I'm a bit nervous but it's almost time for my oldest daughter to start driving. We don't live in town so her being able to drive on her own is a big deal. Since she was about 11 she's been saying she wants a Ford 4X4 that will tow her horses. As you guys know, finding a decent 4X4 pickup is not an easy thing. I've been keeping a casual eye out for the right thing, not really expecting to find anything she'd be happy with. She has to pay us back so it had to be a decent price. As a parent I wanted it to be fairly modern and have airbags.

Browsing through a local classifieds paper this morning I found a 2006 F-150 pick up listed for $3K. No real description. Called the owner up and found out it's an F-150 4X4 regular cab with the 4.6 V-8, XL package, and get this...54K miles. Other than a pushed in front driver-side bumper it's pretty clean. Never expected to find something so decent that would check the boxes and make her happy. Brought it home tonight. It should tug around our little 2-horse trailer just fine. The kid's already scheming on how to pay us back because she wants to earn it. She's a good kid, and a very happy one tonight.

slip some diesel in the tank now and again, and it might grow into a F-250....

LOL. That's what she 'thought' she wanted. Since I just spent $2K and weekend doing injectors in mine, she figured a little more for a whole truck wasn't too shabby.

Nice! Should be a pretty good rig for a country kid. Don’t see many regular cab shortbeds running around these days, especially 4x4.

We have a little truck at work I always call the perfect kid truck. It’s about a 2004 Ranger. Regular cab, shortbed, 2wd, with a 4 banger and the only option is tires. It’s perfect because it’s cheap, gets decent gas mileage, no cool stereo to distract a kid, and it’s small enough you aren’t fitting very many buddies in there.

That was my thought with the regular cab. It has the little back doors that open to a decent amount of storage behind the seat. I wish it had a manual transmission but you can't get everything I suppose.

Nice! Heck of a deal too!

Thanks, buddy! We'll start going through it over the next couple of weeks. She'll be involved in all of the fluid changes and mechanical stuff so she can get to know it. She'll get a lesson in tire changes and other fun stuff.

Man, that is a steal. I just spent the last couple of weeks trying to find a replacement truck for my youngest son (84 yr old lady hit him and totaled his truck). In my area, there is nothing even close to the deal you got. Saw a same year model regular cab with 125k miles and they wanted $8,500 for it.

There normally isn't in my area either. I made a habit of checking the smaller classified papers and such as prices on Craiglist and most online stuff was really high.

Remind her to always (ALWAYS) wear her seat belt.

Every year I read or hear about country kids in IA and NE who lose control and roll their vehicles on gravel roads, Almost every one of them who is killed died when they were thrown from the vehicle. If they'd be wearing their seat belts the majority of them wouldn't have been thrown from the vehicle and would have lived.

PS - don't forget to put some sand bags over the rear axle when the roads start to get slippery with ice/snow.

+1 on the seatbelt. It happens around here as well, sadly. Odds of surviving go way up if you remain in the car during an accident.

Point taken, gents, we're pretty serious about them.

Very cool. Nice looking rig. Congrats to the young horsewoman.

Not discounting seatbelts at all. I 100% believe they're the 1st line of defense.

Something my dad drilled into our heads early and often regarding driving, especially on gravel:

"There is no shame in the ditch. If you drop a tire off, drive down in, then drive back out. Try to correct (bring up on the road w/out driving into the ditch) once a tire has dropped off and you'll roll it almost 100% of the time." "Anything you wreck on the car/truck by driving into the ditch, even driving fast into the ditch, is a pittance compared to dying."

He had us practice @ gravel road speeds. Made for a few bouncy rides, but, neither sis nor I have ever come anywhere close to rolling a vehicle on gravel (Or anywhere else) despite 10's, perhaps 100's of thousands of miles of gravel driven.

Congratulations to your daughter, that pickup looks like a peach! May it give her many years of safe dependable driving!

Thanks guys. We live in the country so she'll get plenty of practice off road, both in good weather and bad. I'll set up the truck with basic recovery gear and make sure she knows how to use it. Growing up, our driving lessons were about much more than driving and I intend to pass that on. She's already helped me rewire a trailer and she knows how to lube and adjust bearings and other essentials. She's a pretty quick study and takes it seriously. Ultimately I can't control things once she's out there but we'll make sure she's ready.

That's a pretty sharp truck. Any minor mods planned for the future?

Nothing serious, really. We'll focus on basic maintenance stuff first; diffs, filters, T-case fluid, coolant flush, serpentine belt, etc. Trans oil looks and smells like new. Then I'll install a receiver hitch, trans. cooler, trailer wiring and brake controller. I may put in a back up camera for her. Tires aren't great so I'll keep an eye out for a set, but no hurry on that.

make her learn, just a matter of time before said camera is frosted over or covered in mud

She needs to know where every corner of that truck is at any point in time.