 miles, we worried that it was no longer a trustworthy vehicle. Considering that it got lots of wear and tear on dirt mountain roads this summer, we decided this fall was a good time to shop for its replacement. 

We would have been happy to buy another CRV, but Honda has changed its transmission so it's no longer towable with the wheels down. After 6 six years of having the easy process of hooking up a tow vehicle with the wheels down, we were NOT interested in buying a vehicle that would have to be strapped onto a tow dolly. So Mark began the process of removing some of the tow parts off the car that we could use again on a different vehicle.

In fact, we had a pretty short list of possible replacements when we started shopping. The list of vehicles we considered that can be towed behind a motor home with all four wheels on the pavement are: Jeep Grand Cherokee 4WD (too expensive), Ford Ranger 4WD (with less than stellar reviews), Chevrolet Equinox (too small), Chevrolet Traverse (too big), Chevrolet Colorado 4WD, and Ford Edge ST (too pricey). After reading many reviews and analyzing our needs, Mark thought the Chevrolet Colorado 4WD pickup would be the best fit for us.

During a pandemic should be a great time to buy a new vehicle, right? WRONG! Instead, we found that everyone else is wanting to buy a new vehicle now. After shopping Chevrolet dealerships in Oklahoma and Kansas, we were having a hard time finding a pickup outfitted the way we needed it in-stock. We finally located just the right pickup at Hendricks Chevrolet near Kansas City. This pickup had just been unloaded from the delivery truck, so they hadn't had time to add the $1,000 worth of dealer add-ons that infuriate us. Hendricks Chevrolet made us the best deal, and we took delivery of a 2021 Chevrolet Colorado LT 4x4 4-door short bed pickup. This is a big dealership that has been in business for 44 years. They had their biggest sales month ever in June 2020--right in the middle of this pandemic!

Driving all those rocky dirt roads in the mountains this summer in our little car convinced Mark that a 4x4 would get us to even more trail heads. He's already imagining all the places we can go that we couldn't drive to in our Honda CRV. That makes Denisa a little nervous.

We already knew that buying the pickup was just the first of many expenses. We had lots of things stored in the back of that little Honda CRV. In order to store a similar amount in the bed of the pickup, it would need to be protected from the weather. So the first item on the shopping list was a bed cover. Because we will have a bike rack on the back, it had to unlatch without opening the tail gate. Mark shopped and compared and finally ordered this Retrax Pro-MX pickup bed cover. Mark installed it himself, and we began moving the amazing quantity of things that had been stored in the back of the car.

Now the real work begins, as Mark starts ordering and then installing all the things needed to turn this new pickup into a tow vehicle. This is our first big purchase since we hit the road in January 2015. We hope this new pickup takes us to as many of God's wonders as our last vehicle!