But I guess it's all good. The wife and I stopped at a used car lot today to look at a 2002 Durango to replace her PoS Ford van. The Durango was sweet, in excellent condition. Wish we could have bought it. Just couldn't swing the $1500 down payment. But, looking around the lot, I spotted a 1996 Ford van that looked to be in pretty good condition. Unfortunately, we didn't qualify for the $99 down, but they would take any trade plus $100. We couldn't use the van because we were already commited to selling it to my son. That meant trading in my 1986 Ram.

About a month ago, my son was using the truck (since I am away for 3 weeks at a time, I let him use it when I'm gone) and the carb caught fire. My son was ok, and there wasn't a lot of damage done, but I did need to replace the carb and the plug wires as well as some vacuum hoses.

As much as it breaks my heart, I decided to sacrifice the poor truck to benefit the family. I do have to say though, that it is a pretty nice van. It's bigger than our old one, fully loaded with power windows/locks/mirrors, driver seat is power also, has a dvd player with two drop down screens in the back and a six disc Alpine cd changer. The best part is it has a 5.8 v8. The old van had a 4.9 straight six that was a gutless wonder. Did I mention that I hated that van?

It does suck that it's a Ford, but my main concern is that it's mechanically sound and my wife is happy. The old truck was beginning to be a maintenance nightmare anyway and it was probably a good thing to trade it in. I'm just really sad to see it go.