Truck you!

Well, after about a year or so of debating if I should buy a new vehicle to replace my '02 PT Cruiser, which ate electronic parts and front-end parts faster than Mad Anthony eats through a plate of cheese balls at Field's Old Trail Tavern.

So Wednesday, I finally did. I bought a 2006 Ford Ranger Supercab XLT 4WD. Oh, and it's bright yellow - they call it "shocking yellow".

I got an OK deal on it - $1000 off sticker (I know a better negotiator could have done better, but considering the PT came with no rebates or discounts, as it was back when they were still in short supply, I'm happy), $3000 in manufacturer rebates, and $7000 for my old PT Cruiser. Considering the condition of the PT - the steering wheel would shake, the brakes would make lots of noise every time I stopped (despite having been replaced 6 months earlier, which makes we wonder if I had jammed a rotor again) and the air bag light would go on and off when it rained- I think I did OK.

So why the Ranger? I wish I could say it is because I drove a bunch of other vehicles and it was the best. I didn't - I didn't test drive anything else. I wanted something with 4wd and that I expected to be decently reliable. Since the Ranger has been in production forever, I figured all the bugs had been worked out. I 've known a couple people - an old college roomate and an uncle - who have owned Rangers/B2000's with well over 100,000 trouble-free miles, and I see a ton of older Rangers driving around the city. The huge factory rebates didn't hurt either.

I'm hoping that I have better luck with this than the PT. When I bought the PT, I was in love with it. Of course, once it turned into a money pit I hated it. I still have fond memories of it, and it was a great car when it ran right. I'm not looking at the Ranger the same way. It's transportation. It's a tool to get me to work and back, up to NJ a couple times a year, and to drag stuff around. While I think it looks cool with it's jacked-up 16" tires and bright-yellow paint, I don't love it as much. But I'm hoping I won't wind up hating it.

There are a few things I plan on doing to it. I need to get a bedliner, probably the spray-on kind. I also want to get a hard tonneau cover for the back - probably the retractable aluminum kind that you can lock, or roll back if you need to carry something tall. I'm not looking forward to spending the money - or the impact this will have on my savings - but it will make the truck way more useful.

So anyway, here are the necessary pics:

one
two
three
four
five