New Truck!

Ever since we found out we were expecting Micah, we knew we were going to have to get a new truck to pull the camper. Our old truck only fit five and there was no way we were going to fit a 6th person in there.

For almost the last two years, we have thrown around many ideas and did a lot of research on what would work and what would not work. We have talked with many people and everybody always said,
"Just buy a SUV, those fit six." You are right, they do, BUT they do not pull the weight that we need. We have researched this upside down and backwards, and the only SUVs that will pull our camper are about 15 years old and have over 200,000 miles on them (Ford Expedition.) There are SUVs that are newer, but they do not have the tow rating that we need.

This all kind of came to a head about a month ago when Matt figured out that he has about eight weeks of vacation this year. And what is the best thing to do when you have so much vacation? Go on a vacation of course!! And not just a short one, Matt is thinking that he wants to go on another 4-5 week trip. I am in favor of a big trip, but then the problem of the vehicle came up again. This last year, we drove two cars wherever we went. Our longest trip was to Illinois to see some friends and we took the truck with the camper and the mini van. That was nice because we stayed in one place the whole time. Our other trip was to Niobrara State Park in northern Nebraska and to Ledges State Park in Iowa. Again, these weren't too far away and it wasn't a big deal to drive two cars. If we got on a 4-5 week trip, we are going to a coast, so we really don't want to drive two cars.

Again, Matt got busy researching all our options and looking at local dealerships to see what they had. We knew the situation with the SUVs, so matt started looking at trucks. He really likes his Chevrolet, so we started there. He has always wanted a diesel too, so he was looking for those in particular. We also knew we had to fit six people, so we had to have a few stipulations. The truck had to be a diesel, 3/4 ton frame, fit six people (which required a bench seat in the front), and be able to pull 10,000 pounds.

Matt found a truck at a local dealership and we went and looked at it one night. Right away we noticed that there was not a shoulder belt or a headrest in the front middle seat. BUMMER!!! There was no way I was going to put a kid there without those two options.  Our next idea was to put Christian up front in his five point carseat. Matt took his carseat one morning and headed back to the car dealership to try to see if it would fit. Unfortunately, the carseat was way too big for the front seat! What about a narrower carseat? We went to local baby store and checked them out. Again, we ran into trouble. Christian was too big for most of the smaller carseats! Or if he did fit, he would outgrow it within a year.

We went back home and thought about this some more. Matt did some looking online and found these carseat vests that Christian could wear, which would work great, but they needed to be tethered into the truck. Since there was only a lapbelt, Matt was convinced that he could install a tether through the frame of the truck! I was not on board with this idea, but we were really running out of options! I was hoping to talk him out of this option really fast!

We thought some more and decided to look at the Ford side of things. I had a friend tell me that we could put a carseat in the front seat of a Ford truck. We had looked online at Ford's, but we couldn't find any with a bench seat. As a last ditch effort, we decided to head to a local Ford dealership last Saturday and see what they had. After looking online for awhile with a salesman, we couldn't really find a truck with a bench seat, so Matt just asked if he could go to the lot and look at them. Most of them did not have any pictures, so we couldn't tell exactly what the truck had in the front.

Matt and the salesman headed outside to look at some trucks and soon Matt came back in with a big grin on his face. He had his phone in his hand and kept saying, "Look what I found." I looked at the picture, but didn't really understand it at first. After I looked closely, it was a picture of a bench seat in a truck WITH a shoulder belt and headrest in the middle seat!!! WOW!!!!

Now that we knew they existed, Matt and the salesman went back and looked closer at the trucks online. They found ONE truck that fit our criteria and within an hour, they had it brought from another dealership.  We all got in and we fit! Megan was able to be properly buckled in the front seat!!!

In the end, we spent all day at the dealership and brought the truck home that night. We did trade in our Chevrolet and I shed a few tears when we left. That truck took us a LOT of miles!!!

We were concerned that the new truck would not fit in the garage when we got home, but we had 1-2 inches to spare on the top. It is about six inches taller than our old truck. It really does look like a monster truck. Hopefully this one will do a great job like our Chevy did! Even if it is a FORD!