I think y'all in the midwest really don't understand the distances we have to drive in the intermountain west for really trivial things.

Let's say I needed to go to a hospital on short notice. From here, that's 130 miles, one-way. Go get parts on short notice? 120 miles, one-way. 180 miles one-way if that dealer doesn't have it. Russ might not have as far to drive, but then again, in Idaho, many of the roads from the back country can't take you where you're going at 75+ MPH either. I know some ranchers here that put on 200 miles in a day doing nothing but ranching around here.

Here, we have to have a rig that we can jump into, fire it up and go, right now. For that reason, we bought new and we maintain it ourselves so we know the job was done correctly the first time, every time. All of our vehicle decisions here are predicated on reliability and not being stranded by the side of the road 100 miles from the nearest wide spot in the road. For the same reasons of reliability, I won't buy new any more -- the new computerized nonsense for emissions in diesel pickups has decreased, not increased, reliability. And the assumption by the manufactures that I'm going to have all my service done in a dealer shop (90 miles away for Ford, 180 miles away for Dodge) is just a non-starter.