Is there a Ford Raptor in my future?

UPDATE: The Raptor did have damage in the transfer case. The vendor cracked open the case and found shrapnel. The seller and the vendor decided to replace the transfer case with a new Ford OEM case. They estimate the job will be complete on Thursday. I have a trip planned to Alturas, CA for squirrel shooting this week. Susan gets off for spring break Thursday. If everything goes well with the Raptor repair, we will be flying up on Tuesday to get it. Fingers Crossed!

Yes, I think there is. As my 2003 Excursion turns 20 years old this year, I thought it might be time to think about replacing it. The Excursion has been a necessary vehicle in my fleet as I needed something heavy enough to pull my 30' Airsteam travel trailer and my 6 place golf cart trailer. As my career has progressed, I am not doing golf cart sales in the same quantity, nor am I doing golf cart rentals anymore. As for the Airstream, although I have loved that coach since the day I bought it in 2003, it may have outlived it's purpose.

I may not need to keep the Excursion much past 20 years as I really do not have to do heavy pulling as I once did. We also have a new motorhome and we may not need to keep the Airstream either.

It may be time to look at a replacement for the Excursion. I began to thing what that might be. I initially had an interest in the new electric Ford Lightning coming our this year. It is going to be very expensive and such short supply that dealers will be adding significant amounts to the MSRP. My buddy Steve Sandgren drives a 2020 Ford Raptor. The 2020 Raptor is the second generation of the Ford Raptor which begun in 2015. I had seen an episode of Car Issues on Motortrend TV, where the purchased a cheap Generation 1 Raptor and tested it out. They purchased a high mileage Raptor of just shy of $18,000, and put it through it's paces. They took out and abused it in various situations. They did break it. The takeaway was that it was a very capable truck and would perform on or off road. They ended up spending about 4k to fix it, and ended up with a very capable truck.

I began to do some research to see if I could find a good Gen 1 Raptor at a price I wanted to pay. I opted to stay with a 2014, which was the last year of the Gen 1, and look for something under 100K miles. These trucks are not rare, but they are not everywhere either. A search with any of the car buying aps would yield a few good examples of the vehicle. I was finding that nearly everything that met my criteria was around 40K.

After a week or so of searching I was able to find a 2014 Raptor in Washington State that looked good and appeared to be well taken care of. The mileage was more that I had wanted but a combination of the price and condition seemed to fit my need. I agreed to purchase the truck and bought two one-way tickets to Portland to pick up the truck today. I received a call on Wednesday afternoon from the owner. He had washed and prepped the car for sale and in the process decided to run the truck through all of its functions. He put the transfer case in 4 low and it stuck there. He exercised the controls and the truck, but it appeared something was definitely wrong. He decided to take the truck to Ford and get it repaired. He agreed to honor the price and the sale, no matter what he had to repair the truck. As it sits now, the truck is at a Ford dealer in Portland getting repaired. I have cancelled my flight and we are hoping that we can finish up the deal in early April.

If everything goes as expected, I will have a new-to-me 2014 Ford Raptor in Early April.

Well, maybe not.... It has been 11 days since it was taken to the shop, and not a word about what is wrong. I am hoping to fly up on Monday, but I am not so sure it will be all sorted out by then. For now, we wait.