Bought a new truck today

[drcollie]

It's been 12 years since I bought a delivery truck for my store. Our trusty Isuzu NPR that many of you have seen in your driveway was tired and old. The A/C stopped working three years ago, the rear roll-up door was rotting, trips to New England in the winter corroded the externals and this past week it slowly started overheating in traffic. It's been the best truck I ever owned, and I had to decide whether to put $ 5K or so into it, or trade it in on a new one. My accountant said the write-down exemptions for this year made buying a new one very attractive, so I went to the Isuzu store here in town to see what they had. I got a huge case of sticker shock! My old one cost $ 26K in 2000. While I expected them to be more, I wasn't prepared for $ 55K!

One of the things that makes them so expensive today is the clean air emissions system on the new trucks, which has been in place about two years now. It looks like a small nuclear reactor under the truck and is hugely complex as its for a diesel engine. I hope it never breaks because it looks costly to repair.

It took me three trips to the dealer to get right with that in my mind, but I did finally buy one today. The new truck is SO much nicer - far more quiet, the A/C works great and its smoother..much. This one is larger so I can accommodate two sofas end to end on each side (total of four) and has a power liftgate on the tail which I hope will take some of the load off my back. I'm two years shy of sixty and thirty years of lifting sofas and cupboards into trucks has taken its toll. Now I can press a button and that Hancock and Moore Recliner gets an elevator ride to the deck!

I'll be running the new one up to New Jersey and New York in about 30 hours on its maiden run. Anyone here a graphic artist and want to take a crack on designing the box graphics - give it a shot in Photoshop and post a photo here!

Keep buying that leather furniture and tiger maple pieces. I have to pay for this truck!