With Rita leaving, I’m ready to be Two Wheels Only(tm) however, there are a few reasons I need four wheels. Among other things, I do woodworking as a hobby so carrying a medium sized piece of wood would be slightly difficult without some means of transportation. And now I can do some of the things I’ve been wanting to do. Such as bicycling in the mountains. We would ride around town but never go very far outside city limits. So I can throw my bicycle in the back of the truck and head up into the mountains for a bicycle ride on Peak to Peak or even go mountain biking. Plus, I want to go skiing again.
I was a little disappointed when Rita convinced me to sell my 95 Ranger back in 2002 or so, so that’s what I started looking for; another Ranger. Rita’d done a lot of research at the time and found it was the best of the smaller trucks. I set a personal price limit of around $4,000. In checking, we found quite a few in the Denver area on Craigslist and I found a few on Autotrader (dealers of course). I sent emails to the more interesting ones Rita found. They were from 100,000 to 200,000 miles and from $2,000 up to the $4,000 mark I set. Ages were from 1983 or so on up to about 2004.
By Friday, I’d exchanged e-mails with a seller in Greeley. They were offering a 2001 Ranger, 3.0L 6 cyl with minor hail damage and a tear in the drivers seat for $3,700. I checked Kelly Blue Book with the information I had and found it was a bit underpriced. Suspicious, I let them know we’d be out Friday after 5pm (closer to 6pm based on the location). I did a pretty thorough look over the vehicle. No obvious leaks (checked under the engine), exhaust is a bit rusty and the tires were a little soft (20 lbs pressure vs the 44lbs recommended) but it braked straight (hands off the steering wheel), the rotors were fine, no cloud of smoke of any color. All the lights worked (well, but two). It was a 3.0 6L and it had a cassette player.
I told Rita that it looked fine from an operational standpoint and turned the negotiations over to her. She talked them down to $3,500 and it was mine.
We went over to the gas station to put air and gas in the truck. 24 lbs of pressure and 16 gallons of gas ($57!) and I’m on my way home with Rita following. It moves well and I had a damn big grin on my face by the time I made it home.
Sunday Rita bought a big metal frame futon and a couple of end tables for $55.
We went over in the pickup and brought them home.
Oh Yeah. 😀
I took it over today to get temp tags, then the emissions inspection, and finally at the end of the day, I skipped out at the end of work to run over and get new tags.
