Transcription
A few weeks ago, I've decided to sell my Ford Maverick, and now let's talk about exactly why it's been a good truck so far. It's been reliable, so why get rid of it after 7-8 months of ownership? It's kind of crazy, right? Today, I'll tell you the full story.
Almost 2 years ago exactly, I ordered this pickup truck, and I thought at the time that it would suit my needs perfectly. And I think it probably would have. At the time, we had two young kids, tiny little things, so even in car seats, they'd fit in the back. Well, I was driving almost 20,000 miles per year for my job, and so it made sense for me to have something like a hybrid because I'm going to get so much better mileage than with my F-150. The Maverick had just come out, but it was already making waves, was really popular, had really good reviews. The drivetrain is nothing new for Ford, so I trusted the reliability. Even though it was a new model car, it was like, I have all the reasons to buy this thing, so why not?
So, if you follow this Maverick series from the beginning, you'll know that I ordered a truck in September of basically 2 years ago, 2022, thinking I would get a 2023 truck. The unfortunate thing about that timing, though, is that we are right there in the middle of so many different supply chain shortages, conflicts overseas that reduce the parts availability, and generally a terrible time to buy a car. And so I thought, hey, that's fine, I'll wait a little while. What could it take? 3, 4, 5, 6 months? That's no problem. It ended up taking 16 months.
16 months is a really long time. We're talking about almost a year and a half of driving my F-150 into the ground, of not being able to take advantage of the mileage that this truck gets and helping to pay for itself because I'd save so much money in gas. 16 more months of my kids growing and not fitting in the back as well. All these things changing over time that all essentially meant that the Maverick was slightly less appealing.
But the real reason I was looking at a Maverick in general was for work purposes. Professionally, as someone who works in the construction industry, I needed a pickup truck. That was the rule of the company I was working for, and it was also just something that's like logical. You go on a job site, you need something with a little bit of ground clearance, you need something with a bed in the back to throw some messy stuff. So we all had trucks. And personally, my story for commercial construction in my career was in college, I did an internship for basically a year and a half at a construction company where I worked in both the field on job sites and the office. And then something kind of similar happened whenever I worked for this company here in the Phoenix area for 10 years. I was in the field for six, seven of those years, and then towards the end, I was more and more in the office. And so I thought, hey, I don't need a full-size truck, I just need a truck so that when the time comes I have to carry something, I can like check the box, if you will.
One thing I didn't totally expect was the likelihood that I could go back out onto the job sites and have to be out there full time again. And ultimately, that was one of the nails in the coffin of my time with the Ford Maverick whenever that came about, that I was going to be back on a job site, be driving almost two hours a day to get back and forth from that job site. And when I weighed the option of doing that versus attempting to go out on my own, make content, provide some entertainment for you guys, I decided that it was worth making the jump. At that time, we had some savings, it's time to go for this thing. And if you're curious, I'm not full-time with this channel. This is a little bit more of a hobby at this point. My full-time channel is my personal finance stuff, so I can link that in the description if you want to find those videos. But I made a promise to myself that I would try this for a solid year. I've been making videos now for 5 years. Make this next year of effort a full-time effort. So I'm not doing anything else. This is not a side hustle. This is the full-time hustle. And to do that, I'm working from home a lot. I'm not out on job sites. And so I just don't need a truck. Like, why would I have a truck if I don't have to have one?
For me, I've always loved sports cars, small, fast, nimble, lightweight, aggressive little cars. And this is really not that. It's little, but it's not terribly lightweight, it's not that aggressive, it's not that responsive. And so as something to enjoy, or even as something to make videos about that I want to be making videos about, this is not the best choice. And so for the last 10 years of working in construction, I've had trucks because I've had to. And frankly, I'm not willing to spend the money to have a second car that's just for fun because I don't like dumping that kind of money into a depreciating asset. But now the realization hit me, oh my gosh, I could actually have a fun car that's a daily driver that is made for all the things that I like. It's small, it's nimble, it's fast, it's aggressive. I could do that. I don't have to have a truck. Let's get rid of this thing.
And so I started searching online. I looked for the kind of vehicle that would suit my needs where it's still really fun and aggressive and fast. You can still put four people in it, especially two people in the back with car seats. Technically, that's a harder requirement than I thought it would be. And I found the kind of vehicle I was looking for, and I bought one.
So now it's Sunday. As of tomorrow, like 24 hours from now, I'm expecting this truck to be sold. I've got two different private party offers. I've got an offer from Carvana. I've got some dealership in California trying to track me down. I have basically no hindrances to actually sell this thing. So I think the time has come. And you might be thinking, aren't you going to take a bath on this thing because you've only had it since December and now it's July, so you've had it for maybe 8 months, 7 and a half months? Everyone knows that with a new vehicle purchase, that first year of depreciation is the absolute worst. It just falls off a cliff, partially because you've got to pay things like tax, a license, and doc fees from a dealer with a new car, but also just because it's a new car. Yes, very true.
And also, I still think the market is a little bit stronger than it will be in a year or two. I considered keeping this truck because I thought, hey, it's handy to have a truck. It's handy to have another vehicle around just in case you need it. So maybe I should just keep it. It's already paid off. Why not keep the thing? I've got it the way I like I configured it. I got the windows tinted, the seat covers on, the armrest cover on, the floor mats, everything is ready. Why get rid of something that's so good and so new?
But my prediction is, as they produce more and more Mavericks, as they produce more and more Maverick competitors, as Ford comes out with the 2025 Maverick version 1.2 that's got some revisions and some new options and a new look, my guess is that trucks like this will just continue to go down in value even faster because they're just commonplace. Then they're not hard to find. They're able to be got, they're able to be found. And so I think the sooner I sell this, the more valuable it is, the more money I get out of it, essentially.
So how much money did I lose on this truck? As of right now, I think I'm in it about $30,950. By the time we think about all the things I did and the window tint and all that stuff. I didn't pay hardly any interest because I paid off the truck so quickly, so that wasn't really a factor. But still, nearly $4,000? I think I'm $3,950. The plan right now is to probably sell it for $34,000 cash. So I'm probably going to lose $5,500 on the ownership of this truck over 8 months. What is that? Almost exactly $800 a month I'll lose in actual value and the money that I spent. And I'll tell you, these videos do not make $5,500 profit. So this has not been a winning venture for me thus far.
But it will be nice to have the cash whenever I actually sell the truck. That cash frees up other options for our life because it's really nice to have an emergency fund again. We could of course invest it. I could buy some project car. We could do whatever with it that we need to, where we know for sure that the value of this will continue to go down. There's nothing telling us on the future as far as our decision-making prowess is able to tell us that this is going to go up in value. Could there be another crazy car shortage? Could there be another instance where vehicles are going up in value? It's possible, but I think at this point, it's extremely, extremely unlikely. So I'm not going to count on that. I think that was sort of a once-in-a-lifetime event. It was nuts. We did it. Now we're past it. And vehicle values are going to fall that same normal depreciation curve like they always have. That's my guess based on that logic.
The Maverick has got to go. Been a good vehicle. I've enjoyed it. It's been fun making videos with you, and it's time to say goodbye. But I'm still here. My new vehicle is still here, which I've yet to totally reveal to you. So stick around and be subscribed if you want to see all those new videos. I have this whole plan of awesome stuff I can do with the new vehicle to showcase what it can really do. It is much more a performance vehicle, something a lot more fun, a lot faster than this. And so I want to take advantage of that and use it for what it was made for. This truck is so much more around utility, and that car is so much more around fun. So I'd love it if you were here to see that arc of what that car can really do. We'll probably keep it for, I don't know, a year, two years, then get something else. So there's going to be plenty to choose from. I'll be the consistent thing on this channel. So I hope that you stick around and watch. And I'll see you guys later. Bye.
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