I owned a Dodge Dakota for over ten years. I bought it as a hand-me-down from my dad, who had taken pretty good care of it for several years. It drove beautifully, even though it was a pickup, it still had maneuverability, great pickup (0-60) and was not an incredible gas hog, although it did eat more gas than a car. I used her for more than five different moves from house-to-house, dragging anything from washers and dryers to couches with no problem at all. In fact, I have to comment on the four-wheel drive, which helped me in the very worst of snow conditions. I can recall one time when I pulled a police car from a snow-filled embankment with very little trouble at all. I had a lined bed, which also helped in keeping the truck looking great while hauling anything from groceries to steel beams. If you want a car that can actually do anything but don't want a monster truck, the Dakota is absolutely the way to go. She drove well, hauled well, and performed at the top of the pack.

"It's impossible to get a vehicle to run for 20 years." That's a slightly paraphrased quote from my grandmother regarding the quality of vehicles at the time. Given the sheer amount of 1990s and 1980s cars that I still see on the road, it's safe to say that she was wrong. It's very possible. However, many of those vehicles are not happy about their extended lives. From the '90s era, econoboxes with fading paint and yellowed headlights to the '80s land yachts with the rusting bodies and wheels that lost their hubcaps long ago, the signs of aging and failure are there. Unless they've been well maintained, as the years pass and the miles rack up, problems start developing. Surprisingly, it's almost never the engine that fails first. The engine may have problems, but it still runs. No, it's usually everything surrounding the engine that goes first. The plastic interior pieces fade and scratch. The seat belts don't retract as well. The steering develops play. Electrical gremlins start to show up. As the miles rack up and the years pass, the problems get worse and more expensive. More things start leaking. More expensive things start breaking... and then there's the rust.