Reflections - Trucks and Men

Maverick

Last year, Matt, the owner and brains of Cummings Auto, tilted his head and narrowed his eyes. “The Colorado’s rusting underneath.” Our trusted, optimistic mechanic wiped his hands on an oil-stained cloth and used his calm, respectful voice. “It passed inspection this year. It may get one more year, but . . .”

Spence and I had bought the 2008 pickup under Obama’s Cash for Clunkers. Since the summer of 2009, Spence drove the red pickup over 300,000 miles. He wanted to drive it until he could replace it with an all electric truck. Would the industry produce one soon enough?

One day he grinned and turned his computer screen to show me Elon Musk’s Tesla. “It goes from zero to sixty miles per hour in six-point-five seconds.” His voice softened. “It isn’t available yet.”

The Cybertruck looked like a vehicle from a science fiction movie and had a price to match. I hoped Spence would find a more down to earth choice.

He followed the ups and way-downs of Lordstown Motors. Ten minutes into its first test drive, the Endurance's battery caught on fire and flames engulfed the pickup. Then investors sued the owners for fraud.

Spence also checked the F-150. “It’s available. All electric. But it’s too big for our garage.”

He considered buying a used pickup to give the auto industry more time. Then prices soared, and most trucks would comfortably fit the Jolly Green Giant. The only appropriate pickup he found had rusted underneath and wouldn’t pass inspection.

The second week of June, Spence spotted an announcement for the Ford Maverick. Every night, he studied options and gave me reports.

It’s only a hybrid, but it gets great gas mileage.

It’s half the price of all electric pickups.

It’s size makes it easy to park.

Meanwhile, the Colorado shed pieces during road trips.

Friday evening June 18, Spence asked, “Do you want a date?”

I emptied the sink strainer. “I’m too tired to go anywhere.”

He set Rills on the floor and patted the cat-hair covered space beside him. “It’s a sofa date. You can help me order a Maverick from the Ford website.”

I replaced the strainer, dried my hands, and plopped down beside him.

Spence shifted his laptop, so we could both see, and clicked the Reserve Now button. He scrolled through images of the basic truck in grays, whites, and black. “I like the red.” He clicked the next model up for additional colors and selected “Hot Pepper Red.”

With the color settled, we zipped through options adding a bed extender, manual rear sliding window, and spray-in bedliner. Then came the dealer selection—Crivelli in Franklin, McCandless in Meadville, Grove City Ford, or Titusville Ford.

Spence squinted. “It says Titusville’s the closest.”

“That can't be right. Titusville is hell and gone from here.” I grabbed my computer tablet and searched the location of Titusville Ford—north on Route 173 to Guys Mills. “That’s closer than the other places. But why is it called Titusville Ford?”

“I’m nervous about them. They could be knuckleheads like the guy who sold us the Colorado years ago.” Spence scrunched his forehead. “We know the Crivelli guys are reasonable.”

“Nine and a half miles to unknowns, or seventeen miles to reliable folks. You decide.” I got up.

Rills hopped onto my place.

Spence grumbled, twisted his torso side to side, and hit a button. “We can try Titusville Ford. How bad can they be?” His posture straightened. “It says the dealer will reach out to me within twenty-four hours.” He closed his laptop and petted Rills.

The next day, Spence checked his email hourly. No dealer messages.

“It’s Saturday, Spence. They’ll probably contact you Monday.”

“Car dealers are open Saturdays,” he muttered but reduced his checks to every three hours. When Spence still hadn’t heard by Tuesday, he emailed the help contact on the reservation website. Titusville Ford hasn’t responded to my Maverick reservation. What’s the next step?

Wednesday, someone emailed Spence a phone number for Wentworth Ford. Puzzled, Spence tapped in the number, reached the service department, and got transferred to a secretary who connected Spence with Jason.

Eavesdropping, I gathered the dealership had changed owners. They were building a new showroom, and Jason hadn’t seen the papers in the confusion.

Spence repeated the information that he’d typed into the computer and hung up. “It’s ordered. Write a check to Wentworth Ford. Jason said to take it to him in Meadville Monday.”

Monday, Spence’s DuckDuckGo search only listed a McCandless Ford in Meadville. Gritting his teeth, he called the service department at Wentworth, asked for Jason, and listened. He rolled his eyes. “They’re in Guys Mills, not Meadville. Want to come with me?”

In the Colorado, we moseyed past calf-high corn fields.

View from Wentworth Ford's Sales Window

“Can you hear it? The engine’s misfiring.” Spence gripped the steering wheel. “It never did that going downhill before.”

I listened to the gravely rumble—chugga, chugga, ooof. The intermittent vibrations under my feet and fanny convinced me the engine was having a heart attack.

“Somethings wrong.” Spence took his foot off the accelerator. “I’m turning around.”

“But we’re almost there.”

“How many miles do you want to walk home?”

Not nine and a half. Summoning all my energy, I forced myself to sit quietly and breathe.

Spence turned the truck around in a gravel lot.

The Colorado chugged south. About three miles from home, the front driver's-side wheel CLUNKED.

Had it fallen off? I clutched the grab handle.

The truck lurched to the berm.

Spence muscled the steering wheel.

 The truck swung back onto the road.

“Something fell off.” He slowed but didn’t stop.

At home, he parked out front instead of in the garage. “It’s easier to tow from here.”

I turned on the Crosstrek and we headed north again. The drive seemed longer than nine and a half miles—disorienting, but not as disorienting as the appearance of the dealership.

Instead of floor to ceiling glass windows, the white aluminum-siding concealed everything inside. Outside hung blue signs—FORD in a large, sticking-out oval, WENTWORTH AUTO SALES in faded letters on the building, and labels above three cottage-like doors. Service. Parts. Sales.

We stepped inside the “Sales” door to white-washed cement brick walls. Three wooden desks with mismatched, well-worn chairs greeted us. No shiny vehicles. No new-car smell. No plastic plants. I expected Sam Spade to walk across the tile floor and say, “When a man's partner is killed, he's supposed to do something about it,” but the room echoed silence.

After a few minutes, a man, who resembled a weightlifter with a small shaved head, broad shoulders, and muscular arms, got up from a desk behind a glass partition at the very end of the room. He called, “I’ll be with you in two minutes,” then disappeared through the door to the parts section.

Spence perched on the edge of a desk.

I perched beside him and gazed out a tiny window at the corn field across the road.

In two minutes, the man came back. “I’m Jason. How can I help you?”

“I called this morning.”

Jason’s eyes scanned the room as if trying to locate something.

“I’m Spencer Wells. We’re here to put a deposit on a Maverick.”

“Oh . . .” Jason made the long trek to his desk and back. “I remember now. A fella with the last name of Grace called too. I had you confused . . . Grace . . . Wells.”

Spence and I exchanged worried glances.

Jason accepted the deposit check, copied our driver’s licenses and insurance card, then handed us receipts. “Paperwork is confusing here. We bought Wentworth Ford and sold this building to a window factory. We’re moving to a building that’s still under construction in Titusville.” He widened his stance, clasped his hands behind his back, and, finally, put on a car salesman’s smile. “Your truck will arrive there in the fall.”

My shoulders slumped. “Titusville is a long way from us. We picked this dealership because the computer said you were closest.”

Jason waved an arm in the direction of Titusville. “We can work that out. Once the truck arrives, I can have someone drive the vehicle and paperwork to you.” His salesman’s smile grew jack-o’-lantern large.

After all the Colorado drama and the disorienting dealership building, I neglected to check the odometer for the trip. Driving it twice, however, I distrusted Ford’s posted nine and a half miles. I pulled up Goggle Maps.

Wells Wood to Wentworth Ford in Guys Mills - 15.6 miles

Wells Wood to the new Titusville Ford location - 32 miles

Sheesh.

Since we bought the pickup as if making a purchase on Amazon—with no test drive and no haggling—we might as well take delivery like Amazon. We would accept Jason’s offer to drive the Maverick to us. 

In the meantime, the Colorado saga continued. Spence drove the old pickup to Matt’s the following morning. On the way, the brakes alternated from press-against-the-floor mushy to drum-tight hard.

“All the symptoms mean one thing,” Matt said after a short test drive. “It’s a faulty wheel bearing.”

“I understand the steering and braking problems,” Spence said. “But how can wheel bearings make the engine misfire?”

Matt pointed with his finger to an imaginary wheel bearing in his other hand. “A sensor on the wheel bearing sends messages to the engine making it misfire.” Matt kept the Colorado. “It’s too dangerous to drive.”

But he had a packed schedule. The pickup would have to sit for a week until its inspection appointment on July sixth. We waited for Matt to work his magic on the Colorado so it would run through the summer.

Though Matt didn’t get to the old pickup on the sixth, seventh, or eighth, Spence didn’t worry. “Matt’s busy. His lot is full. He has half his staff. He’ll get to it.”

At four-thirty last Friday afternoon, Matt called. His cheery voice bubbled through the line. “The truck’s done. It’s good. You can get another year out of it. Probably two.”

We only need a season to free ourselves from dropping truck pieces and four digit repair bills.

That’s assuming the Ford factory in Mexico builds our hot pepper red Maverick on schedule despite what Spence labels the “dam pandemic supply chain failure.”

Wentworth Auto Sales