Goodbye Herbie Jr, Long live Herbie Jr.

Herbie Jr is the affectionate name we gave to our 2015 F250 4x4 with 8ft bed, full size topper and commercial roof rack. If you are familiar with Herbie, "The Love Bug", you will likely understand the humor in the name.  We bought Herbie after we towed home a good size travel trailer a few years ago with a 2002 F150 4.6l V8 and thought we were going to get stranded as it struggled down flat sections of road.

Well, we ended up selling the travel trailer here in Florida for a few good reasons and since then I had been commuting to work with Herbie. Unfortunately, Herbie does not make for a happy drive during rush hour around Tampa (or any place else likely).  The wife and I had discussed getting rid of it but is just seemed like there was always something going on.. work, family, etc.

Anyways, just about the time that the Irma hurricane was announced my wife prodded me one day to go for some test drives while we were going out for other stuff.  I purposely left the truck at home.. I wasn't feeling all that well that morning anyways due to back pain and planned on just getting our errands done and trying to come home.  Well, we ended up at the both the Ford dealer and Toyota dealer and started asking about trade-ins (again).  The Ford dealer made a pretty insulting low offer for which I responded - "Toyota here we come" and off we went.  I really just needed a small fuel efficient commuter car to deal with the Tampa area traffic to/from work.  We ended up test driving a Corolla and a Yaris; sat in a Prius but we didn't really like the odd feeling dash/cockpit layout.  Toyota made a reasonable offer on the truck and the wife prodded again so guess what.  We made the drive back home, cleared out the truck, went back and came home with a Yaris.

We named the new addition "Gigantor" - can you feel the humor in that.  I will say that we agree that Gigantor has a more manly horn than the Rav4.  Other than that, there isn't much to write home about other than pretty good fuel economy (about 32mpg at the moment - compared to ~12mpg from the gas hungy F250).

When Irma hit, I did have some reservations about not having Herbie Jr.  In the past, I have always used our "big" 4wd vehicle to get around after bad weather - whether it was snow, ice or the tropical storm remnants from a hurricane.  We were fortunate we didn't need it after Irma.  We can always borrow my parents pickup in a pinch now if needed - at least until we get one more vehicle.  Thinking of a used Toyota Highlander - big enough to tow our utility trailer and enough seats to take one car when all of us and my parents, etc are together.

There are aspects of Herbie Jr I will miss but I must admit that it really wasn't a good family fit anymore. Hoping for many years with Gigantor now.

Hoping you know and love Jesus!
Scott

p.s. The out takes.

I have to say that I really felt it in the pocket when buying a car this time.

Yes Honey - I should replace clothes before I get to the point where the jeans split getting out of a car during a test drive and have to wonder around the parking lot and offices with my shirt undone to cover (most of) it while taking care to not lean over. On the other hand, it was a memorable sale for the sales guy and him and all the other workers had a nice laugh.  ha ha ha ha...  I will say that "Honey" did return home with a pile of new jeans not long after this.  Good thing because I lost another pair while laying more tile in the bathroom.  sigh.