New Tenement On Wheels

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I guess sometimes letting Mrs.C take the lead can be a good decision. Our new tug.


2020 F150 XLT with the 3.0L Powerstroke diesel. 250hp and 440 ft lbs of torque. The Chevy was 285 with 300 ft lbs. Also has a 6' bed, towing package with brake controller and trailer backing assist.(Mrs.C says that should stop my yelling), 10 speed transmission, and a bunch of stuff we haven't figured out yet. 56K on the clock. We got $6K in trade for the Chevy, but that is what we paid for it 10.5 years ago, so that worked out okay. I was hoping for some diesel clatter but the engine is very quiet.

I always thought the Chevy was a smooth ride but it doesn't compare to the Ford.

I'll get some better pics in the morning.

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It meets with the Buster Seal of Approval.


A pic in the sunshine.


It’s not loaded like Mrs. C’s Renegade. No heated seats or steering wheel, no remote start, no power seats, no lane sense(yay), no parking sensors. Other than the aforementioned towing stuff, it has heated telescopic mirrors, auto shut off at stoplights(ugh), kick ass stereo with Bluetooth, back up camera, locking tail gate. Did I mention kick ass stereo? I’m liking the lack of distracting tech. Except the auto shut off, I can’t shut it off but I can disable it temporarily. I can live with it.

[XLsior]

a truck should be simple...

Stop start is weird tech would be nice if it was just a fuse you could remove but these days you need a computer engineering degree...

My van is 25years old, no DPF, no DEF and a basic EGR system that can be deleted or disabled easily without pissing off of HAL 9000

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Agreed, Xman. I am getting used to what tech there is, and that’s the buttons on the steering wheel, the dash display, the SYNC radio, and the trailer assist. The steering wheel is almost like Mrs.C’s car, as is the display. I’m not used to her car either, but it helps.

The radio, I’m liking. Mrs.C is going to add that to her Sirius XM account because I’ll use it more than she does. The Android Auto is the catsass. Plug the phone in and, boom, google maps, Audacy, and Simple Radio. And the phone charges.

And once I get the Pro Trailer Assist sussed, Mrs.C will have one less job she’s not good at. Apparently, I’m supposed to be able to view the ball and hitch when I’m hooking up? Cool if it works. If it doesn’t, Mrs.C still has a job.

Definitely liking the mpg. I fueled up Friday and DTE was around 430 miles. We ran some errands over the weekend, went to a couple of the grandsons games, and I had to run to Indiana and back for a job as the Jeep had a hiccup; now fixed. Filled up yesterday and the DTE jumped to 650. I’m thinking Grandpa’s truck may get the Thanksmas drive duty to Maine this year.

[Sport Rider]

your reverse camera should work fine for lining up the ball and hitch. mine is.

My granddaughter spend lots of time asking my android phone lots of stupid questions for which she will look up stuff on the internet.

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Sounds like both my grandsons.

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Originally Posted by Sport Rider

it coulda been worse. it could have been the black water tank.

Finally. Finally, getting some action getting the trailer repaired. The insurance adjuster was getting ghosted by the estimator from where we bought the trailer. The adjuster asked me if I could call the guy and try. I called and left a message. The estimator called back a few hours later and had no idea what I was talking about. I gave the guy all the pertinent info and he said he'd need to research it and would call me back. I then called the adjuster for copies of the emails between him and the estimator.

Today was 22 days without a response from the estimator. I called the owner of the dealership today and laid it out that we paid $26K cash for the trailer, and yes, it was my fault it's damaged, but we have been waiting 2 months to get the trailer estimated and repaired. His estimator has been promising to get back to both the adjuster AND me but has yet to respond. I provided dates and times of my calls and offered to send over copies of the emails from the adjuster. The owner said that he remembered me and the copies wouldn't be necessary. Then asked if I could hold on the line for a minute. That minute was less than 15 seconds. He had the service manager on speaker and asked me to tell the service manager what I told him. The service manager said okay and thank you, then left the bosses office. The owner apologized ten ways from Sunday and said he'd straighten out this mess.

Not thirty minutes later, both the adjuster and I had an email with an estimate to repair the trailer. I wanted to put my two cents in but decided I'd just let the adjuster do his job and keep my mouth shut. Another half hour later and the adjuster has responded, so things are finally happening.

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Surprise, surprise, surprise. A check got cut by our insurance company yesterday to get the trailer fixed. Probably need to wait another month to get the parts ordered.

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So, we are still waiting to get the trailer in. We decided that they can wait on us for a week and drove out to Maine, again, for Thanksmas via Ontario and Quebec. We took the diesel pickup instead of Mrs. C’s Renegade. The pickup is giving the Renegade a run for its money in the mpg department. We averaged 26mpg on the way out here. It already beats the Renegade in quiet and comfort.

BTW, it’s 100 miles less to get to the kids’ place running through Canuckistan than driving the mind numbing Indiana and Ohio Turnpikes and the New Hampshire 101 brain damage. And turkey week was last month there, so no holiday traffic. Toronto traffic sucks, but it sucked 35 years ago, too.

[Bruces]

Toronto traffic does suck ,pretty sure the 401 has the most lanes of any highway in the world , but the real kick in the balls is the fuel prices .

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You aren’t kidding, B. $100cad won’t fill the tank. It’s not keeping folks off the road, though. Montreal was a headache in a couple of spots, too. But my total time lost to traffic jams was less than an hour. I can lose an hour on the horrid EYE 80/90/94/294 corridor between Illannoy and Indiana, unless it’s an early Sunday morning. And that’s not a guarantee.

[Sport Rider]

Sounds a lot like Atlanta. what a sh*t show that place is. :o

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Originally Posted by Sport Rider

Sounds a lot like Atlanta. what a sh*t show that place is. :o

Been there, done that.

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We finally dropped off the trailer yesterday to get it fixed. While handing over the four digit insurance check to the financial guy, who I've bicycled with, we got to bullsh!ting about things and he asked when we broke the trailer. I said September and he said something about insurance companies being slow. Wrong thing to say.

Mrs.C went off first about the problem being on the dealership end and I had to quiet her down. I just told Dave that the communication from your service guy, Mark, wasn't minimal, it was non existent. To both the insurance company and me. You know the crestfallen look that people get when they can't spin something, that was the look Dave had. Dave said he'd move our rig to the front of the line, I told him not to inconvenience other people, because you inconvenienced me. I don't want to see the trailer back before February.

In other news, we got back from Maine Sunday night to 3" of snow on the ground in Illannoy. The traffic through Canada was light, except at the Sarnia/Port Huron border crossing. Michigan was a bloody nightmare due to heavy traffic and snow. The Stupid was also strong with many drivers. It's normally 4.5 to 5.5 hours across Michigan. Sunday was 7 hours. Mileage dropped to 25.5 due to the traffic and brutal headwinds, but in a 1/2 mile long, pain in the ass to park pickup, that ain't too shabby. We used two less tanks of fuel, round trip, than we would have used with the Chevy.

I think we'll keep it.

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It is. Mrs. C's final treatment was today and she was cheered by staff as she was leaving. We decided to go out for a nice lunch this afternoon instead of the usual. But wait, there's more...


We got the trailer back today, too.