Originally Posted By: andyd
The Ranger is an okay little truck but with in your situation, you need an econo box or at least something that delivers 30 mpg and starts every day.
OTOH, if your Ranger is a 2.3 with a 5spd and is fairly reliable and you can stand 100 miles a day in it you could take the money for the total , buy back the Ranger and hang a tail light on it.
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Maybe your Ranger doesn't start every day, but generally that's not an issue. My '02 Ranger has never failed to start in its life. I really wonder why you even have your Ranger still, you seem to have a fairly disparaging opinion of them. I'd get rid of a vehicle if I didn't like it, trust it, or if it was causing me a lot of problems.
To the OP, the damage sounds pretty minimal and cheap to repair on a Ranger. If there's no cab or frame damage, there's nothing to fixing the truck. Plenty of beds and bed parts available. Bumpers are no problem, lights are no problem, and everything is cheap. There is enormous aftermarket collision parts support for the Ranger because it was so common for so long. Or just fix it as much as you need to...which is easy on Rangers because they are so simple.
If you just want something different, it sounds like you need to decide which is a bigger priority...gas mileage or having a truck. If you have a V6 Ranger and are used to the fuel economy, full size trucks in general won't be much worse, but a 300 I6 probably will. A 300 I6 is low-mid teens MPG all day, and while it's a good old school work truck engine, those trucks are Lima 2.3L slow. I wouldn't really want to commute with one, at least not regularly. And while in general these trucks were tough, you're talking about one that is going to be 30 years old in a couple of years. Everyone selling a vehicle for $1700 says it runs great, so that doesn't mean much. 30 years is old, and you will notice it unless the truck was exceptionally well cared for/lightly used, which at $1700 it wasn't. REALLY nice 1988 F-150s are many times that price for a reason. You need to be prepared to fix things on a $1700 28 year old vehicle...Ford, Toyota, Honda, it doesn't matter...old is old. I drive my 1994 Ranger frequently, but I am also familiar with this particular model of old truck, and I changed all the fluids, cooling system hoses, t-stat, and other odds and ends before I even got the tag for it. It's probably more trustworthy than a whole lot of vehicles that are way newer than it, but part of that is because I know what I'm doing.
If your Ranger is a Duratec 2.3, you should probably keep it if you want a pickup and MPG...that's the only thing that's going to do it. Even new trucks (at least gas engine ones) don't really touch the Duratec Ranger for fuel economy. $1500 sounds like a pretty bad deal on your end for it unless it's really messed up. 136K is nothing, and $1500 gets you [censored] for a replacement.