Hi guys,

I know… I know… I just bought a car…

There were however certain things about my former 2005 Toyota RAV4 S that were driving me nuts… These included;

1) A tire balancing problem that Toyota would not resolve
2) High RPM at speed, making long distance highway travel irritating.
3) Small sized, meaning while it was comfortable to drive, getting in and out was a bitch for someone my size.
4) Having to “disassemble” the car by removing the seats every time I wanted to haul ANYTHING other than passengers (carrying passengers almost NEVER happened anyway).
5) Insurance on the RAV4 was INSANE because of the lack of a true back bumper

… anyway … I had decided about a month ago that “I am more of a truck guy”. I really like my dad’s big Dodge diesel, so I started looking for Dodge RAM pickups. I had done a lot of research and decided I wanted a 2003 – 2005, with Automatic transmission and a HEMI (345hp versus 230 for the smaller v8, same gas mileage). In town, I found three in contention to replace the RAV4.

Saturday morning, I was on kbb.com (more research) to look up the prices and somehow got linked to cars.com. Cars.com listed a 2005, Automatic, Hemi, Daytona for 17k. Clicking on the ad though got my attention, because it turns out the “Daytona” is a limited edition model (8600?) they put out in either silver or “Go ManGo Orange”. This was the latter, and it was love at first sight. I drove 200 miles to Atlanta Sunday morning and bought it on the spot.

My monthly payment is lower, my insurance went up $2.00 per month (for a HEMI sport truck versus a Toyota 4-banger!) and the comments range from “sell it to me” to “Did it come with free General Lee stickers?

I know, gas prices suck, but hey… The lower monthly payment covers the difference in gas, so the whole thing is pretty much a no-brainer.

Besides, everyone should buy a car which matches their cellphone.

Wayne