Hi to all fellow members.
My name is Dave Woods & I live in Scotland; I recently joined the AACI and decided to submit a bit about myself & my Truck for the 'Member Vehicles' section of the site. I'm now the proud owner of a USA Pick Up & hope this feature proves of interest to other members.
Details & Spec of my F150 are as follows:
It is a Ford F150 Series 'Super Crew' Cab fitted with the 5.4 V8 engine & has 100,000 miles on the clock.
It is a 'One Owner' vehicle & sits on 20inch chrome wheels, it has 'Westin Sidesteps, Cruise Lights, Full Twin stainless 'Flowmaster' exhaust finished with 3/4inch chrome tail pipes that allows that very distinctive 'Throaty' burble that only American V8 sounds like, despite the 100,000 miles on the clock it drives & handles extremely well & I look forward to many hours of cruising in it.
Why did we decide to buy a vehicle?
We were on a three month extended stay in the State of Florida seeking to secure the appropriate paperwork required for USA residential status but unfortunately the process would take much longer than the three months we envisaged would be sufficient & during those months spent in Florida we hired a vehicle through a 'long-term Rental plan that was fast becoming a more expensive option than perhaps buying a vehicle to use while in the USA.
We paid a visit to a car dealership on 'East Colonial Drive, Orlando' & the particular dealership we actually bought our Truck from was 'Greenway Ford'
We were looking at F150's that were about 2-3 years old but the Trucks on display all had extended cab's and we were not very keen on that particular Cab design so out of curiosity I asked the salesman if there were any 'Trade' vehicles that they had taken in kicking around and he took us around to look at this particular Truck.
It was obvious that the truck had only recently been traded, as it showed no sign of being cleaned or prepared for re-sale. It was very dirty inside and out & the undercarriage was caked in layers of grime & dirt but we could see beyond it's present appearance & could see the true potential that would result from a good valet of the whole vehicle.
We asked 'Jose' the salesman if we could take it for a test drive & obviously he allowed us to, first impressions were that it drove spot on and we decided we should try to get a deal, this involved spending three hours of determined haggling with Jose that finally resulted with us getting the vehicle at a very much discounted price.
 The Ford franchise carried out a full service & valet of the truck all inclusive of the deal and when we went to pick up the truck it did look far much tidier, we then drove it home and parked it up in the garage where we then proceeded to clean it to our own satisfaction, this involved a further two days of sweating buckets in 95 temperatures but was worth every minute to bring it to the condition it is in now.
While still residing in the States we bought more: Spares and Accessories for it and loaded them into the Truck before taking it up to Jacksonville for exporting back to the UK. The truck shipped to Southampton via Holland but while in Holland some nice people in decided to help themselves to the spares so when I traveled down to Southampton to collect it the first thing I did was to check the oil and water levels & check behind the front seats to make sure all the spares were still safe & secure only to find that all I was left with was empty boxes, as you can imagine I was not very amused but was lucky & fortunate enough to take out Insurance covering the items & have now submitted the relevant 'Claim Form' to the shipping company including all Receipts for proof of purchase of the stolen items.
I left Southampton docks with my blood pressure slowly retuning back to normal during my journey to the Midlands it was from that point that a huge grin spread over my face while continuing my 560mile journey home with (Big Grin still intact) and the note of the flowmaster exhausts sweet music to my ears.
I hope you enjoy this reading this feature (and I haven't bored you to much)
Thanks
Dave
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