It was time. The 2015 Jeep Willys had 140,000 miles on it, the check engine light was on (probably needed a new oil pump (which on a Wrangler is a potentially big deal)), and, well, it was just old. Didn't really meet our needs any longer. So Julie and I went shopping for a new(ish) car.
Well, to be more precise, we went shopping for a new truck, in this case a Toyota Tacoma. We (by which I mean Julie) did extensive research online, finding that most dealers in our area only had one, maybe two, on the lot. Services like CarMax or Carvana had plenty, but they were all somewhere else and we'd have to pay to have them shipped here. (Which isn't a bad thing in and of itself, that's how we got our last car.)
And then we found Twin City Toyota in Herculaneum, about a 45 minute drive. They had not one, not two, but nearly 10 Tacomas on the lot, in a variety of colors and trim. So off to Herculaneum we went.
While we (Julie) were researching what we wanted to buy, the team at Twin City had researched what they should sell. Unbeknownst to us, the 2024 Tacoma is "a fully redesigned mid-size pickup truck with a new turbocharged four-cylinder...". (Why would we know that, we weren't looking for new.) But the good folks at Twin City Toyota certainly knew.
Expecting some potential backlash against the "fully redesigned" 2024 Tacoma, they stocked up on 2020-2023 models to be in position to meet that need. Which worked out great for us because we had several options to choose from. We test drove three, from a base model SR all the way up to a TRD Pro. A perfect, almost textbook example of the buyer's journey and the seller's journey intersecting. Except, maybe, for one thing.
As it turned out, neither Julie nor I were really wowed by any of the Tacomas. Which we wouldn't have known had we not had a chance to try them all out.
But... this story has a happy ending for both buyer and seller. We didn't end up with a Tacoma, which is what we thought we wanted. Instead, we left Herculaneum with a 2023 Jeep Wrangler 4xe, which is what we realized we wanted.
That selling / buying moment is a whole other story.
About gBRETT miller
Hey, there! I'm gBRETT (the "g" is silent). Captured here are some daily musings and observations, an ounce of perception and a pound of obscure. Subscribe below if you’d like to get a daily email, or just stop back every now and then if that's your preference. Either way, thanks for stopping by, and thanks for reading.
