So I posted that we had truck problems going to the Moab
ride last week. Basically it ran fine, but couldn’t start w/o help
or hold an idle. We took it to a local shop in case they could come up
with something cheap, but did start looking into buying something new. We’re
pretty hard on a truck with hauling the LQ and hauling hay (160 ton a year) and
this was a 2001 5 sp Dodge Ram and we really wanted a 6 sp and the more
powerful Cummins. These are really hard to find.
So we found a 2005 that was perfect about 2.5 hours
away. Stace had to do that pesky job thing so I picked up the old truck
from the shop, got it pull started and drove it until I killed it at a
light. Stace came and pull started it with his Jag (now that’s a
funny picture!) and then he drove it the rest of the way since he’s
better coordinated and using 3 pedals at once.
We got to the dealership around 8pm, looked at the new truck,
did the paperwork and then went out to transfer all the junk from the old truck
to the new. We hadn’t had time to clean it since it had been at the
shop, so that took a little bit. Well, in that time, everyone left the
dealership. Wouldn’t have been a big deal except they have gates
all over (this is a huge dealership). We drove around for about 10
minutes trying to find an exit. We couldn’t even find something
that we could test the 4WD on. So we went back to the main building to
pound on some doors and hope someone was still around even though all the
lights were out. They’d left the front door unlocked!
So we went inside figuring we’d set off the alarm
system and have the place swarmed in minutes. Nothing. So I went
around looking for everyone’s business cards so we could start calling
and find someone with keys. Now this is a new Dodge dealership and in the
showroom they have a Viper and some new Challengers with signs on them saying
DON’T TOUCH. Well, we had fun putting fingerprints on the Viper,
sat in it and the Challengers.
It took 20 minutes for the cops to show up, by then we’d
finally contacted someone who said they’d send someone over with keys to
the gates. The cops came into the showroom and got to sit in the Viper
and Challengers too! We stood around chatting for another 45 minutes and finally
someone showed up to let us out. He was supposed to have been the primary
call on the alarm system, but they didn’t call him at all. It was a
little annoying because we still had a 2.5 hour drive ahead of us, but it
really was a funny too. If the showroom doors hadn’t been unlocked,
we would have been there til morning!
But we now have a nice new(er) truck, we installed the
gooseneck hitch this morning and are off to haul a horse and some hay, just in
time!
