Good Morning, Trucks... why I have one. My wife and I had two small cars for quite some time before buying a truck in 2003. We had an '89 Corolla All-Trac sedan and '90 Protege sedan in Maine. Brought 'em to Virginia where the Corolla was traded (at 176k) for a '96 Tercel sedan. We bought a Chinese folding cargo trailer that with the stakes was 4'x8'x2+'. I towed this trailer behind my Protege for a between two and three years until buying a new '01 Saturn SL2. I then towed the trailer behind it until buying the truck - an '03 S10 4WD Crew Cab. I don't haul a lot of "stuff" although at times I _do_ haul things I wouldn't want inside. The small 4' bed hauls probably 90 to 95% of what I need and for the other 5-10% I have my trusty rusty super-special Chinese trailer. I also use it when we go camping to tow our small pop-up camper. Other than that, my wife uses it to go back and forth to work (a whopping 5-6 miles round trip). The truck gets a (poor) 18 to _maybe_ 19 MPG highway. At my previous job I had a company van (a Dodge Grand Caravan with the nifty Stow 'n Go seats) that got 22 MPG with the 3.3l V6. I sold my Saturn during this time and took some of the cash to buy my Eagle as I wanted a second non-work-owned vehicle that was a bit more practical than the SL2. Two car seats and some stuff filled it up REAL fast. If my new job was around town here (haha - like THAT'll happen) I'd have just drove around the Eagle and not bought another Saturn - this time an LW300. Basically I use my truck halfway (by what seems to be what most here use a truck for) like a truck. Judging by the fuel economy it gets with the 4.3l V6, I could've had a V8! The only problem with a (insert your favorite brand here) full-size pickup is that I haven't much space to park as it is... at the end of my drive there are bushes on either side meaning a full-size wouldn't be able to open the doors there! Ack. If I get a larger camper, then I'll get a larger truck that my wife will drive around and to work as she doesn't drive much. I'll drive the smaller somewhat more fuel-efficient car on my 70-mile round-trip commute. Of course when I've done some more work to the Eagle... Regards, Russell 1988 Eagle Wagon http://home.earthlink.net/~rtneyhart/ _______________________________________________ AMC-List mailing list AMC-List@xxxxxxxxxxxx http://www.amc-list.com/mailman/listinfo/amc-list or go to http://www.amc-list.com