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I took my 2017 Expedition in for a water pump replacement. $1500. The truck has four pages of features I’ll never use. It’s so complex that I don’t want to change something as simple as a water pump. Changing the transmission filter cost $750. There’s no dip stick so you have to capture the fluid, measure it, and put back in the same amount. Ridiculous. Oh, and it has all kinds of satellite enabled features. Why? It has an “infotainment” system. I want to go from one place to another. I don’t need or want entertainment and if I did, I’m sure my phone could provide it. Vehicles are so out of touch with what I, the market, want it’s ridiculous. OH, I paid $17000 for something that cost five times that when new. Someone took one hell of a beating on it. When the first big item fails, I’ll junk it.

I looked at a Mavrick. The only model with a naturally aspirated engine is a hybrid. I’m not buying anything with a lithium battery. It has three cooling systems, the engine, the battery controller and the battery. That’s three times the failure rate. And, again, I can’t work on it.

My next truck will be at least a twenty-year-old model, and I’ll rebuild whatever it needs. I’ll spring for a new interior.

Base model Gladiator, 2022 is what I got.

And Thankfully, Stellantis was shipping some of them without the Telematics module, so I guess they programmed all the trucks to be able to operate without the module.

I yanked the anntenae wire, and it complained about lack of connectivity, but was still transmitting Data to Stellantis. Yanked the Telematics module and it operates as if I didn’t but it’s not sending any data anymore. That combined with a Chip that allows me to shut off all the stupid nanny features like Auto park and stop start, and it’s about the same as my older cars

They do this because it is an extra revenue stream, and they haven’t been called out on it to the point where it hurts the wallet.