I never buy new, have always bought used trucks and cars since day one...closest I ever came was once in mid-1977 when I bought a 77 1/2 Camaro Z28 demo off the lot with 300 miles on it. I always had either a friend or a trade out partner in the car or truck club [we all drove classics up until a few years ago] to help fix anything that went wrong including swapping out motors and transmissions.
On December 27th the streak was broken.
I had been looking at a 2008 Yamaha Grizzly 700 EPS at a local ATV dealer. Decided to pull the trigger, but let the salesman compare the deal with a new [2019]. My current truck has has an extended warranty for the next 50,000 miles and can be covered for unlimited miles after that [bought a 2016 six months ago] so I really wanted to have the ATV covered as well. At this age, I no longer work on vehicles due to time and the loss of a trade out deal with my mechanic friend. The newer one was of course higher in cost, but the down payment and monthly payment were about the same and I was able to cover it with an extended warranty for a very good price. I also got a better finance rate with the newer one. So I bought my first brand new wheeled vehicle with 1 mile on the odometer. It's a Realtree Edge version of the Kodiak 700 EPS 4x4 and has locking differentials, disc brakes, EFI, power steering and high and low range automatic trans.
I will be building a private shooting range at my neighbor's property over the next year and since I have a sawmill, the trees that are in the way that I have to cut down will need to be transported to the mill so I can cut them into furniture wood in the process. I also will need it to drive between the shooting bench and the targets [up to about 400 yards] once the range is finished. Then there's the inevitable camping trips to ATV parks.
So over the Christmas and New Year week, I have had some time off [a very rare thing indeed] so I got all my mods lined up and most of them have been done. Tomorrow, the winch mounting plate and winch go on and next week sometime the LED light bar will top things off. I put two Yeti tumbler holders on the front rack which can double as rifle or pistol mag holders if necessary. The tumbler holders are there because I will be spending hours at a time clearing the 'lane' for shooting. I put two EDC bags and a binocular case on the three biggest idiot label locations and built a removable saw box for the rear rack. Double rifle racks up front and a machete on the underside of the rear rack were also added.
Luckily the woodshop has just enough room left in it to house the four wheeler. I converted a set of four foot wide steps into a steep ramp on the back deck of the shop. Going to try and get the range built before the end of summer this year. Only going to take a bit of time out for Jason's class this spring.
