Bought my first easy button vehicle...

....and I like it a lot more than I thought I would. Up until now, every single car I've ever owned, daily drivers included, has been a project, intended to eventually be a donor vehicle, or otherwise needed a lot of work. I've never owned a 'normal' vehicle until now. The deciding factor was that I won't drive the E30 in the salt, and I found much worse rust on the wagon than I was expecting, so it needs to be taken out of commission for awhile to fix. I have to haul stuff for the house, and move the bikes, so I still need a vehicle that can do that, but I don't have time for a third 'fun' car.

So I bought this. 1998 K1500, and all it needs are tires, tie rods, and a headlight switch. It's my first 4x4, first 'tall' vehicle, and it's an auto.

After all the other interesting vehicles, I almost feel disappointed in myself. Most of my friends were shocked. It's weird....and since I've bought it, I've driven it more than any of the other vehicles, and the motivation to fix the wagon is waning. It's quiet, comfortable, the windows operate at normal speeds...hell, it even has a key fob. My only consolation is that the air conditioning doesn't work. Guess I never thought I'd enjoy driving a normal vehicle. Next thing you know, I'll be driving an automatic 4 cylinder camry...

My winter vehicles are pretty much always normal vehicles but cheap so they turn into projects. A good truck is just handy too have!

Trucks are fun. They usually are just a different kind of fun from the typical GRM vehicle. Looks funny without all the rust.

Same here. Easy button, everything works, nothing rattles... it starts in cold weather, has no rust and if it breaks they come get it and fix it for me. They even do all the maintenance and free car washes for two years. I have no real reason whatsoever to open the hood except to satisfy my own curiosity and maybe fill the washer reservoir if I'm too lazy to drive over and have them do it.

What the hell will I do with all that free time?

Within the last couple months, I bought my first vehicle (2013 CX-5) with a push start. Does that count as a easy button vehicle?

Huckleberry wrote: Same here. Easy button, everything works, nothing rattles... it starts in cold weather, has no rust and if it breaks they come get it and fix it for me. They even do all the maintenance and free car washes for two years. I have no real reason whatsoever to open the hood except to satisfy my own curiosity and maybe fill the washer reservoir if I'm too lazy to drive over and have them do it. What the hell will I do with all that free time?

Nice truck...but I see this:

92dxman wrote: Within the last couple months, I bought my first vehicle with a push start. Does that count as a easy button vehicle?

Only until the battery is low. Whereas an old car will crank for all it has left on the key...the push start will not.

How did you find an 88 Chevy in Indiana with the cab corners intact?

In reply to Tyler H:

I tried to find one of those but a rust free '86 Toyota with a 22r and 200k miles goes for more than a 1/3 the price of a showroom truck these days. Madness. So... in 30 years I'll have the 2016 version of that :)

Huckleberry wrote: In reply to Tyler H: I tried to find one of those but a rust free '86 Toyota with a 22r and 200k miles goes for more than a 1/3 the price of a showroom truck these days. Madness. So... in 30 years I'll have the 2016 version of that :)

Why wait? Add a brush guard and some KC lights.

Oh... apologies for the thradjack too. The OP's truck is sweet and the payload even better. More pics of the orange beast!

Grtechguy wrote: How did you find an 88 Chevy in Indiana with the cab corners intact?

It had to come from Alabama or some such.

Nice truck

That body and paint and chrome after 18 years are enough to make an Ontario boy cry. Well bought.

Think of all the basket case projects you can drag home now!

No, not a full size truck! You don't need a vehicle that big, that fuel inefficient. How dare you. Don't you realize your choice affects everyone around you?

Menace!

(This actually happened in another thread)

I like the truck. You'll find it very useful as time goes by.

I got one the other day as well. 6 liters of vortec efficiency.

Huckleberry wrote: Same here. Easy button, everything works, nothing rattles... it starts in cold weather, has no rust and if it breaks they come get it and fix it for me. They even do all the maintenance and free car washes for two years. I have no real reason whatsoever to open the hood except to satisfy my own curiosity and maybe fill the washer reservoir if I'm too lazy to drive over and have them do it. What the hell will I do with all that free time?

My easy button Tacoma has free car washes as long as dealership is in business or I relocate.

New feature request for the forum: multiquote!

Grtechguy - the truck is actually a 1998, so that's 10 less years to rust away!

Huckleberry, no worries on the threadjack. I really didn't have much of an intended direction for this thread anyway. The orange beast is a 2012 200 xcw - I'm a big fan of KTMs. In the week that I've had it, the truck has already carried the 950 Adventure once, the 200 twice, and the old TY350 trials bike twice. It's definitely nice to have!

KyAllroad - it's actually been in Indiana since new. I don't know where it was sold, but the original owner lived on Lake Monroe, and the second owner (the guy I bought it from) has lived in Indiana his whole life. The truck wasn't even garaged for the last 10 years, so I have no idea how it's as clean as it is.

captdownshift - yeah, that's going to be a problem. I'm hoping to stay away from that for awhile as I still need to address the wagon's rust issues as well as finish restoring an old Honda TL250.

I replaced the idler arm, idler arm mount, and pitman arm over the weekend. The rest of the suspension is original but still tight, aside from shocks that, while not blown, definitely don't have as much low speed damping as they should. As some of you may know, these trucks did not have adjustable camber from the factory - they had eccentric bolts in the upper A arms, but there were holes instead of slots in the mounts. The upper arm has to be removed and a few little tabs punched out to 'unlock' the adjustment. This truck still had the tabs...leading me to believe that it has never had an alignment in 172k miles. Original tie rods, too.

Picked up some new takeoff wheels for it from Craigslist: