I bought a truck

Ever since moving from Illinois to California, then to Nevada, I never owned my own car. I didn’t ever really need one, as in California, I just borrowed other people’s cars, and in Nevada, I lived in a place where everything was conveniently in walking distance. When I did need to go somewhere decently far away, renting a car for a day or using rideshare services was way cheaper than covering all the costs associated with actually having a car.

However, there are some changes happening to my living situation (which I will explain in further detail sometime soon) that is requiring me to get a motor vehicle. I’m obviously not going to lease a car, because most people who know how to calculate the real numbers behind leases know it’s an absolute scam, so I started doing some research on what vehicle I wanted to purchase.

I was considering getting something affordable and compact, but I’m the type of person who would buy a vehicle and stick with it for 10+ years, so I wanted to buy one that I knew I would be happy with at least 8 years from now. If I get something too economic and cheap, I was afraid I would get sick of it after a handful of years and regret underspending on my vehicle. I also didn’t want to get something too small and compact because there is a very real chance that I will literally be married and have a kid in under 8 years, and having too tiny of a vehicle would make transportation inconvenient.

I also recently became a fan of very large vehicles thanks to the local Enterprise Rent-a-Car never having sedans available when I booked them, then giving me free upgrades to pick-up trucks and SUVs. I had driven sedans my entire life (my parents had a Buick LeSabre, Infiniti I35, and Honda Accord), and at first, because of the comparatively larger size of pick-up trucks and SUVs relative to sedans, I thought I would never be able to effectively maneuver anything other than a sedan.

But, after Enterprise repeatedly kept giving me pick-up trucks and I started getting used to them, I realized that there was a whole different world of vehicles that I was missing out on. I got used to the high ride height and ground clearance of pick-up trucks, and it boosted me up into the air enough that I could see over anything. The maneuverability was still a small problem, but I eventually got used to it, and the back-up camera was helpful as well.

Because of my positive experiences with these huge vehicles, I decided that I wanted to get a mid-size pick-up truck. I didn’t want an SUV because it had worse fuel economy due to the extra metal in the rear of the vehicle, and it had less versatility in terms of cargo. I didn’t want a full-size pick-up truck because most of them just come with higher towing and hauling capabilities and a higher price tag, and I would never even come close to towing or hauling anything near the maximum capacity of a mid-size pick-up truck, let alone a full-size one.

Within the mid-size pick-up truck category, I immediately eliminated the Honda Ridgeline because the exterior styling looked too close to an oversized sedan with a truck bed. I also immediately eliminated the Nissan Frontier because it severely lags behind the rest of the segment, and it has the worst safety scores. I ended up eliminating the Chevrolet Colorado because it’s the twin of the GMC Canyon, and if I was going to opt for that model, I might as well get the more upscale version of the truck.

Between the Toyota Tacoma and GMC Canyon, I opted to go with the GMC Canyon mainly because of aesthetics and interior functionality reasons. Everything both inside and outside the GMC Canyon appeared to be much more polished, and the Toyota Tacoma had less of an aggressive exterior appearance in terms of styling. One thing that I did think hard about was the historical reliability of the Toyota brand, but within Toyota, the Tacoma is usually considered the least reliable vehicle anyway, and I haven’t really heard of American trucks being that bad, so I decided to go for the GMC Canyon.

Stock 2018 GMC Canyon from AutoNation Henderson

I resisted going straight for the maximum Denali trim, and instead opted for the lower trim and decided to “build my own Denali.” A lot of the features of the Denali were things I did not really need, or were standard add-ons that I could just install myself on a lower-trim model for less than half the price. With availability, price negotiations, and all other things considered, I came to the decision of purchasing a truck at the SLE trim level.

The stock image above provided by the dealership is what my truck looks like right now, though I have a long list of modifications that I want to make to the truck. Some of the items that I can install myself, I plan on purchasing the parts off Amazon and working in my garage, but for everything else, I’m looking to set up an appointment with an auto customization shop within the next week or so to get that all done.

 

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