Cliff notes: My wife wanted a bigger car because we are planning on adopting or fostering. We sold her 3 year old barely driven Grand Cherokee to the dealership for a profit and bought a 10 year old Escalade.
Full Story: Wall of text warning
Used car prices are out of control right now. That's a fact just about everyone on this forum is aware of.
The wife and I had been looking at 3 row SUVs for her, mostly 15-19 Yukon XL and Suburbans, big money even for well used ones. The only problem we were having was the Suburbans/Yukons in our price range had +80k miles on them. That's a big hike in miles going from her 2018 Jeep Grand Cherokee which was paid off and had only 25k miles on it and then also adding a car payment on.
The Chevy dealer in town offered us a ridiculous amount for trade in on the wife's Jeep, roughly $1000 less than what it was driven off the lot in 2018 for. We asked "what would buy this car from us for?" -same price. So we called their bluff and left with no Jeep and a check with an absurd figure printed on it. We figured it would take us a month or so to find the right car and then we changed up our search criteria.
Good Bye grey Jeep.
Mrs. Racetruck wanted 3 rows, DVD players, heated/cooled seats and roughly 100k miles on the clock. So instead of spending $40k on a 15-19 Suburban with 90k miles on it why not look at 07-14 Escalades or Yukon Denalis? Slightly older, bluetooth and carplay might not be equipped but significantly lower price.
We found a 2011 Escalade, on Autotrader of all places, just south of Charlotte with 130k miles on it priced very reasonably, almost too reasonable. So I cut out of work early we drove up and looked at it, the owner had the original craigslist ad from when she bought the Escalade 4 years ago, every maintenance record through her ownership including $3k in dealer service for airshocks and steering position sensors in the last month. It has scuffs and small dents on most of the panels, window tint that's a little too dark for my taste and a small valve cover leak. All of which made that almost too reasonable price seem more realistic. It's also a 2011 so it has displacement on demand which is about the only gripe I have with the truck. But it checks the boxes and has a 6.2/6L80e drivetrain which I have a spare shortblock for in the garage if catastrophe strikes.
First round of maintenance will include trans filter/fluid change, oil change and a thorough cleaning since the truck has sat outside for the last 4 years of ownership. We also discovered on the ride home that the cruise control doesn't work. Quick searching yielded that the brake pedal switch is a known failure point and is only an $11 part. I would also like to upgrade the head unit to something from this decade. Bluetooth and carplay would be nice to have for cross country road trips but we don't want to lose the rear DVD or steering wheel button functions.
Obligatory first gas station pic.
These rigs take a little getting used to.
Most egregious of the bruises.
Brown Dog approves of the new chariot.