I actually ran all winter with no weight in the bed. Only got stuck once, I ended up sliding into the "unplowed" part of the off-ramp, where the plows had dumped all the snow. Couldn't open my doors, as the snowpiles came almost up to my door-handles!! Climbed out a window, filled 1/2 the bed with snow, and started rocking her back and forth.....made it out in 'bout 10 minutes.

My vote would be a Toyota 4x4...and if you can do it cheap enough, dump a 4cyl diesel in it, and barring rust or a sudden stop (read collision) it will run forever.

Then again, if gas prices stay high, and you aren't going on any long trips at all, or using it for a daily driver, then get the newest full-sized truck with the largest and most piggy V-8 you can find. They are getting cheaper and cheaper as people wake-up. ;) Drive it, and don't even calculate your FE. ;)

Seeing as this IS gassavers, and you are on a budget, I'm gonna try and steer you in a fuel efficient and thrifty direction.

Get a $200 trailer from menards/harbor freight/parts sitting in the back yard/wherever.

Buy a stick shift escort/saturn/diesel rabbit/whatever and put a tow hitch on it.

When you need to haul something, hook up the trailer. Meanwhile hypermile that econobox into the ground.

one small problem, most of those cars would have problems hauling 900 lbs of stuff. or if any type of incline would cause it to bog so much...

There are older MT Toyota trucks out there. Good luck getting the owners to part with them, though.

m

im not sure with your area but around here any old toyota truck is a total rust bucket(i saw one with a fist sized hole in the frame O_o ) yet i see alot of rust free to slight rust s-10's around. alot more than rangers

There is a web page for guys getting diesel motors out of Japan and making their US spec Toyota trucks to global HiLux standards....

Cool, but FAR from cheap (motors are $4K or so alone)

Get a sl2, its got much sportier gearing. I don't think 900lbs would be a problem for a saturn. You'd definately want the SL2,SW2,or SC2 simply because you'd get a rear anti roll bar, and the shorter trans gearing.

Ha ha, I was just looking at this on e-bay :

Putnam hitch # 55142 Saturn Wagon, Coupe, class 1
https://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eB...8721572&rd=1,1

In Europe, on maybe 20% of the normal passenger cars, there are trailer hooks sticking out the back (even on BMWs!). When they need to haul something, they commonly use an open flatbed trailer like this :

Attachment 643
https://www.worthingtontrailers.com/t...are.aspx?ID=41

Sooooo, when needed, a normal passenger car can haul nearly the same as a truck.

However, this does NOT address the 4WD drive issue.

CarloSW2

VetteOwner -

Yeah, 900 lbs is about right. I went here for my car :

1999 Saturn SW
https://autos.msn.com/research/vip/sp...l=SW&trimid=-1

And it said that the towing capacity was 1000 lbs. Assuming that the trailer itself weighs 350 lbs, the effective load capacity would be 650 lbs.

CarloSW2