John's new baby

Towards the end of last year we decided that John needed a new vehicle, but that it needed to wait so we could save up a down payment.
His car was a bad purchase from the beginning but we were suffering from "one car syndrome" for almost 5 months that we put blinders on and ignored the bad.
His car has been nice to have and since he doesn't have to drive to far for work we made it last as long as possible (I also loved not having a car payment!) but we agreed that around May would be a good time to start looking for a new one. There was no way in hell that his car would pass safety and emissions in May, it needed a lot of love and we didn't want to spend the money to give it that love.

For the last couple of months we've been looking online seeing what we could expect to find with what we wanted to pay. Truthfully our pickings were slim. People love their trucks so they drive the crap out of them and even newer years had a ton of mileage on them or they just dont sell them at all. We were thinking that we'd be getting a 2006 with 65,000+ miles, not ideal but if that's what we could find it would be better than what we had. We did find a few trucks that John liked early on, but our down payment wasn't where I wanted it to be so we didn't go look at them.

On Monday John took the day off since he had one more vacation day and was in the use it or lose it stage. I went to work and browsed KSL on my down time since May was getting close. I think out of the qualifications that we wanted 29 trucks came up on my list. I browsed through the list not finding anything that caught my eye (John wanted an extended cab at least and preferred a longer bed) until a few pages in.
There was a 2008 Ford F150 crew cab with 13,000 miles at $13,999, of course I clicked but I wondered right off the bat that it had to be too good to be true, the price was too low. Yup, there is was, it was a reclaimed title, but sometimes that doesn't mean its a bad vehicle. I text John letting him know, asking him if he wanted to go take a look at it. He decided it was worth a shot and drove up to Woods Cross to check it out.

I emailed my dad the specs to get his opinion and told him why the title was reclaimed. The truck had been in an accident but not a massive one and the dealership let John look at the Carfax to see what had to be done. Nothing too serious and the dealership did a nice job fixing it up. John decided that it might be worth my dad coming out and looking at it, we weren't going to buy anything without my dad's approval.
I love having my dad look at cars with us. He looks at things I forget or dont think to look at and really knows his stuff. If my dad says no to one then its not a good buy and you move on to the next.

My dad met us at the dealership and did his stuff. Since it was in accident he checked the frame and all the other junk you check when you know your stuff on cars.
After a good long while on talking the pros and cons of getting a reclaimed he gave his Dad Seal of Approval and John was happy.





(yes these are the dealers pictures but I'm lazy and why should I take my own when they'll look just the same?)

I'm hoping this truck proves to be a good purchase and will live with us for many years to come. I'm also hoping that my car, Lil' Blue, will also live at least 5 more years because I'm really not ready for another car payment.