Let me tell you what, having been out of the diesel world for a long time I was way behind the curve when it came to picking out the perfect tow/adventure vehicle for us. Sarah and I narrowed our search down to Ford vs. Ram and having just found out that we were going to be mobile and closing on the sale of our house we didn’t have a huge amount of time to search!
Originally we both agreed that used was our best bet because we couldn’t afford a new truck right away, this set us in motion scouring through tons of listings and making the phone calls to the aggravating stealerships in NC and surrounding states. Sarah likes to call them vultures(salesmen) and I have to agree, the world of car shopping isn’t for the feint of heart. We quickly got super aggravated because we didn’t want to travel without having some information or basic numbers to start, dealerships now are very against working over the phone even if you are several hundred miles away. I get it they want to get you in the door and sit you down for the whole sales adventure, in the world of sales I always learned that you needed to be fluid and willing to work with the customer to accommodate their needs. I also quickly realized that salesmen have next to no knowledge about the vehicles on their lot, again I get it you have a huge lot with a bunch of autos out there and I am interrupting your oh so precious time. I just couldn’t wrap my head around someone trying to sell something without knowing simple specs about it, I just wanted simple answers about towing capacity and weight ratings. I am getting off on a rabbit trail here but Sarah and I began to realize two things. First our last experience buying a vehicle at Midstate Toyota was way outside the norm as far as experience (insert remark here about Toyota offering a fullsize diesel with a decent tow capacity), and that used diesel trucks were insanely expensive. We got so aggravated that late one evening I made a call to Matt Gillilan with Neuwirth Motors and hoped for the best.
Within an hour we had an offer in our email on a brand new Ram 2500, I had sent Matt our basic needs through text thinking that he might have a used truck that would fit in our price range. Imagine my surprise when the offer we received was for a brand spanking new truck cheaper than the used ones we were looking at with more options! Sarah and I were picking up groceries in WalMart and people probably thought we had lost our minds we were so excited. We made plans to drive to Wilmington the next day 2.5 hours away.
While Sarah and I made the trip to Neuwirth doubts began to rise up, even though Matt was a friend and we had worked together through the off-road world before a salesman is a salesman at heart. What hidden fees or tricks were planned for us when we get there, by the time we arrived both Sarah and I had worked ourselves up and were ready for a hardcore day of negotiation. We pulled up and there sat Matt with keys ready to take us for a ride, no talk of numbers or crazy sales tactics just a couple of dudes (and a Lady) talking about trucks. Matt was super knowledgeable about the Ram and was able to answer everything we fired at him, once we decided this was the truck for us Sarah started to get nervous. She was super excited but was still waiting for the one two combo of these are all the hidden fees and junk that will make this truck way out of our price range. Once again we were on guard for no reason, we went inside the dealership (notice I didn’t say stealership this time) and the offer we had received was exactly what was in front of us. Throughout the whole ordeal we were treated like family, I don’t know if Matt told everyone before we came to treat us differently but man it felt like the red carpet was out and we were on it. There was no vulture experience or haggling at all, I am sure we probably could have negotiated the price down from their original offer but honestly based on the experience and treatment they gave us we probably would have payed more. Experience is everything and add in that they had the best deal in 5 states I was very pleased.
We have had the truck for awhile now and are so pleased with it’s performance and comfort, towing our camper is a dream and even though the truck is a big truck driving it to the store doesn’t feel like a job. I have to say that Sarah does do a better job at parking it than I do, she gets it right in the lines every time. Join us in the future as we talk about outfitting “Noah” to not only be our tow rig but also our mobile adventure truck!
