The Beast is in the HOUSE!

Well I thought buying a truck off of eBay would be an adventure and it was. I'm not sure I'd recommend it -- waaaayyy too stressful. Here's the skinny...

Friday morning we head to the airport for the flight to Detroit. Marta was not being cooperative and we get the airport a little behind schedule. A glance at the board shows our flight leaving out of D16. No problemo, we speed through the security lines and off to D. Sure enough there is a flight to Detroit leaving out of D16 -- it's just not OUR flight. Dammit.

Now we're really pushed for time and a sprint for the B concourse wasn't on my agenda, but we did it and I even got a bonus stairmaster workout on the escalator. Board the plane, settle in for a nap and figure after all this hoopla the truck will be a cherry and no more worries. Suckers.

On the Detroit end we have a driver who will deliver us to Pontiac to pick up our Dodge. (There's some car brand humor there, but it's too cheesy even for me.) Unfortunately our nice driver from the other Georgia is new to the job and like us has no idea where he's going. Not the best vibe going on this project, can you tell? We had a couple of wrong turns and tour of a neat little lake neighborhood, but eventually we make our way to the right spot. Oddly there is no sign of our truck upon arrival, the vibe continues.

We're shown into the little smoke-filled office area and assured that our vehicle will arrive shortly for the test drive. Finally it's time to meet the Beast. A picture may say a thousand words, but sometimes those suckers lie. In the pictures, the Beast looks pretty good in the interior. In person, not so much. There are cigarette burns all over the doors, seat and ceiling (WTF?) and the headline features a nice staple line right over the windshield. Lovely, I wasn't expecting pristine, but used hard ain't pretty. I'm starting to feel antsy, but off we go for a drive and it drives pretty well. Back to the dealer and take a peek under the hood -- things look a little rough here to, but after a couple of calls to our "experts" we decide maybe not too bad.

So we close the deal and the Beast is ours for better or worse. The worse starts immediately when it stalls repeatedly backing out of the dealer. (The jury is still out on the severity of this problem, but we'll know more after it's doctors appointment later this week.) The better doesn't kick in for another couple of hours til we're heading down the interstate and the Beast is humming along eating up some road. The Beast is a hoss.

All and all I'm neutral on the whole experience. I don't think I'll buy a vehicle sight unseen again; it was just too stressful. But I think we got an okay deal on a truck that will serve its purpose. Call it a draw.