4 and change in the Philly area. It's paid off so gas doesn't kill me like it would if I was still makin a payment and I'm still survivin. I've never thought once about trading and takin on 4-5 more years of 300-plus per month on something brand new to save 1-200 in gas. At best it's a wash. And I'm not interested in insuring and maintaining a beater so I live with(actually still love) my Dodge truck. I'll take gas prices into consideration next time I need to hit up the dealerships but I'm not rushing out to spend thousands of dollars on something else when I know I would still need to keep the 4-banger for a few years to make out on the deal. I have one vehicle, it's perfectly maintained and paid for, I have no interest in complicating the situation.
My buddy just got rid of a real nice 04 F150 supercrew and traded it for a girly compact. It's all fine and good if you want to conserve but at the end of the day he will have made car payments for over 8 years and financed negative equity. Maybe the big savings are there and I'm just too dumb to see it, but I don't get it.
They've started getting more flexible at work about taking work vehicles home with gas on the company dime so I'm not exactly turnin my nose up at the offer. Don't get me wrong, until recently I was driving in 5 days a week and it wasn't breakin the bank or anything but it's too good to pass up. Between that and takin the train once or twice per week I'm down to driving my own vehicle to work on average about twice per week, other than that I mainly enjoy my truck on the weekends. The plan is to start using the company ride most of the time. I'm actually not doing it so much for the gas as for the fact that it's a 3.5 year old truck with nearly 68000 miles and I'm tryin to slow it down a bit.
04 Dakota Quad Cab 4x4 V8
Step bars, bull guard, driving lights, dynomax exhaust, K&N intake, billet grille, American Racing Baja 2 wheels, plus-sized Bridgestone Dueller ATs, and lots of other fattening accessories.
10 inch pioneer premier shallowmount in custom box behind rear seat driven by Soundstream Rubicon Lil Wonder
Eclipse SC 8362 6.5 front comps
Infinity reference coaxes for rear fill
Eclipse EA4200 speaker amp
Almpine CDA 9883
Sound deadening in front doors for component woofers.