I never owned a car until I moved from Boston to Los Alamos, NM in the summer of 2002. A friend from Boston said that she had a 1990 Subaru Legacy sitting at her parent's place in Albuquerque and that it basically never got used. She told me that if I would pay her car insurance, I could use the car whenever she wasn't in New Mexico. So we transferred the insurance over to me, and I had myself a free car. It wasn't mine legally, and when she did come back to visit her parents (which happened exactly once), I had to drive it down to Albuquerque for her to use and then come back and pick it up.

The Legacy Wagon was basically in good shape, though it felt like the automatic transmission might have been a little wonky and the suspension was pretty shot. I felt like it could get me around town, but I was unsure driving it long distances. It seemed like it probably had some expensive repairs looming in the not-too-distant future.

At the beginning of 2003, my friend announced that she wanted to sell the wagon. And furthermore, that if I didn't want to by it she was going to need to take it back so that she could sell it to someone else. So I was faced with the prospect of buying this half-assed station wagon or going without a car until I could find a replacement. Keeping in mind that I was pretty low on funds at the time and that the price on the wagon was more than reasonable, I choose to buy it.

The wagon worked well enough, but it was lacking in two major features that I wanted: high clearance and the ability to comfortably sleep in it. I wanted a vehicle that could get me out to remote trailheads and that I could use as a self-contained campsite. The most sensible solution for me was a light pickup with a camper shell. I don't need to haul anything heavy, so a larger pickup was unnecessary. An SUV would have been too expensive and really more than I needed anyway. So I started looking at light pickups and determining what I would really want. The idea being that when I found one I would sell the Subaru and buy the pickup.

My best-case scenario would have been a Toyota Tacoma. The Frontier was OK but the clearance wasn't as good and people said they weren't as robust. Dakota, S10, and Ranger were at the bottom of the pile and came off as sort of "toy" trucks to me.

Right about the time I was making my first payment on the Subaru (which, due to miscommunications between the owner and I, didn't happen until June), I got word from a friend at the bank that they were having an estate sale that included a pickup truck with a camper shell already on it. I went out the next day to check it out. It was a 1994 Ford Ranger and looked to be in really good shape.

It turns out that the 1994 Ranger is hardly a Ford truck at all - it's mostly a Mazda B3000 with some Ford exterior parts glued onto it. I hadn't done much research into the Mazda light pickups, but asking around led me to believe that it was actually not a bad truck at all. The fact that it already had a camper shell on it was a big bonus. The other (weird) bonus was that this truck was part of an estate sale and therefore came with everything that was in it when the pervious owned died. This translated to a whole bunch of worthless crap as well as two thermarest inflatable matresses, a complete toolchest and truck emergency kit, some binoculars, books, tapes, etc.

Probably the best reason to buy this particular truck, however, was the bank's inept lawyers. In deciding how to price the vehicle, they had gone to the blue book and looked at the current value... for what I have no idea. They priced the truck at $2930 instead of its actual value of about $4750. So I basically got 38% off.

I took it for a test drive and had a mechanic check it out and all seemed very well. I wanted this truck. Still paying off the Subaru, I didn't have the money to buy it, but my dad came through with a zero-interest loan for me and I bought it that week. I actually legally owned the Ranger before the Legacy.

My Ranger is a 1994 4WD XL model with the Super Cab and a 145hp 3.0L V6 engine and five-speed manual transmission. Because it is an XL, it was pretty modestly optioned, though it did have air conditioning and power steering. I'm not sure what the original tires were, but the previous owner put on some P225/75 R15s about 25,000 miles before I obtained it. The stereo was the factory Lame-O-Tron(tm) tape deck. The brakes, front disc and rear drums, were all in pretty sorry shape. The suspension was pretty surfy but good enough for my non-performance driving. The 4WD worked like a charm and it had bomb-proof manually locking hubs.

After buying the truck, I had to take it to the shop to have some minor items repaired and most of the fluids replaced, etc. The truck had been sitting unused for over a year and was showing signs of it. I cycled high octane gas through the tank for about four tanks worth to get the old stale gas out. I gave it some injector cleaner and took it on a 1,000 mile trip to test it out. I took it off-road in the Guadalupe Mountains and camped in it. Everything worked like a charm.

When I bought the truck, the glove compartment was full of old receipts for everything from groceries to oil changes. I sorted out the repair and maintenance receipts and reconstructed a repair history for the truck. It is clearly incomplete, but I have a rough idea of how often the previous owner took the truck in to the shop and what has been done. As far as I can tell, nothing major has been replaced other than the tires. I wrote down a list of repairs that were recommended by the last mechanic visit I had a receipt for and looked to see if any of them had been done. This included a new PCV, fuel filter, fuel system cleaning, engine flush, coolant system flush, and a small leak on the transmission.

As far as I could tell none of this had been fixed and the guy had never been back to a mechanic, so these problems were left to me. I went ahead and replaced the PCV and fuel filter, had the coolant flushed, and fixed everything the mechanic could see that needed it (including the front brakes and rotors). The seep in the tranny is still there but is not significant enough to warrant an expensive transmission repair job.

After getting all of these initial issues resolved, I eventually took care of some additional minor repairs myself. This included a new dome light bulb, one of the headlamps, and replacing the serpentine belt.

The truck was then running smoothly with no major technical issues being worked. I was free to spend time and effort on upgrading the Ranger and fixing issues that don't really have serious bearing on the functionality of the truck. Here is a list of the significant changes and upgrades that I made:

• The truck came with no rear speakers. I can't believe that the truck didn't come with any, but there sure weren't any speakers behind the rear grills when I got it. So I bought some Pioneer two-way 6x8 speakers and installed them.
• I dismantled the entire passenger-side door and window mechanism and lubricated it, preventing it from wailing like a banshee when rolled up.
• In the single most expensive upgrade, I bought new tires for the truck. I got 235/75R15 BF Goodrich All Terrain/KO tires for use on jeep trails. I did not replace the spare, which is still a 215/75R15.
• I put in a new stereo, with four 50W output channels and an MP3-decoding CD player. This was a vast improvement to my ability to enjoy long drives in the truck.

There is still work to be done. Here is my current list of to-be-completed tasks:

• Cracked windshield. The windshield had some small cracks on it when I got it. They are slowly growing and will need to be replaced.
• Weak blower. The ventilation system airflow is pitifully weak. I need to replace the blower motor.
• Camper decking. I want to build a carpeted plywood platform for the back that will incorporate a lot of storage space at the expense of a little headroom. This will make the sleeping area wider since it will be above the wheel wells and allow me to not have to move everything out of the back when I want to sleep there.
• I still own the Legacy. I need to get that thing out on the lemon lot and sell it to pay my dad back.

As much as I hated the Ranger before I had one, I'm really liking this truck and I'm using it a lot. It plays exactly the role I want my vehicle to, in that I can bring it to off-road trailheads and sleep in it.