I wanted to get my wife a new car, so I strolled into my local Ford dealer as I did about a year ago, find the woman I always deal with and tell her I'm back in the market. My wants are pretty simple, a V8, rear air, sunroof and third row seating. The rest is negligible. Well, Ford has cut V8 Explorer production by like 10000%. They have one, a 2008 program car. It had sync (no navigation) and that stupid ass $2000 rear power folding seat option. (who the hell spends two large on electric rear seats man!) Anyway, blah blah it has this and that, and 7000 miles on it, the dealerships owner has been driving it to his beach house. Well she tosses me the keys, says take it home for the weekend. (I did work for a Ford dealer one time, I know all the reasoning behind this) So, she likes it, i'm cool with it, though the 292HP V8 feels more like a 200HP V6. I go in monday, and they appraise my 2004 Explorer Limited at $8000. Yea, ok whatever, we'll get back to that. They want me to pay sticker price, minus a $5000 rebate on a used 08 (call it program car, call it used, whatever, its not new) Total walkout right at $32,000 for a used 08!!!:shifty: I'm like, come on man, I can get a 09 for like $1000 more, you'll have to do better than that. Nope, not willing to deal on it. So I got pissed, left, and went and bought something else. A 2007 Cherokee SRT8. Man, if only Ford would offer something like that. 425HP 6.1 liter hemi all wheel drive, pass anything you want except the gas station. Navigation, rear tv's, intake exhaust system, the whole works and bought it for almost 10 grand less than the boat anchor dragging explorer was. Other than my wranglers and cjs, this is the first ever non FoMoCo vehicle I've ever owned, and I'm 30 now and have owned at least 50 different cars. Congrats to Ford, they pushed me right out the door and down the road to find what I wanted at a reasonable price.
rant over
rant over