We are up in Kansas City… PICKING UP OUR NEW TRUCK!!

That’s right folks… the quest is finally over. Financing is arranged, approved and signed. Truck is awesome looking. Dyno was great. BlowBy almost nothing. This is a done deal and the truck will be in our driveway tomorrow night.

In the end, we punked out and decided to go for a newer truck with a warranty. There is something highly attractive about buying an old… really old… truck and getting into the whole deal for next to nothing. But when you start looking at the constant repair bills you’re facing and all the down-time that goes along with that, a newer truck that costs more up-front starts looking much better. Besides, we both find warranties to be very sexy. We were hoping to find a Century or Columbia in the 2005 or 2006 range with about 600k miles on it.

So we called around when we got back from OKC and started talking to this guy in Kansas City. And he has been awesome to work with on getting this deal put together. At first we didn’t think anyone would want to finance us because we have literally no credit history as far as purchasing things. I mean we have really good credit card credit scores, but we bought the house from a family member and bought the vehicles so long ago that they don’t count for crap. So we might as well have been a couple of 18-year-old kids as far as the financing companies see it. Add to that the fact that we’re first time owner-operators and the crap really starts hitting the fan. The only thing we have going for us is we’re both experienced drivers. Even OOIDA was telling us that we were going to need 30% down and that we should expect to pay about 16 to 17 percent interest on the loan. Hell, we figured out that we could just put the damned truck on a credit card and pay less interest. Sigh. That was pretty much a downer, as I’m sure you can imagine.

Then Shawn went to work for us and found us a great deal. Only required 15% down payment and only charged 13% interest on the balance. Plus, he and Angela got us financed for a much newer truck than we had dared to hope for with far fewer miles and with great big kick-ass warranties. Yet they still managed to keep the payments exactly in the range we were looking for.

So here’s the low-down on the new truck:

• 2007 Freightliner Century with 427k miles
• Detroit 60 Series 14L @ 515 horsepower with opti-idle (not too sure about that opti-idle business but we plan to get an apu as soon as we can so no big deal)
• 13 speed OD EatonFuller tranny and 3.42 ratio
• 229″ wheelbase w/ 4 airbag suspension
• All aluminum wheels with 22.5LP virgin tires
• Dual 150 gallon fuel tanks (woohoo!)
• Dual exhaust
• Dual chain hangers already installed
• Chrome gauges (whatever)
• Fancy-pants two-toned paint job (too fancy for us, but great at scale houses since fancier-pantsier trucks tend to get the green light more often than the duct-taped hoopty trucks)
• 3 year/300k mile drive-train warranty (serious woohoo!)
• 1 year/100k most everything on the truck warranty (double serious woohoo!)

We are very happy campers right now. I was telling Stace that, if this truck turns out to be as good over time as we hope it will, I don’t ever plan to buy a truck from anyone but Shawn. He, and Angela his finance guru, have really worked overtime to get us in a good truck with a good deal and make us happy with the whole experience. I suppose we might have gotten a better deal if we had kept looking, but I feel pretty dang satisfied with the deal we got and needless to say I am thrilled that the search is finally — at long last — over. Maybe now Fernando can think about something other than trucks all day every day. Like trailers for example… now we need a trailer.

Here’s a couple of pics of the new and improved HagMobile:

Fancy, huh? No need to pull that looker behind the scale house, Officer Fife.

Pretty standard Freightliner look

Okay... not generally a huge fan of the blue bunk but in this case I'm willing to make an exception and really learn to love all that blue

We made it through the night without getting the truck stolen because honestly who was going to steal that hoopty? After breakfast we loaded up our stuff, checked out of the motel and headed over to the sales lot to give the truck back to Mr Pants-on-Fire. The night before we had cleverly planned a route that avoided the interstate and only included one right hand turn. That’s why it pays to be smarty-pants types.

I did much better with the shifting the second day. Oh… I still had no speedometer so I didn’t know how fast I was going, but things seemed to be running much more smoothly. Thank goodness shifting really was like riding a bike. Anyway, I was rapidly approaching the only right hand turn on the route when a damned truck pulled up to the stop sign. Sigh. I sat at the stop sign and turned the wheel to the right all the way to the stop. Then I started rolling forward… right toward the truck sitting at the stop sign. When it finally became painfully obvious to both me and that other driver that I wasn’t going to make the turn, I surrendered and backed up to make the cut. Thankfully Stace had my back and was holding off traffic.

Finally made it to the truck lot and pulled up to the fence. Shut the truck off and started to get out to meet with Stace. Remembered that the driver’s door wouldn’t open. Thought no big deal I’d just get out the passenger side. No dice. Passenger side door wouldn’t open from the inside, either. Rolled down the window and tried to lean out far enough to reach the outside door handle. Nope. Arms too short. Damn… trapped in the truck. Had to just sit there and hope Stace would realize that I wasn’t  getting out of the truck. Sent her mental message to come investigate. Which she did. And thankfully she let me out of the death-trap. Cause she loves me.

We walked in to hand Mr. Pants-on-Fire the keys and let him know that we weren’t interested in the truck. At some point during the conversation, I mentioned that the turning radius was ridiculous on that thing. I told him about trying to make a right-hand turn at a stop light and having to back up to cut it tighter. He actually had the nerve to say, “Oh yeah, the guy who took it over to have the Dyno run told me that it wouldn’t turn right. Don’t let that stop you cause we can get that fixed up real good before you take the truck.”

Dude! Are you kidding me? You knew the truck wouldn’t turn right and you didn’t say a thing? What the hell is wrong with you? Well we made it clear that we simply weren’t interested in the truck and he proceeded to try to sell us a Columbia that he had sitting on the lot. At that point, I’m pretty sure Stace’s expression spoke volumes. Every muscle of her face told him in no uncertain terms that we wouldn’t buy a Diet Coke and cigarette from him if he were the last supplier on earth. We hit the road.

Thanks to Mr. I-Lie-for-a-Living and to my well-reasoned-but-as-it-turned-out stupid decision to have the Dyno run first, that trip was quite costly. There was the $250 Dyno, the rental car, the motel, the food…. Ugh! What a waste. In order to try to avoid the weekend being a total bust, we stopped on the way home and spent the day with Chaos and LittleOne.

We met up with them and all went to the Aquarium. LittleOne was too damned cute in the Aquarium. She ran from one exhibit to the next and excitedly pointed out each fish tank. She wasn’t too sure about touching the little interactive shells they had on exhibit, but once I did it she decided it was ok. After we ran all over the joint, we hit the gift shop and told her she could have one thing. She picked a hat. You know who else wears a hat all the time, don’t you? That’s right — it’s me! What a smart kid.

After the Aquarium we drove around for a while then went to this little steak house we found down there previously. Man they have some of the best steaks I have ever eaten. It is hard to describe the joint. But we always have an excellent meal when we go there. And LittleOne was extremely good. I didn’t really think about it until Stace brought it up later, but we were able to take a two-year-old to a rather upscale steak house on a Friday night and she didn’t cause any trouble at all. I’m not sure if any of the dating couples even realized she was there. We did have the waitress remove the burning candle from the table, I mean she is a great kid but she’s not a saint or anything.

We took Chaos and LittleOne home then had to drive for three hours back to the house. What a doomed trip on the truck front. The worst part was that we were back to square one on the truck hunt. Ugh! I am so sick of this shit. If you think you’re tired of reading about it, just think how tired we are of living through it. Will this truck purgatory never end?

So we walked up to the truck prepared to be wowed. It sat there glistening in the sun. First thing we noticed that was a slight bit different was the passenger side windshield was busted. I don’t mean it had a crack in it I mean it was a stunning likeness of a black widow’s web. Then there was the fact that two of the four mirrors were broken. And one of those chicken lights on that big fancy chrome bumper was busted. “Small details,” we murmured to each other and walked up to get a closer look.

A quick walk around inspection turned up a few more interesting details:

Brakes were wafer-thin.

Eight of the ten tires were virtually bald while the two right rear drives were brand new. What’s up with that?

One of the air bags didn’t inflate properly once we started the truck.

Massive air leak under the right rear of the sleeper.

When we shut the truck off it dumped all the air in less than three minutes.

Stacks appeared ready to fall off the truck when you closed the door.

Passenger seat had no air controls at all.

Cabinets weren’t actually bolted to the walls so they just sort of flopped around.

One brake light didn’t work at all and the turn signals at the rear of the truck were reversed so that when you signaled left the right light came on.

Sigh. Wasn’t exactly the truck of our dreams needless to say. Still… all the problems we had found were things that could be fixed if you had enough money to throw at the thing. So since our motel was less than a mile away, we decided to drive it over there and think about the situation over dinner.

I started the beast up and waited for it to build air pressure. After what seemed like an hour, I was finally ready to roll. I eased it into gear and headed out into the unknown. Pulling out of the parking spot it was in I had to turn right and was surprised when I headed straight toward these old four-wheelers parked all the way across the lot. Good lord! I could have burned donuts in a Columbia in the amount of space that truck took to start inching right. I actually had to reverse and cut it tighter to get moving toward the street. Ugh! I told myself that it wasn’t a big deal, however, and reminded myself that everyone told me that the Classic has a huge turning radius — no big deal we could get used to that… eventually.

Well I finally made it to the street, turned left onto Reno and headed toward the motel. The shifting went better than I expected considering it had been almost three years since I’d had to shift. I wasn’t great or anything but it was passable. Got to the first stoplight on our route and prepared to make a right turn. It was one of those intersections where there were four lanes and a raised median in the center. When the light turned green I turned the hell out of that steering wheel and started rolling slowly forward. Straight into the median. Everyone at the intersection stared and pointed. Small children fell to the ground holding their sides with uncontrollable laughter. A sightseeing group of nuns fell to their knees and began praying over the deplorable state of affairs in the trucking industry. Fred the hubcap-selling wino got so worked up over the stupidity of it all that he accidentally rolled his cart into the street and spilled hubcaps all over the road. Sigh.

There I was nosed into the median in the middle of a very busy intersection. I mean that truck had barely turned at all. It didn’t even come close to making 45 degrees. I had to back up in the middle of the intersection and cut it tighter to get into a travel lane. Good thing Stace was behind me in the rental car to fend off traffic and give me room to move. As I backed up, I made sure to run over some of the rolling hubcaps laying around on the street.

I was finally moving forward and had the shifting going well enough to realize that I had no speedometer or odometer. Nada. Stopped at ten miles per hour.And you know what that means… that truck could have three million miles on it. With no odometer there was simply no way of knowing how many miles they had put on it since the engine rebuild. Not that I had time to worry about that at the moment since I was just trying to keep it moving smoothly down the road.

Finally, there was only one more right turn on our route. Which was luckily one of those giant forgiving intersections that you could probably have moved a small building onto that side street if you were careful. No problem… I made the turn ok and headed to the motel. Made it into the motel without incident. Whew!

Managed to get it parked and shut down safely and started to get out to meet with Stace who was getting out of the rental car. Couldn’t get the damned door open. Stace had to open the door to let me out of the truck. I got out and we tried to lock the door. Neither door locked. Seriously. And the repeated slamming of the door trying to get it closed tight enough to lock was obviously on the verge of causing the stack to fall off the truck. In the end, I just blocked the truck in with the rental car and left good enough alone.

I turned to Stace. She turned to me. We looked at the truck. As one we burst out with, “Oh my god, I hate it. You hate it, too? Thank god cause I really really hate it.”

Get thee behind me, Devil Truck

Hopes high, we trotted off to Oklahoma City on the great truck quest. We arrived armored with our typical skeptical concerns about the prospective Hags chariot. Dyno results? 13 speed? 10 speed? autoshift? 455 hp? 515? Overdrive? No overdrive? BlowBy? 24.5LP tires? All of those questions had turned Fernando into a whirling dervish.

The guy had told us before we even left the house that the truck was DOT inspected and ready to roll off the lot. For those of you who aren’t drivers, a DOT inspection is a list of parts on a truck that must meet minimum requirements to be considered safe on the road. It includes things like no fluid leaks, all lights must work, drive tires must have a minimum tread depth of 2/32nds, horn must work, etc. Keep in mind that these are the minimum requirements for a truck to legally be on the road. If a truck can’t pass a DOT test it doesn’t move.

Another test that’s important when you’re buying a truck is the Dyno test. What is a Dyno test you ask? Well… let me tell you… mostly it’s a secret mystical ritual in which all the mechanics of a shop dress up in purple and black robes, with bone and feather headdresses and RedWing work boots. Then they light candles, beat on hubcap drums and chant magical words. They butcher a rooster and look at it’s innards. Then they charge you $250 and tell you what kind of shape the engine is in. This includes the horsepower that the truck is putting to the ground and another measurement of engine fitness called the “Blowby.” The blowby number is this mystical measurement of the amount of oil getting by the rings. Clearly, a large blowby number indicates that the rooster innards were not in alignment for you on that particular day.

Now… I am reaching a point in my life where I’m starting to know myself a little so I decided to have the Dyno done first. I’ll tell you why. See here is what I was thinking. The sales guy said the truck was DOT-inspected and ready to roll. And the pictures looked really good as you all saw in a previous post. So… I was afraid we would get down there and I would fall in love with the truck. Then I would take it to be Dyno’ed and the test would go badly cause the stupid rooster would escape out the back of the shop and the numbers would say don’t buy the truck. Then I would have an awesome seriously cool truck that I would have to resist buying because of some stupid BlowBy number. You all know I’m not good at resisting things. So I thought I would head that whole unfortunate situation off at the pass and have the Dyno done first so I would know the state of the engine before I fell in love with the truck. Tres mature, huh? I thought so, too.

The sales-guy was nice enough to offer to have the truck delivered over to the Detroit shop for the Dyno so when we showed up the results were right there ready for us to examine. It showed 376 horsepower to the ground. So I asked the guy, “Seriously? That seems awful low for a truck that only has 100k on a complete inline.” Then the head shop guy started mumbling about how that wasn’t all that bad. But I was figuring in my head and figured out that the engine was running at roughly 70% which wasn’t exactly floating my boat as they say. I wasn’t impressed.

Then the shop guy started talking about how they had done the Dyno the night before and they always get higher numbers when they do it during a full moon so that probably explained the low numbers. I guess I looked pretty skeptical because he then tried a new approach. He started out telling us the trouble they’ve been having getting decent roosters, but when I started rolling my eyes he quickly said that he thought the engine was actually set up as a 430/475 horsepower engine so the 376 number wasn’t that bad after all.

Bullshit. No salesman is going to advertise an engine at 515 horsepower when it’s actually a 430/475 engine. I was pretty much done with the shop at this point. So we walked out to where the truck was parked to check it out in person. Good lord there was no way to really be prepared for what we saw then. I’ll continue that in the next post.