It was the one thing I owned with the most inertia attached. A 2001 Ford Ranger, with alloy wheels and dent in the bed. I haven’t been driving it as I prefer my motorcycle.

The insurance was coming due tomorrow. I needed to either renew the insurance or tell the state it was parked. This gave me a deadline to decide.

It’s been shambling along for a while now. I bought it with 101,000 miles and drove it for another 40,000 more in four years. I’ve had good luck with it. I fixed a few things, but no major repairs. Until lately. It seemed things were really starting to fall apart.

Mechanical issues

Recently I had to replace a coolant hose. The hose blew going to lunch one afternoon. All of its water hit the asphalt. I caught it time and didn’t damage the engine. Ford, in its infinite wisdom, tucked the hose up behind the engine. The transmission had to come out to get clearance. It really was designed that way. But I had to fix it. It was scrap otherwise.

Not long before that, I had an emissions test. Nothing out of the ordinary, at first. Only the emissions report wasn’t listed under my VIN at Motor Vehicles. After I comparing the title to the truck, I found the VIN on the door frame was different from the one on the dash. The truck was registered under the dash VIN, and the emissions tester scanned the door VIN. The guy at emissions was nice enough to change the computer record to match the door VIN. Then I was able to re-register it.

And gone…

Today I sold it to CarMax. I thought about Craigslist, but decided I didn’t want tweakers interested in an old truck coming to my house.

It was a mostly painless process. The inspector scanned the door VIN, and found the odometer had been rolled back. Most likely the dash was replaced after an accident I didn’t know about. The purchase offer was fair, and I quickly accepted.

After some quick math, I sat back in shock. The truck had an extra 80,000 miles on it. That explained a lot. I was glad to have it gone. A weight lifted.