Well, my 84 ranger was just proving to be too unreliable, so I had to sell the "uncle jesse". Bought it over the summer for $600, sold it for $500, and did about $300 worth of repairs while I had it. Net cost: $400. Not bad, it gave me 10k miles! An employee of mine bought it, and her boyfriend is a mechanic...so jesse is no doubt in better hands.

In turn, I still had to have a truck, and once my dreams of grandeur and the 07 tundras were put on the wayside, I decided it was either a new ranger or a used tacoma. (The new tacomas were too expensivo). I was sick and tired of the passat, and it proved to be unreliable as well, so it was my trade in. I originally picked the used 04 tacoma 4x2 with the inline 4 because they were going to drop $1k off the price. Long story short...thanks to scott clark's toyota city for not letting me make the wrong decision...multiple times! I won't be going back there. Bunch of shisters. So it was a new 4 cylinder 08 ranger. I found one down at town & country ford in charlotte, nc. I called, and after some negotiating, said, give me a bedliner and cd, and I'll take it. They told me they could not do so. The bedliner costs $99 to the dealer and the cd player i wanted was $199. So $300 apart, and they wouldn't meet. I finally folded my cards, and said, ok, i'll take it, and was heading down to get the truck, even though it was an auto and I wanted the manual.

I had a little extra time, so I decided to stop at finishline forward on the way down. To my surprise, of the 5 rangers they had on the lot (its a little family dealership in statesville, nc), they had the exact color, exact engine, exact drive train (manual as opposed to auto), cd player, etc...basically, everything BUT the bedliner. They came in $700 under town & country, and threw in the bedliner which I will soon have installed! I drove it home that day.

I'm so very, very happy with my decision. With the "Boss Hog" (nickname fo the new 08 ranger) payment is $20 less than the passat payment per month (but obviously goes on an extra 1.5 years). The best part, the four cylinder engine. It's got a good bit of torque for a little engine! So it does what I need, when I need it to...like pull a little 4x8 trailer. It pulled that trailer loaded down with lumber no problem. Best part of all, I'm AVERAGING 27-28 MPG!!! For any truck, that's a PHENOMENAL number for gas mileage. I drive 30k miles a year, so that's a huge cost savings compared to say, the tundra, that would have max'd at 20 (which was probably closer to 17-18). Where the ranger beat the little tacoma from scott clark's toyota crap city, something i didn't consider...ride height. I have very good vision of the road, and sit as high as most other trucks. The tacoma 4x2 sits like a girly car. I never plan on selling this truck. It's a great little standard cab that will be perfect for me for a long long time!

 

Always sad to see an old friend go, but it's always nice to put the keys to a fresh vehicle in your hands and know that it's yours.

Enjoy it, it should give you years and years of great service. Congradulations.

 

Congrats on the new Ranger.

 

Congrats on getting the truck you wanted not the one you were going to settle for! I did that with my truck because there were only 2 in a 3 state area equipped like I wanted and they were both at the dealership where I worked. I like the truck other than it is black and I wanted white. Oh well.