We SOLD the Tundra! After literally just wrapped up building the 2017 Adventure Tundra to perfection, it sold. It only completed a few longer trips after being finished, crossing into a mere 15 states. Signing over the title, it was pretty sad to see that we owned it less than two years and racked up just around 12,000 miles total. Around here though, we’re always justifying our needs vs. wants and what provides value to our lives now vs. in the future. Ultimately the decision was made to let it go.

Financially

This is a personal finance blog after all, so let’s start there. The dollars and cents need to make sense.

Modified Vehicle Value

When modifying a vehicle, you almost never recoup the expense of the parts added. While there is a large market for stock vehicles (most consumers fit in this bucket), as soon as you start customizing a vehicle, the interested market size for reselling drastically decreases. A simple example of supply and demand.

To sell a modified vehicle you need to find the right buyer that desires the same modifications themselves and actually values the parts added. The right buyer knows they would have to pay a much higher overall cost if they were to buy a stock vehicle and modify it identically themselves. Not to mention the research on what fits, what works well together, lead times, install labor, shipping, powder coating, testing, fixing, iterations, etc.

We purchased the truck with lots of aftermarket parts installed already, at a sale price that was much lower than if we were to buy a stock truck and buy all the parts new as well. We then removed and sold many parts from the truck that we didn’t prefer to offset most of the cost of adding the things we wanted. All labor was performed by me so no extra cost added there other than my time (this is why I DIY). Lastly, used vehicle values have skyrocketed over the past year and a half which is really the saving grace of the whole deal. Read on.

The Current Market

I’ve been perplexed by people selling their primary residence due to the rise in housing prices. Sure it’s a quick cash payout right now in this very moment, but then….you still need a place to live. The only way to truly cash out in the current “sellers market” is if you have more than one property and keep at least one property to live in. Your primary residence rising in value also increases your net worth. Sure it’s not an easily accessible asset but by net worth calculations it’s the same thing as selling the house and holding the cash. You can cash out refi, or leverage your property in other ways. By continuing to live in the house you retain the appreciation of the asset, and still have a place to sleep!

Turning to vehicles, I found that I was being hypocritical. Why would my same theory not apply to trucks? We have more vehicles than drivers, so it makes financial sense to sell the one that’s raised the most in used market value and cash out while the market is high. Especially since used vehicle values tend to be more volatile than real estate due to their depreciating value nature. This solidified the tough decision to cash out this particular investment at this particular time.

Life Value

DIY Hobby

While I had countless hours of labor wrapped up in research, install, and refinement; that is my favorite hobby. I enjoy the tedious task completion. The reward of turning something plain into exactly what I envisioned. In this case turning a truck into a comfortable and very capable off-road camper. Learning many new insights along the way and sharing them with others is equally as rewarding. For DIY projects as a hobby, there will always be endless opportunity for more. As long as I’m still interested in learning.

Outdoor Hobby

Actually getting out and using what I purpose built with my family; airing down the tires and crawling long forgotten paths across eastern Kentucky to remote camping destinations seeing hidden landscapes and relics of the past along the way. That’s always the end goal in a build, and we did just that. We succeeded and it was beautiful! Did we get our full use out of the build? Not at all, there are endless places to explore. But, we did enjoy the time we had with it.

We’ll continue to car camp, it’ll just look different now. No more off-road travel, no fancy 30 second camp kitchen setups with a fridge, no hard sided sleeping area…for the time being. Getting back to a simpler version of camping may be refreshing and relaxing. Enabling us to slow down, savor time with our growing family, and instill a sense of outdoor adventure in the little ones.

What’s next?

The most commonly asked question we get when someone hears we sold our beloved Tundra, “what’s next”?!?!? Well you’ll just have to stick around and find out. We’re toying with the idea of having a base camp type setup that we could then go off and explore single areas in more detail. Hiking, fishing, swimming, and maybe even tow a dedicated off-road rig. No idea if that would be in the form of another small built Toyota, or a side by side, or maybe try a Jeep?

For now, the funds are back into more investments on the pursuit of early retirement. DIY projects will be less vehicle related as we work on other family focused areas of our lives.

Do you agree with our decision? Does it bring the most short term and long term value to our lives? Comment down below.