MY FORD – thanks to both of my Grandpas
Sometimes life gives us a second chance. I like to think this was my automotive third time is the charm second chance.
In the spring of 2019, I was enjoying my second ownership with my Saturn. I had my Mazda6 as my weekend/nice car and used the Saturn as my Monday-Friday/work car. The car was doing everything I wanted it to and I had no intentions of parting with it.
It was a nice spring weekend, and I was in Chicagoland visiting my wife. Usually, I would take my Mazda on weekend trips to visit her, but for whatever reason, I had decided to take the Saturn. It was a Sunday morning and my wife and I had just returned from church. We were not back at her house yet when my Grandpa called me. This was odd, as I do not think he had ever called me directly. If he did, it would have been from my Grandma’s phone. Perplexed, I answered.
Identical to the truck I remember my Grandpa having as a child; long box Isuzu Pup diesel. His was just as faded as this one.
Up to this point, my Grandpa had only ever had two vehicles in my lifetime; a second-generation Isuzu Pup diesel painted in a light blue with a matching light blue interior, and a green 1999 Ford Ranger. My Grandpa called to tell me that he had purchased a different car for himself and wanted to know if I wanted his Ranger for the lofty sum of $1. Now, if you remember, I’ve already had two Rangers up to this point and I had regretted (still do) letting the white Ranger go away. Here was my second chance to get my Ranger fix. As I spoke to my Grandpa on the phone, I knew I could not pass up on this deal. I told Grandpa I would take the truck and would figure out how to get it from western Iowa to Michigan. I called my dad and told him the good news. My dad said he was happy to help get the truck from western Iowa to my house. On Easter weekend 2019, my parent’s drove the truck out to Michigan. All was restored and I now had a Ranger in my life again.
My Grandpa purchased the truck in 2001/2002ish from Midland Ford in Orange City, Iowa. It is an XLT with the 3.0L Vulcan V6, 4R44E automatic transmission, and 4WD with the same Pulse Vacuum Hublock (PVH) system as my 1998. Being an XLT, the truck had a CD player, ABS, leather-wrapped steering wheel, and a full instrument package. Whoever ordered this truck new spec’d for an engine block heater, drop-in bed liner, sliding rear window, the trailer package, and a factory bench seat. As far as Rangers go, this is a pretty average/run-of-the-mill truck. There is nothing overly special about this truck. The Vulcan & 4R44E combination makes this a not very desirable combination, but the drivetrain is known for being durable. At the time I got it, it had 127,000 miles. Low miles for a Ranger.
24 years later, she still cleans up nicely
When I got the truck, it needed a full brake job at all four corners, as well as a tune-up. The tires were pretty weather checked and well-worn, the windshield had a crack all the way across, and the rear bumper was bent from a previous backing into. Other than that, it was pretty clean. Grandpa always garaged it, as well as washed it regularly. This equates to little rust under the truck. After a full tune-up, a used bumper from the junkyard, and four new Discount Tire Pathfinder All Terrian tires (awesome tires), the truck was ready for daily driving. Upon getting the Ranger, I knew I could not have five cars in my driveway (Saturn, Ranger, Mazda6, something fun, and my roommate’s car). About a week after the Ranger arrived, I parted with my Saturn.
Shortly after I got it, I took it down to my local self-serve carwash. As I washed the bed with the powerwasher, chunks of green paint started to fly in the air. Upon examination, I noticed the bed was completely rusted between the front of the bed and the cab. The truck had no surface rust. Initially, I could not figure out why this was happening. Not long after that, I pulled the drop-in bed liner to find the front of the bed in a very swiss-cheese manner. I thought maybe it was the drop-in liner that was causing the problem. Turns out my truck was missing the fender liners for the rear wheelwells, as a result, road spray rotted out the front of the bed. Off to my local LQK junkyard, and for $5, I had factory liners from an older Ranger installed on my bed. Upon examination of other Rangers, it seems Ford omitted these liners on trucks post-1998. Way to go Ford.
This picture does not do it justice at just how swiss-cheese like the front of the bed is.
Over the years I have built up a fairly decent size collection of license plates. One of the fun things about living in Michigan is you only need a rear license plate on your vehicle. As a result, the front license plate bracket is a prime way to show off your personality on your vehicle. I always take note of what people put on the front of their cars. Sometimes the plates are unique (European plates on VW/Audis), and sometimes they are corny (#1 Grandma on a Buick). I am quite fond of my home state, and as a result, since moving to Michigan, I have always hung an Iowa plate on my vehicles. When I got this truck, I knew exactly what plate I would hang on the front. If you recall from my Saturn story, the car was purchased the day after my Grandpa Nels passed away. My Grandpa Nels was a man with a sense of humor. In the early 2000’s he had an F-250 V10 and a fifth-wheel camper. When he got the pair, he hung “MY FORD” on the truck and “MY SHAK” on the camper. When he passed away, my dad got the pair of plates from his garage and gave them to me. Now I had my Grandpa Gene’s truck with my Grandpa Nel’s plates. A perfect way to honor both of them.
So what has ownership been like for a 24-year-old daily driver? Shockingly, very reliable. As the great Peter Egan best said “old cars are old cars,” meaning old cars will require work to keep them on the road. My Ranger has not been immune to maintenance. Since getting the truck, the truck seems to want bigger maintenance items during colder months. The first winter it needed full front suspension work including ball joints, upper control arms, and front struts. When Grandpa got rid of the truck, the heat did not work. His mechanic could never figure out why. After I got it, a radiator flush got the heater working again, however, come Christmas time every year since then, it would stop blowing hot air and need to be flushed again. Why I did not just replace the radiator from the get-go beats me, but after last Christmas, I finally broke down and replaced the radiator and water pump. That has since rectified the heating problem and I can report that the truck blows very hot air now. I can count on one hand the number of times I have used the 4WD, as the vacuum hubs on this truck have been just as problematic as my red Ranger. This was solved with a pair of Rigid Rock manual hubs. The all-terrain tires have done great in Michigan snow and have prevented me from using the 4WD except for the really bad storms. During my ownership, the truck did strand me for a failed starter and then at a later date, a failed alternator. Those were easy enough fixes. Other than that, this truck has just needed oil changes and love. For an old car, it has been a very reliable vehicle and far exceeded my expectations.
My previous Rangers had the sport bucket seats. At first, I thought I would hate the 60/40 bench seat. I actually like it better than the buckets. It feels much roomier in this truck. Also, this has five seat belts…a true family car!
The Vulcan is known for being reliable. It is not known for being powerful. Connected to the 4R44E transmission, this truck is very s.l.o.w. 0-60 happens eventually. One would think this would be a fuel-efficient truck. It is not. In the 3+ years I have had this, my average fuel economy has fallen just above 14 mpg. My white Ranger with the 5-speed manual and 4.0L V6 always managed to get closer to 20 mpg. Surprisingly, I I think why I like this powertrain so much is it forces you to slow down and experience life at a slower pace. The truck may be slow, but it forces you to take the backroads home to catch a summer’s sunset. Do I wish it had more power, yes, but I do not hate this truck for its shortcomings.
And that is why I love this truck so much. Sometimes life is best experienced in an analog fashion. This truck does not have AC (stopped working after I got it), and no power windows or locks. I love using my key to unlock the doors. I love driving around in the summer with the crank windows down. As our world rushes to an advanced state where everything is automatic and covered in cameras and sensors, the Ranger is an escape to a simpler time that is quickly being forgotten about. I love living with this truck in a day-to-day manner. Yes, it is not fuel efficient. Yes, it is not as safe as a modern car. Yes, it is very slow. But I am okay with that. The Ranger is the perfect car for me right now.
Forgive my mess…my company is in the midst of moving office buildings and all of my projects are living in the back of my truck! Getting items back here is more challenging than you would think. Seems the bench seats do not slide as far forward as the bucket seats, making egress a challenge. Later Ranger’s got rear doors here to address this issue.
The truck has the towing package, which includes an upgraded transmission cooler and prewired trailer lights. Seems like Grandpa never towed anything with the truck, as there was zero evidence of the truck ever having a hitch. A trip to the junkyard scored a $30 U-haul hitch. Since I have owned this truck, I can count on one hand how many times I have towed a trailer. Every time I am reminded that the Vulcan does not like to tow. It will do it, but boy does it make you wish you borrowed your neighbor’s Ram 1500 instead.
I now work for a car wash equipment provider. As a result, I am traveling over west Michigan to washes to work on engineering projects. Often I have something in the bed of my truck. Most of our car washes are employed with primarily high school students. It has been surprising how many comments I get from the high school kids on my “retro” truck when I pull up to a wash. They ask me if it has crank windows, like that is something they have only heard about but never actually experienced. But the comments do not stop there. When I had the front windshield replaced, the glass shop attendant commented that he had not seen such a clean Ranger in a long time. It has been very surprising how many comments I have gotten with this truck. Rangers were very popular over their 1993-2011 run. You would think an older Ranger would stir up the same comments as Aunt Becky’s beige Toyota Camry, but then again, if I look around, there are not many nice older Rangers left on the road. It is surprising how many Rangers there are still on the road (especially in the rust capital that is Michigan), but most of them are well past their prime. Rangers are very tough trucks.
If someone buys the same car twice, they must really like it. If they own more than three of the same type of car, what does that make them? A fanatic? I am not sure what this makes me for having three of the same type of truck, but this Ranger experience has been great. This past spring, it dawned on me that this truck has been the longest daily driver I have owned. I usually sell a car before its third ownership birthday, and April will mark my fourth anniversary with this truck. I wish I could keep driving this truck for many more years, but between rust starting to show up on the body, the fact that it gets 14 MPG, and no functional backseat, I will need to replace this sometime in the near future (its replacement has already been decided). If I had my way, I would tuck this truck away as a spare/fun car. However, I already have one of those and as we will learn next week, I do have a car maximum. Until then, I will enjoy the moments I have with My Ford.
Nice ~
I too have a Ranger, you’re looks nice as does mine .
Those are 60/40 seats, not bench .
-Nate
I have owned 3 Rangers, a used 1986 single cab long bed for a weekend chores truck when I was at the Pentagon and living in Springfield, VA. It was an XL but had a/c. I then bought a new 1992 Ranger regular cab,5 speed floor shift, XLT when I was stationed in Alabama (I was a major then) and took it to Iceland for my one year assignment there. It did pretty good on the roads there. We traded it in two years later for a new 1993 Nissan 240SX convertibler which we still own. Then when stationed at Malmstrom AFB, MT (Lt Col by now) I bought for a “second car” a used 1994 extended cab 2WD Ranger with a 5 speed floor shift like the other two, and a/c. The two newer ones were XLTs. Then in 2017 my Grandson bought a low mileage 4×4 extended cab Ranger for school in Colorado. We sold it recently so he could buy his Mother’s 2017 Honda Accord for work. He needed something that gets much better gas mileage!
“… As our world rushes to an advanced state where everything is automatic and covered in cameras and sensors, the Ranger is an escape to a simpler time that is quickly being forgotten …”
I hear you Fierorunner and have on and off feelings about this topic.
My 99 Miata has a thin metal key; no signal sending fob or anti-theft tech (other than being manual transmission). It is quit simple and allows me to focus on the road with no beeping nannies.
A few years ago Toyota offered to expand the frame warranty on my 2013 Tacoma if I brought it in for a frame inspection and added rustproofing. My loaner was a brand new Highlander. What a wonderful vehicle, chock full of just about every blinking, beeping, steering wheel jiggling, GPS display, seat warming nanny I never knew existed.
I turned all of them on and learned what I could, and fully enjoyed playing with the technology.
During the time I had the Highlander we had a big snow storm, so my 10 day test drive was quite complete in all areas.
Getting back into the Tacoma was a step back to the past, but then again, it felt like home. Comfortable; no nannies.
Getting into the Miata was like going back to the real old past. Also comfortable.
Your Ranger looks great, especially that interior. Regarding the Ranger’s engine I had a slew of company Ford Taurus vehicles (and one personal Sable) in the past and the 3.0L Vulcan was never a problem.
It sure looks like a keeper.
A Ranger is one of those vehicles I have always kind of wanted but that I never got. In the Good Ford-Bad Ford era of the 90s-00s, the Ranger seemed to be one of the best of the Good Fords. It is a shame that your grandfather was not the fan of manual transmissions that you and your dad are, because a 5 speed in that truck would probably make the 3.0 much easier to live with.
On repeating vehicles and old simple vehicles, your thoughts resonate with me. Even now, I am starting to feel like my DD Honda Fit (bought new in late 2006) is a simple, old car when compared to all the new stuff. And that’s what I like about it.
A limit on cars – isn’t that one of the saddest facts of life?
My 2001 Ranger has the 2.5 ? Liter four cylinder and five speed manual box .
Running the correct premium fuels in it and changing the fuel filter made it run *much* better, it’ll purr along in 4th gear at 55 MPH at just over 2,000 RPM .
In 5th it’ll go past 80 MPH but it’s pretty twitchy above 75 MPH in spite of Bilstien HD gas shocks and good quality tires so I don’t run it that fast often .
For some reason these trucks came with PASSENGER CARS TIRES ! . I checked thinking they were the wrong tires but the decal says PXXXRXX…..
Seems wierd, I know it’s a very light duty rig but car tires on a work truck ? .
Even in Los Angeles these things rust ~ the frame paint is beginning to peel off on mine, this bothers me as I’m not going to take it all apart to re spray the frame .
Junkyards here are loaded with these, abut 1/3 are wrecks, the rest are beater working trucks or grandpa’s rig no one else wanted .
Lots of municipal fleets have the same base model two door like mine but usually in white and 2/3 the time with automatic .
-Nate
Heheh — on the spec sheet, instead of a 0-60 time, you could just pencil in “Yes.”
Or maybe a captive audience. The Ranger has gone some stretches being one of the only, if not THE only choices for a new compact pickup truck, especially one that’s cheap to buy. (My sense has been that the Toyota Tacoma, while a pretty nice truck, has tended to be a lot pricier, especially in anything other than its most basic form.)
I like to think of manual windows and locks as “digital windows and locks.”
A friend of mine had a Ranger that you could put stuff into the bed from the side without lifting it over your head. The new Maverick gets back closer to that functionality, but only has a short bed.
Long live old Rangers.
Back when my grandson (who turns 13 today) was about 7, he was amazed that the windows in my pickup worked “like a fishing rod”. He had never seen crank up windows before.
My older Ranger had those 60/40 seats: extremely comfortable. But tell us, since your grandpa didn’t change cars very often, what did he buy to replace the Ranger? Based on his previous choices, perhaps a Colorado diesel?
I was excited to see the Isuzu with the sturdy 2.2 liter diesel engine. The Ford, not so much.
How does that work with the front plate from another state on the truck if you were to actually leave Michigan in the truck and cross into a neighboring state (or visit Iowa)? It seems odd that one would be allowed to have an actual license plate that isn’t obviously invalid and isn’t registered to the vehicle in question displayed in the front. I understand it’s not the plate with the registration sticker on it, it just seems odd though.
I’ve got this one, Jim, as it happened to me when I lived in Michigan. My COAL Dodge Omni had a Michigan plate out back, and an expired NY plate on the front, in a style NY no longer even issued.
I took a trip back to NY to see my folks. Ohio cops didn’t care. PA cops didn’t care. When I crossed into NY on I-90 the NY State Police didn’t care.
I proceeded to drive another 400 miles through NY without trouble. It was only when I arrived in my home town did one of the local yokels pull me over for an expired plate. I pointed out the valid Michigan plate on the back, and he *strongly urged* – although not very politely – me to remove the expired NY plate during my time in NY.
I can see why a 1999 Ranger would be seen as “an old truck” in Michigan, but out here, it’s just barely middle-aged. There’s still lots of these out here.
As to stepping back to an older, simpler time, I get a deep dose of that every time I drive my ’66 F100. i suppose it’s from about the same time in my life as the Ranger is to yours.
My younger son had two of these, with the Vulcan/automatic. But his were 2WD. I’ve found that performance and fuel mileage take a hit with 4WD, especially the latter.
I’ve got a ’99 extended cab XLT. 4.0L with 5 speed stick and every option except the sliding and rear door opening windows and the gauge package (so no tach). I have 328,000 miles on it. It’s been mine since new and has always been in SoCal. It’s black with the chromed steel wheels and cleans up beautifully. My only problem has been the lid on the armrest which no longer latches, the heater core giving up the ghost and the power window/lock switches which have been replaced at various intervals.
I LOVE that truck though! I drive the snot out of it and still get 18 mpg on average
Great article, thank you. I’ve wondered if there’s a market for simple new vehicles. Robust, capable, well designed vehicles free of the complexity and cost of electronic controls, bells and whistles etc. Of course, some examples are sold in the developing world but not here.
As suggested above if we want this, we’re forced into older vehicles. Even the most basic new fleet vehicles are relatively complex.
The closest examples we’d get in new vehicles are certain motorcycles, such as the Suzuki DR650, a paragon of functional simplicity, unchanged in 25 years,
You’ve hit the nail on the head ~ there are base model vehicles but is it worthwhile to federalize them for sale in the U.S.A. ? .
I’m sure there’s a tipping point where it will be a profitable situation .
Were Rangers sold outside of North America ? .
-Nate