Everybody has got to drive something.
Unless you live in the city and have convenient access to public transportation. Otherwise, you really need a car. Most people drive their cars as transportation and only concern themselves with reliability and cost of ownership. Not me, I’m a bit over the top.
For someone that claims to be a Financial Moron, just what kind of vehicle would he drive anyway? Well I’m glad you asked. I’m pretty proud of it and it certainly doesn’t disappoint when it comes to Financial Moron-ness(?).
I can’t seem to ever own a vehicle that you buy off the lot, then drive without any modifications until you finally sell it or it dies and you replace it. That’s not me at all. I don’t drive a vehicle that would be categorized as “Transportation”. My vehicles make a statement, they are a part of me, they have a character all of their own.
The Superduty is dead to me now.
So when it came time to sell my diesel Superduty truck, which of course was highly modified, I had to buy something else that would replace it, and not cost me another $6,000 replacing major engine parts.
I bought a Toyota Tundra.
I’m down with OPP (Other People’s Pickups)
One of the very few things that I am smart enough to do financially, is to buy used vehicles instead of new. I let others take the big hit in depreciation. But that is pretty much where my intelligence ends, haha.
I bought this particular truck from a friend that owns a business. He bought the truck through his business and then depreciated it every year for tax reasons. This is a common practice for anyone that buys vehicles through a business and not a shady tax evasion thing. The benefit that I had going into this transaction is that he had owned the Tundra for 5 years already. The truck had 69,000 miles on it. That amount of ownership time, regardless of the mileage in my case, meant that he had depreciated, tax wise, a sizable amount of money from the original purchase price of the truck. Being a Toyota, the blue book value of the truck was not as low as the depreciated value of the truck, so I ended up with a great deal!
Now the work begins…
Once I took possession of the truck, the first thing I had to do was tint the windows. This truck was crazy stock and didn’t even have the windows tinted in sunny Arizona where we lived at the time. On bright days, that sun can be brutal especially being magnified through the glass. Being a night owl myself, tinting is a must. From that point though, I knew I had to wait until I sold the Superduty to plan any major influx of funds into the new Tundra. So in the meantime, I shopped around for what I wanted and sought out the best prices.
By the time the Superduty sold, I had it all planned out. Instead of taking years to modify the truck the way I wanted, like I had to do with the Superduty, I could purchase all of the big ticket things right away with Superduty money and leave the little things to do over time.
Can’t let that cash burn a hole in my pocket
The Superduty sold on a Thursday, by Friday afternoon, I had spent $7,000. Damn…. But I did get a lot of cool stuff, haha. One of the things I ordered was a supercharger for the truck. It boosted the horsepower from 381 to 504 all by itself. However it was a big undertaking as it is a major engine component. I had scheduled the local Toyota dealership to install it for me for another measly $850.
I know it doesn’t look like much, but it definitely makes the truck more fun to drive.
The next big purchase was for a lift and tires. I wanted to go a bit lower with the lift originally because I didn’t want the big tires eating up my horsepower, but my wife wanted a bigger lift. She wanted me to lift it 6 inches with 35 inch tires. So that is what I got. She regrets that decision now as she is constantly having to climb into the truck. Of course, I reminder her that the lift was her idea EVERY TIME she groans about having to climb into it. Because that’s what good husbands do.
That was pretty much all I wanted to spend on the big items at that time. I was an additional $10,000 into my truck which ironically I paid $10,000 less that Kelley Blue Book for. So it’s a wash, right?
It wasn’t completely done though. I guess I never really am. I can’t remember all of the costs for the “little things” that I have added over the years but suffice it to say that yada, yada, yada, the truck has about 7 inches of lift and is pushing about 580 horsepower through the new gearing with a limited-slip axle. Yeah, it’s definitely fun to drive.
It keeps going, and going, and going….
My Tundra now has 215,000 miles on it and still runs awesome, and now it looks good too. I just got it back from the body shop. It wasn’t elective surgery though, sadly.
Ouch.
Here is the offending pole. It jumped right out in front of me.
The short story is that I thought the guy across from me was coming out and going to hit me so I cut the corner tighter to avoid him. I didn’t see the pole and had forgotten that it was there. The total bill was $6,700 in damage with $595 of it being my deductible. Cha-Ching.
I don’t have any payments on the Tundra as it has been paid off for quite a while now. Which is good, because my auto insurance just went up an additional $76 a month. Yay me.
The truck came out excellent. It not only looks like the accident never happened, but it looks brand new. The shop did an outstanding job.
Can’t catch a break
But wouldn’t you know, this has to happen at a time when I’m trying to get a handle on my finances. I’m trying to pay off my debts and budget my money, and now I end up with this added expense. Life itself is nothing if not a challenge and budgeting just seems to add to it. My finances are not going into this budgeting thing willingly. They seem to be kicking and screaming the whole way. I wrote a bit about that when I crashed the truck and you can read that right HERE.
I certainly didn’t need that added expense of fixing my truck when I have so many other expenses to deal with. The added cost on my insurance of $76 a month will last for three years. Crap.
However, in my “Glass Half Full” (GHF) mentality, where else can you buy a truck like this in this condition for $76 a month for only three years? Am I right?
Lemonade….
This post may contain affiliate links and by clicking on those links, I may get paid.