Uh-oh. Bad news today. The irritating clicking noise emanating from our truck engine finally made the sound when we were in a location close to a Ford dealership. We were headed for the New Mexico Museum of Art in Santa Fe for a visit when the noise made itself known so we abandoned our day’s agenda and drove straight to the Ford dealership.
Initially, the Ford guys thought it was a sensor issue but once the tech got ahold of it and had an opportunity to unleash his fancy tools, the news got worse. Our beloved Charlotte was diagnosed with a lifter and camshaft problem and we need a new engine. Heavy sigh.
We bought an engine warranty when we bought Charlotte that covered us up to 200,000 miles and we were at 175,000 miles at failure so I figured we were okay. Unfortunately, I listened to the salesman when we bought her instead of reading the extremely fine print on the policy itself and found the warranty only covers the engine or turbo for $3500 which is less than any substantial repair cost. A turbo alone is about $6000. Purchasing a repair warranty from Alpha Warranty Services, repeat – Alpha Warranty Services is a poor decision and should be avoided at all costs. We paid $1800 for the warranty at purchase and the maximum claim outlay by these reprehensible crooks is only $3500 so I brand these assholes as bandits, shitheads and scrotums. Do not buy an Alpha warranty. Never assume the warranty provider will do what the dealer promises which was to repair any mechanical issues for nothing other than $100 deductible. When I get back to San Diego, I am going to visit the car salesman who sold us the warranty alleging they would fix everything that went wrong and I might saw off his penis or maybe cut off his little spindly arms and legs and shove them into his bottom. I am pretty pissed off.
We are left with few options. We can buy a used truck with less than 100,000 miles to replace Charlotte for about $35,000 or fix the engine for about $18,000 out-of-pocket. After getting on the internet and looking at used truck costs, it became quite clear that the $18,000 to fix the truck is the most economical way to go. A new engine is guaranteed by Ford for 2 years / unlimited mileage so it appears we are going to give Capitol Ford a shitload of money to replace our beloved Charlotte’s motor.
We spoke with Santa Fe Skies RV Park about keeping our trailer in their park for about 10 days and they said “okee-dokee.” We went to Enterprise Car Rental here in Santa Fe and got ourselves a shiny Camry to drive about while we await repairs. I just was a bit flabbergasted by the truck repair cost but we are unlikely to give up our traveling lifestyle due to this irritating and costly setback. We will get through this but it is unlikely we will do it while smiling.