The Story Begging To Be Told...Or Why We Are a Chevy Family

In 1991, our company was given a little navy blue 1988 Ford Ranger 2-door regular cab pickup from the parent company. Now mind you, this truck only had about 50,000 miles on it so it wasn't really overworked for 3 years of previous use for a work truck that would go back forth every day in 150 highway miles. The company had bought it brand new in 1988.

The truck comes equipped with 4 cylinder or 2.3 liter 90 horsepower engine, automatic, power steering, radio, a bench seat, and not much else. It's simple and was made to get you from point A to point B at approximately 24 miles per gallon in the city and 28 on the highway.

Well the truck ran great for about the first 6 months that we had it...then it started running rough, you know sounds like the carburetor needs to be adjusted (to me, that seemed to be the stock answer for many men when their wives would ask them why the car wasn't running right). Ok so you have the picture of how the truck was running...BAD!

The truck was taken to the head mechanic for the company. He professed to have tuned it up and rebuilt the carburetor. Again, it ran good for a while. Then came the night that our house was robbed. While yes it was very traumatic and we felt violated by the intrusion, there was a lighter side if you can see it to the robbery.

The robber must of come to our house on foot, because he also found the keys to the Ford Ranger that was parked out in front of the house and after knocking the interior dome light out so no one could see him, took off with the truck...In the meantime, my husband woke up, came down stairs and noticed our backdoor open, our cordless phone and my purse gone, and woke me up, saying he thought we had been robbed. So he called the police and waited for them outside as I was still dressed in my nightgown calling the credit card companies to stop any charges that may have been made.

So he and the police officer were leaning against the Ford Ranger when my husband noticed that the hood of the truck was warm. Hmmm...here it is a September morning at 6 a.m. which is on the cool side and the truck is parked in the shade and the hood is warm to the touch!! So he and the cop looked inside and sure enough the keys were in it and the interior light was broken.

The robber had brought the truck back! The truck ran so bad that he figured if he did get hung for his crime they couldn't get him for auto theft! When hubby came in and told me what had happened, I couldn't help but smile, it broke up the tension that had been building because of the robbery.

So I love to tell this story and especially remind my brother-in-law who is a former Ford car salesman of how bad Fords really are and how my husband's now 15-year-old Chevy truck has taken us to California pulling a trailer and back to Indiana without one problem except for having to put rear brakes on with 100,000 miles on it.

The truck?? The company got rid of it within the same year and gave us...have you guessed? Another Ford! (I later learned that the president of the company had once owned a Ford dealership and even though he sold it, the company still gave him a break on any vehicles he bought through them.)