Been There, Done That: A car with abandonment issues

So we got the new-to-us car in November and we were perfectly happy with it — until our son was showing off his new ride. A 2017 F150 pickup truck. That cost less than what we paid for our 2019 Jeep Cherokee Lariat. Granted, our car is awesome, but it’s not a pickup truck. And with all the yard-saling and thrift store shopping Dave and I do, we could really use a pickup truck. But it’s too late now. Should have thought of that six months ago and been shopping for a truck instead of an SUV. Too late now. Or is it?

So I called the bank lady to see if it’s even possible. I’ve never traded in a vehicle that wasn’t already paid off. Is that even a thing? Turns out it is a thing. You can do that. Alrighty then.

I started making a list of all the great attributes of the car we have. It’s only six years old with only 85,000 miles. It’s still got an extended warranty on the power train and an additional protection package inside and out. It doesn’t need oil sprayed to protect the underbelly and if we get a rip or a stain in the interior, it’s covered.

It’s got brand new tires, brakes and windshield wipers and just had an oil change. Wow. Wait. Why are we wanting to get rid of this vehicle? Oh yeah, because occasionally we need a pickup truck to haul home our purchases from a good estate or rummage sale. I even went so far as to Google available pickup trucks in our area and price range.

And mentioned it to a few friends who all said the same thing. “If you need the use of a truck, let me know, you can take mine or I’ll pick up and deliver whatever big thing you two managed to buy.”

Alright, we can borrow a pickup whenever we want, so I guess we’re good. We’ll stick with what we have. It’s really a great car anyway. Oh but wait, if you think the car didn’t get wind of the possible trade deal, you are sorely mistaken. No sooner did we decide to “settle” for what we have, then our vehicle made us really appreciate its talents — when they were taken away.

It was an unusually warm afternoon in springtime in Ohio. So warm in fact that I thought I’d test out the A/C in our new car. We got it in November, this was my first chance.

This new vehicle has a super annoying habit of shutting down every time we stop. I guess you can push a button to make it stop that, as long as you push it every time you get in the car. Whatever. So I left work at lunch time and stopped at the light. It’s warm, I’ve got a minute, I wonder if the air conditioner works. I pressed the down button to make the air coming out of the climate control to be cool and the car shut off. Like completely. Not the half stuff it does at the light, we were already in that mode.

And it wouldn’t turn back on. It wouldn’t do anything, no matter what button I pushed and trust me, I was leery of pushing anything. I couldn’t even get the hazard lights to turn on so I didn’t get hit while I was trying to motion the cars behind me to go around. I called for a tow and he was Johnny on the spot. I was home in no time with a car that was like a dead brick. We spent the afternoon outside in the glorious sunshine making calls regarding warranties and dealership availabilities. Nothing doing there. Couldn’t tell if it was covered under warranty until it went to the dealership and couldn’t do that for a couple of weeks.

Earlier that day had been about toughing it out at work until quitting time and then we were headed to the camper for a weekend of fun. Now, we were stranded at home, yuck.

Friends picked us up and took us out to our camper. Rather be stuck there than at home. We’ll figure out about the car later, I guess. Fortunately, our next door neighbor is also our mechanic. He fixed our car the very next day and we caught a ride home on Sunday. All is good. And a very important lesson learned — never talk about trading in your car in front of it — Karma is a you-know-what.