Can’t decide whether to sell my truck or not. After losing 2 horses in 2 years, I think I am just done. I’ve got a huge vet bill to pay off now. I’ve got one retired guy left. He is one of those that you keep thinking this will be his last year and then he rebounds and starts acting like a youngster again.
The problem is, I have him at a self care place and do have to pick up supplies for him. And then there is winter to think about; roads around here are not always plowed quickly and my daily driver tries its best but can’t always navigate through the deep slushy stuff.
Truck has been sitting at the farm…I’m afraid to park it at home ever since I had the cats cut out. And I keep killing the batteries by not driving it (Costco has a great warranty, by the way.) But the truck gets horrendous gas mileage and I just can’t get motivated to drive it much.
I could get back all the $$ I paid for it 4 years ago with these insane prices they are bringing.
WWYD?
IMHO I’d keep it, at least while you still have your retired guy. I’d make a point to drive it for some errand 2-3 times a month. If you want to let it sit, take the battery out and bring it home, but if it’s diesel, it really needs to be driven every now and then. Even if it’s gas, the oil needs to circulate every now and then.
If you think there’s even the smallest chance you may need a truck down the road again and can financially swing it, I vote keep it because it will be very difficult to replace it.
Otherwise, I’m sure an argument could be made by a savvy finance person that you would be smarter to just rent a truck one day a month to do your errands. I am not a savvy finance person, as evidenced by owning horses 
@JB Not diesel but man even these newer gas trucks are so fussy! Tried a battery tender on it and battery still ran down. Transmission really didn’t want to get going today after sitting for a while. Must, must drive this one, unlike the older ones that could sit for a month. Sometimes I long for the simpler times!
@awaywego Yea that is what concerns me…got a good deal on this one and won’t find one like it again (at least not for many years.) And I say that I am done with horses then spend an hour on facebook looking at sales ads! 
I try to be financially savvy but yea, the whole horse thing!!!
there are quick dis/connect terminal things you can put on to disconnect, and then reconnect, the negative cable without having to unscrew things. It might be that simple, just disconnect the negative. But, in the cold it may really just need to come inside (and not be set on concrete)
I’m assuming your feed store and hay can be delivered for a fee. Or you could pick up feed yourself in your current vehicle as needed and hay delivered.
If the ability to get around in bad weather is the issue, could you pay a fellow boarder or BO to feed on those crappy days?
Could you buy something cheaper that drives well in the winter? Subaru maybe?
If you can work around those issues, I would sell the truck. I don’t have a truck yet and have been fine with my horses at home. It’s not optimal but workable.
I’d sell the truck, and the daily driver, and get something small with 4wd (Jeep Renegade, etc). Either have hay delivered, or buy a small utility trailer that will allow you to haul what you need.
That truck is a liability FAR more often that it is useful to you. Sell it while prices are high.
^^^All this only if you’re SURE you are done with horses…^^^
well price a Subaru, used ones are listed for more than buying a new one for. We bought a 2020 Forester that is worth more now with 30k miles on it then what we paid for it.
We have a truck but found it is Cheaper to pay the feed store to just deliver since the hay we use has to come from them anyway. Rather than drive the eighty plus miles round trip it just better for me to pay them the $30 delivery fee as they can bring four tons of the hay at a time. They deliver to us then go over to the Purina horse feed mill which is about five miles from us to pick up a return load to the store
My vote would be to keep it. Can’t imagine not having a truck. I would just crank it and let it sit running a few times a month when I went to the farm.
@JB Yea, i just ordered one of those. Looks pretty easy. Since it is a brand new battery I think it would do okay in the truck as long as the truck doesn’t drain it. That would probably be the easiest fix, at least temporarily.
@luvmyhackney Being in the heart of horse country, hay is a major issue and can be hard to get delivered. That is my biggest issue. I think it is one of those things; I am so used to having the truck (and being the person who goes to the barn on the crappy days) it is hard to imagine not doing it!
@endlessclimb that makes sense; I agree with you about the liability of the truck. They are depreciating assets and these prices won’t go forever!
@Warmblood1 that was my thought too! Tried it last week (it had sat for a week), ran it for about 30 minutes or so, turned it off, battery was dead the next day. It apparently needs to be driven to kick the alternator high enough to charge the battery.
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Hmm. I’m certainly not a mechanic but when my battery on my truck was being drained due to something electrical, I’d jump it and then start it and let it run parked and it would charge the battery. It didn’t have to be driven. You might want to think about replacing the battery, it could be that it can’t charge fully. I also had that happen. The battery would die, I’d jump it, run the truck and then battery would die again. Turns out the battery couldn’t charge a full charge so it kept going dead.
My other thought is that if you sell and regret it and have to buy another truck, you’ll probably have to pay more than what you sell it for because prices are crazy. We bought a car a few months ago and unless we committed to buying it right when we saw it, it sold out from under us. It was crazy. There was also zero negotiating room because of it.
I’d probably sell it (it’s giving you problems) and get an older SUV and maybe a cargo trailer.
I have a 2019 Ford gas engine and it’s giving us absolutely no problems, daily driving or sitting for a month. We’ve considered selling it with this higher market and using our old 96 instead and we certainly would do that in a heartbeat if we didn’t live so far from a horse vet. Our 96 works fine for local travel and work. We got a very good deal on the 2019 and it’s now paid off so we could probably cash out on it… still pondering that.
We put one of the switches in my Expedition when DH refused to acknowledge he just wasn’t shutting the key all the way off. It worked fine but wasn’t necessary lol
What your truck is doing would make me tempted to downgrade, at least. Short of hay, you can haul an awful lot in an SUV and maybe there is a hauling option you haven’t considered yet since you had the truck in the mix. Delivery, share loads, hire a hay hauler guy (ask around?). How much are you actually NEEDING the truck… just maybe toss that around and see if it justifies the hassle, both ways actually. Is the hassle of hauling hay a few times a year worth the $$? Check out local listings for an older work truck?
Yep, every other truck I have had I could let sit and run like that. Not this one. But the battery that happened to was bought in May! And the one before that was only a year old. Costco has a no questions asked policy on their batteries or I would be out a lot of money.
You are right about the prices though…they are ridiculous! Wondering how long it will take to normalize them again, if they ever do go down.
My truck is a 2014 so not real new. Interesting that you can keep your 19 going without starting it often as I thought this was an issue with all newer trucks. Downgrading is a definite thought; always kept a newer truck for hauling horses but not too concerned if just hauling hay and stuff.
My “dream truck” if I wasn’t hauling horses would be an old Ford Ranger. I had one in college that I did a T5 transmission swap on (which was a nightmare, don’t recommend repeating that), and I loooooved that truck for hauling engines, hay, you name it. The bed sits so pleasantly low!
It shouldn’t have to actually be driven for an alternator to charge the battery. Since the battery is that new, I would have a mechanic check the health of the alternator
Probably a random short circuit. My older GMC has had some flaky issues too…most do. If I pull the radio fuse it’s 100% these days but if I leave radio fuse in it very occasionally is dead when I go to start it even just left overnight. Not a problem in summer but fatal for the battery in winter! I have one of the rapid disconnect switches on my battery and leave it shut off in winter.
They check the alternator every time and it is fine. The only thing I haven’t investigated is some sort of parasitic draw but looking at the online forums for my truck, this stuff just seems to be a problem with them. The more I investigate the more a different vehicle seems to be the right option. Just wish everything wasn’t so stinking high right now!
Interesting! Guess I need to do a little more investigating into that stuff if I decide to keep it.
