Ok, Ok... We FINALLY Bought A Truck

WARNING: This is a long article so grab your coffee and get comfortable.

We've been hanging out in the Pacific Northwest since the end of May. At first we planned to spend the winter on the coast staying at the various Thousand Trails that span from Washington down to Oregon. Then our new to us brown truck was discovered to have contaminated fuel so CarMax graciously took it back after we'd had it almost three weeks.

Next came truck number two. We had CarMax ship a black 2018 RAM 3500 DRW from Las Vegas to us, but alas it was a Laramie and the finishes were not even close to the brown Longhorn, and it rode rough. We returned it the next day.

So, with two rejected trucks we pondered ordering exactly what hub wanted. I was referred to a person to help us out with ordering a new 2019 RAM. Shaune Pilcher currently works at the Volkswagon KarMart in Burlington but is very knowledgeable about RAM trucks. He even owns a 2007 RAM. Shaune is the GM there so he had authority to give us pricing and walk us through the ordering process.

Scott and I built our truck two ways and emailed them to him. This part is really cool. On the ramtrucks.com site after you build your truck you can export the build URL which is just a set of codes depicting everything you chose on the build page. We built a Laramie and a Limited. Shaune came back with a good deal, offering $9500 off either build. 

After more research and analysis hub decided to go for the Longhorn for the nicer finishes but decided a Limited was not a necessity. I was happy as I felt the Laramie was more like a work truck. We went in and made a deposit and then had to wait...and wait...

We waited five weeks and the truck arrived on the scheduled arrival date. When you order a vehicle the current offer and incentives are applied, but IF the offers and incentives change for the better, you get the better deal. By the time our truck arrived it was employee pricing month and we received an extra $1100 off for a total of $10600 off MSRP. I was thrilled!

Alas hub had minor surgery the morning of the truck being ready so I picked up the check, paid for the truck and poked around it taking some pictures. It was EXACTLY what hub ordered!

We made an appointment to pick the truck up the following day. Upon arrival the paperwork was ready so we spent 5 minutes or so signing everything then Shaune took us to the truck, handed each of us a fob and asked if we wanted a RAM service person to give us a walk through. Since this is our third new truck and fifth RAM, we declined the offer making our total time to make the purchase a grand total of oh 15 minutes! Hub graciously let me drive it home! 

Funny story - I had used the fob to remote start it while we were standing there chatting. I hop in and could not get it to go into drive so I quickly called hub who had already left... he reminded me that when you use the remote start you have to push the brake, then the start button and THEN you can put it into gear. Boy was I embarrased!

It fits perfectly next to our silver truck at our Puget Sound front camp site. We have officially named it "Black Beauty" for obvious reasons. Our Trailer is "Fort Bunny"

We learned that you have to drive 500 miles before towing, then when towing, you have to drive no faster than 50mph for 500 "towing" miles to properly break in the rear differential. It had 8 miles on it when we picked it up and currently has 145 miles. Needless to say we have some driving to do this weekend.  Monday it goes to the RAM service center to have our after market 50 gallon fuel tank installed, can't wait! And we haven't figured out how we will be able to tow at no more than 50mph on I-5...hmmm.