Flutterby™! : Replacing the truck 2016-01-20 01:00:58.199151+01

Replacing the truck

2016-01-20 01:00:58.199151+01 by Dan Lyke 3 comments

A couple of times recently, when first starting out in the morning, the truck hasn't moved forward when I've shifted into Drive. Wiggle the column a bit, and it starts moving. It also did this one evening coming home from work, worryingly after I'd driven it about a thousand feet (pulled out of parking, stopped at a stop sign, went to merge into traffic, whoops!).

With the weekend Monterey trip, Charlene said "rent a car". So I did. Now weekend Enterprise rates are pretty damned good, I've got Friday through Monday for $62.61 with 400 miles, extra miles are $.20 each, and I think I'll come out just about even.

However, I got to thinking: Truck has a 17 or 18 gallon tank, gets about 320 miles per tank. Gas is cheap right now, but if it were not a whole lot more expensive, given that a compact car is almost certainly going to get double that mileage-wise, I'll almost make up the cost of the rental in gas alone.

This is something seriously worth considering as we go to replace the truck... Especially since I've been commuting more.

#Comment Re: Replacing the truck made: 2016-01-20 12:13:55.525025+01 by: DaveP

I replaced my 2000 Chevy Blazer (a little bigger than yours, and an SUV, rather than an open bed) recently. Being out on the end of the bell curve, height-wise, and having lost all patience with auto dealers and manufacturers, I went to my friend who sells trucks and ended up with a 2010 Chevy Silverado crew cab short bed. It's significantly heavier, more powerful, seats six adults and can carry sheets of plywood with the tailgate down. All that and it gets almost identical mileage to the Blazer around town. Towing a trailer with a canoe on the roof for a couple hundred miles of two-lane country roads? Slightly better mileage. No idea how it'll do on the interstate yet, but I'm happy with it.

I still have money down on an Elio if they should ever ship, but at this point, I'm pretty sure they're just a Ponzi scheme with a twist. And in the summer I'll do most of my miles on the motorcycles.

#Comment Re: Replacing the truck made: 2016-01-20 18:57:22.372829+01 by: Dan Lyke

Yeah, I'm actually thinking a Leaf or a Volt or something like the Elio would be fine for one of our vehicles. Now that she's had the experience of driving a relatively large car, I'm not going to talk Charlene out of the size of the Jetta wagon, but if I just acknowledge that I'm going to end up renting a truck for certain things then maybe I could go electric...

#Comment Re: Replacing the truck made: 2016-01-20 19:28:59.327493+01 by: Larry Burton

Maybe you could do with something like an ELF for commuting with a trailer hitch and a utility trailer for the Jetta wagon to get things like those building supplies and mulch back to your house.