First-gen. Isuzu Rodeo photo from the Cohort by J.C.
Last week, we looked at a 2004 Honda CR-V we bought for my wife to complete our family fleet. We weren’t done, however, and in 2005 I bought a 1988 Ford F150 pickup truck as an additional vehicle. It was an ex-commercial truck 300cid inline six cylinder with 4 speed floor shift. The truck was rust free and well taken care of for a 17 year old vehicle. I put new tires on it and changed the oil and coolant.
At the time, I had projects and furniture moving for my college age kids and I taught them to drive manual shifts on the Ford. First was a granny gear so it made it easy for them. I liked the truck and after a year of no additional expense, I had the seat reupholstered. At this point, our ’86 Mustang convertible sprung an oil leak and I promptly sold it to a friend at work and made the F150 my daily driver.
F150 photo from the Cohort by Curtis Gregory Perry.
The F150 was to be shortlived, but another truck was about to enter the family. My youngest daughter totaled our cherished ’97 Civic 4-door in 2006 when she was T-boned running a light. While shopping I found two great deals and decided to take them both; a ’93 Acura Integra and a ’94 Isuzu Rodeo.
My daughter chose the Rodeo and she worked during the summer to pay it off. Meanwhile, I took the Integr, and I sold the F150 (that had started to become troublesome) to a man at work who loaded up the bed with appliances and drove it to Mexico. He came back, the truck didn’t.
The Rodeo was the perfect car for my daughter, no longer having to feel vulnerable in a small car. It was a 2 wheel drive body on frame throwback, based on the original Isuzu pickup, and was well appointed for its day. The A/C was cold and the engine ran well although I did notice a tendency to leak oil around the valve covers, a problem I was never able to fully control.
The five speed was smooth and the V6 engine torquey enough that starting in second gear was easy, while first gear was only for hills and creeping along in traffic without having to ride the clutch. Overall, a nice vehicle, but unfortunately my daughter ignored my nagging about keeping the oil level up and making sure to service it regularly. Troubles would soon start to come up.
She lived in Atlanta while getting her BA and MS degrees and had decided to spend a semester abroad, which necessitated moving her furniture out of her apartment into storage at our house. We loaded up the Rodeo and set out on the interstate; I then discovered that it would not go faster than 40 mph. The engine was sputtering and missing and I suspected fuel contamination. As long as it continued to run, I pressed on hoping to get it closer to home in case it quit altogether.
Miraculously, as we got off the exit ramp the engine smoothed out and the Rodeo ran like there was never a problem. At home, I changed the fuel filter and the situation never presented itself again. A mystery that was never solved.
Isuzu Rodeo photo from the Cohort by J.C.
After her time abroad she took the Rodeo to Virginia for a summer job. Then, on her next visit, I noticed there was noticeable valve clatter from cylinder number six. I reiterated the warning to check the oil regularly. All was fine until Easter…
Going back to Atlanta on Easter Sunday with a friend of hers who was visiting from Germany, she managed to get 5 miles from home before calling to tell me the Rodeo had stopped running, and now all the dash warning lights had come on. I brought a few tools with me and went to check out the trouble, but suspected the worst. In father-like fashion, I was really worried about two young women stranded on the side of a desolate back road. Fortunately, no one bothered them.
Checking the dipstick the oil seemed unnaturally clean. I tried to crank the engine but it was locked up tight and the starter wouldn’t budge. When questioned, my daughter admitted to filling it up after the car had come to a stop; it had been 3 quarts too low. My daughter was grateful I didn’t lose my temper in front of her friend, but I was just glad they were both ok. I did tell her I expected her to pay to replace this vehicle like she had with the totaled Civic.
As it turned out she went over a year without a car, but her trips home were limited as she was now busy with school. Meanwhile, I started on a futile quest to revive the Rodeo. I shopped around for a replacement engine but found none. The V6 I needed was unique to the ’93 and ’94 model years, and it was a fragile engine when run low on oil. I found almost 100 Rodeos in North Georgia all in good condition, but none with a decent enough V6 to donate.
In the end, my daughter’s tenure of the truck turned out to be a tougher rodeo than it could stand and a local charity got it for scrap value only. At least, I was feeling pretty good with the ’93 Integra. A chapter we’ll visit soon.
Related CC reading:
Curbside Classic: 1997 Isuzu Rodeo LS – From A Mr. J. Isuzu Of Indiana
I always liked these, a cousin of mine had one after he graduated from Uni and got his first job. That was a substantial flex over me, as I was still rocking the $100 Concord.
Anyway getting daughters to check the oil is a perennial concern. What year did the Rodeo expire? If it was a 1991 and died sometime after 2006 I’d say that was a reasonable lifespan.
I checked the oil on my daughters car at xmas barely on the dipstick, she has a 04 Corolla it would probably run ok without oil, TOYOTA.
But this is her last free car the whanau (extended family) is fresh out of hand me downs, so of course muggins here has a goon of oil and filter in the back of my car ready to do a service next time I visit, last winter I spent a week straightening the damn thing out after a shunt,
OMG yall learned a Te reo/Maori word,
Quite a few of those were built by me at what was then called Subaru-Isuzu America in Lafayette, Indiana. They kept the SIA after Isuzu went away, so now it is Subaru Indiana Automotive.
These always had kind of a mixed reputation around me – not as good as top-tier Japanese vehicles, but probably better than many domestics of the day. I felt bad for people who bought the Honda-badged versions (Passports), because they were kind of ugly stepchildren in the Honda dealer service departments.
Built Isuzu Tough by you? I shall remember never to meet you late at night in a dark alley, in case you’re built the same.
Top tier Japanese pickups are which brand?
, Just wondering but I’d bet you mean Toyota the super tough Hilux has a good rep here but Ive seen two roadside with a broken chassis this summer, there are loading limits to them, and I assumed wrongly they has solved that problem it was during the first Gulf war when broken back Hiluxes were stored in the freight yard I worked in they were coming back from Cape York by semi trailer then railed to where ever for repairs/scrap I never asked,
The guy carting them back might be farmiliar to Australian readers he featured on Outback truckers a few times but he had upgraded from his beaten up old R model Mack to a Mercedes.
Those ugly-stepchildren/donor vehicles are always funny. When I had my Tiguan, the woman next to me at the VW service counter had a Routan (remember those?) and wanted another key for it.
The service advisor wasted no time in disabusing her of the notion that her car wasn’t a thinly rebadged Town & Country…and directed her straight to the CJDR dealer down the road. Oh, and even the Chrysler key was an outright borrowed instance of Mercedes-Benz tech.
Dont knock rebadges yes some hilarious but parts off those rebadged VWs fit my Citroen which is difficult to get anything for,
Two rare cars in my fleet one aged out of parts supply the newer barely exists in the parts system, a lady in the UK at a PSA specialist parts supplier questioned the model and VIN they have the PSA parts system, my car didnt exist on it not encouraging, long email back explaining what it is and now the unobtanium is being airfreighted to me, I’ll fix it myself or I;ll have to explain how to a garage, that got old getting a wheel alignment,
Dodge Caravan sway bar links came from OZ I dont remember seeing any there but others will know.
My second-cousin’s husband had a “daily-driver” 2wd ’96 Rodeo with the V6 and manual transmission. He was/is a handyman, kept his tools locked-up in the back of the vehicle.
One day the engine locked-up. He asked me to tow-start it with my K1500. I did. It knocked softly after that. Perhaps a year later, we put a fresh clutch and starter in it. And a year or two after that, it started knocking REALLY LOUD and “running bad”.
We pulled a spark plug out that was broken into pieces, the shell of which turned endlessly in the cylinder head without actually unscrewing. When we got it out, there were no more threads in the head. I wanted to tear the engine down for grins, but he wasn’t interested. We suspect a destroyed rod bearing and crank journal, the piston came up too high due to wildly excessive rod/crank clearance, and smashed into the spark plug.
Nice Isuzu Wizard, another of those rebadges they did for various markets the Rodeo badge was on the Isuzu Faster ute/pickup for this market and on the wagon version for you guys same badge however,
Tough? certainly, Ive driven a lot of their bigger trucks class 8 prime movers and rigid 8 wheelers which are the same and they do not die easily many make it past the million kms without major overhauls and that know how trickled down to the baby utes and their siblings, Someone I knew in Tassie bought one cheap the body style before yours and went over it like you do with a well used dunga and reckoned he gave it the second oil change it ever got, 120k kms on the odo it ran ok when he got it and still ran ok a couple of years later, He towed a horse float with only one horse a monster draught breed, claiming if the wagon shat itself hed hitch Barney (horse) to the front and tow it home.
I’m one of those who bought the Honda Passport, new in ’96. We wanted another Isuzu, having had such good luck with one previously. So we stopped by the Isuzu store first, but a block away, the Honda was a better deal. Plus, I guessed, a Honda would have better resale than an Isuzu. Car loonies all knew that Honda was caught flat-footed by the new SUV craze and raced to re-badge a Rodeo, but the rest of the world didn’t seem to care.
Eighteen years and 218,000+ miles later, when we sold it, I was confirmed right. By 2014, at least according to KBB, our “Honda” was worth at least 25-40% more than a Rodeo. Isuzu had left the US passenger market in 2008 and even though they provided parts (I noticed the box containing a new timing belt (chain?) in 2010 was all-Isuzu). Honda had underlined its status as a better-than-most marque and we must have had 20 or more phone calls when we ran a classified ad (yeah, we did that in those days) in the local paper.
And does anyone else notice the ’25-26 Honda Passport sure looks like a Rodeo?!
Interesting story, Harry. You had me at “Isuzu” as I have a soft spot in my heart for Isuzus. Although I’ve never owned a 6 cylinder one, I’ve had 3 4-cylinder examples.
I donno…I have no daughters, so perhaps my fatherly behavior might be different than it is for 2 sons, but while I might have worked something out after the unfortunate light-running incident with the Honda (as it sounds like you did), there would have been no excusing destroying the Isuzu. She’d have paid me back for that and after that point would have been entirely on her own so far as buying vehicles. I’m not so sure I’d have been sympathetic about her being stranded on a desolate road. Learning experience, IMO. It’s not as if you didn’t warn her…and she heard you (given the topping off of half of the oil capacity after she called you).
Kids…. 🙂