Hello and welcome.

Just to give you an idea of what these guys are talking about...
Sept 2004 I paid twice your budget for a 2000, XLT, scab, 2wd, with 59K miles.

Now if I were 17 and had $7K burning a hole in my pocket for a vehicle and just HAD to have a late model Fseries. First I wouldn't have to have that, I'd buy a cheaper, yet still dependable vehicle with good gas mileage.

But if I did then I'd use 4K for a down payment, Find exactly the truck that I wanted, finanace what ever I had to inorder to get it. Use $1K or so for taxes and license. You've still got about $2K left, use a small part of that for a mid grade sound system, and the rest for perfromance tunes (Troyer) and other upgrades.

Drive it for 10 years, be paying on it for 5 years (or less), after it's paid off keep putting the money you were spending on payments back. Use it for repairs as needed and slight upgrades here and there. Then by the time the truck just falls apart, you will have the money to pay cash for brand new vehicle. Don't worry about tradeing it in or the trade in value of the truck. This one is building your liquid foundation. Keep putting the money back after you've bought your new one too, and you will beable to pay cash w/ the new trade in's for a new vehicles every couple of years for the rest of your life.

 

I would buy some rims later on, not right now though. Also to that guy that said come and get it, I live in Los Angeles where do u live?

 

I am in Maine,a little over 3000 miles away.

 

If he dont take it, and you want to get rid of it, that's really all your asking for it. Then e-mail me! I might know someone else who might be interested.

 

I might let it go in a month or so.I've been looking at new trucks a little bit lately but I haven't talked to any dealers yet to get an actual trade offer.The NADA book says low retail $7300 and high retail $9800.It has high mileage so I'm guessing that I'll be lucky if they offer low retail $$ in trade.I am also guessing that in an outright sale it may be worth a little over low retail.But I could be wrong.
PS: When I'm car/truck shopping I don't talk to any dealers until I find THE vehicle I want to buy. So far I haven't found THE truck I want yet so that's why I haven't found out how much $$ mine would bring in trade.

 

I ussually don't either.
This last time go around was a little different and it actually worked for my advantage... errr kind of. I wound up with a vehicle I am more than happy with, even more than I expected to be happy with. It's been a year and a 1/2 and I show no signs of getting board with it yet. Which is extremly unssual for me. I did pay more than I probably could have if I'd just stumbled on it then went and started talking business. But I likely wouldn't have stumbled on it, and on first site I definatly wouldn't have even taking it for a test drive. IF.... the dealers son hadn't called me to come look at it after I'd drove to his dealership hour and a half away to look at another truck they had advertised a few weeks prior. It's midnight blue and when I pulled onto the lot he had it pulled up waiting for me, the sun was hitting it hard and it looked Purple! I shook my head, laughed and told my wife NO WAY am I driving a purple truck, that had better not be the one he called me all this way for! Sure enough it was, after much convincing I took it for a test drive. Then I seen what was so special about it and why he knew it was worth my time to drive there. I couldn't write the check fast enough. I'd been looking for 2 months and was borrowing a friends spare 97 Blazer indefinatly after my Jeep blew up. So I wasn't in a hurry by any means. But 1/2 way home I was like "DUH I didn't even try to talk them down on the price or get any add ons! What was I thinking?" Then I hit the gas and remembered what I was thinking.
Never looked back since!