When I met my husband Brent in 1994, his 1993 Nissan Pickup Truck was his pride and joy. It was an extended cab in emerald black. He had extra speakers inside, a trailer hitch on the back, and had put a push bar on the front. As Brent is an accident magnet, that hitch and push bar saved the truck on numerous occasions. In fact, on our fourth date a teenage girl in a Grand Am darted out in front of us and the truck sustained about $12,000 worth of damage. The Grand Am was totaled.
I knew Brent trusted me when he actually let me drive his truck, even dropping him off at home and taking it home with me for the night. So when I put a dent in it shortly after we were married, I was really scared to tell him about it. To his credit, he was probably pretty upset with me, but let me know that I was more important to him than his truck.
While we had the truck we had two more accidents that required work at the body shop. Most of the time people would run into the hitch on the back of the truck. I remember waiting in line at a Taco Bell drive-up and we were rear ended by another Grand Am. We moved forward a few feet. The Grand Am, not so much. There were at least three other occasions where Grand Ams ran into the hitch.
Other than the considerable amount of accidents the truck was in (and to be fair, Brent was not at fault in these accidents) it was a really good truck.
We had 215,000 miles on the truck when it finally died. It was Valentine’s Day 2003, and we were driving home from my parents house. We broke down in front of a car lot, and ended up having to call my dad to come get us. The water pump had gone out, the clutch was shot, and it needed a new transmission. Brent really considered putting the money into it and getting it fixed, but as it had no air conditioning, I was for getting a new vehicle. Which we did.
In hindsight, we should have shopped around a little more before buying the 2002 Dodge Durango, which we often refer to as a lumbering ox. And Brent still laments not fixing his truck.