My younger brother had a late 90's Ranger for about 10 years. He was terrible at doing maintenance but still ended up putting over 200K miles on the thing before he killed it
I found a nice 96 Dakota 3.9 2wd. for around $1500. I checked mileage on a 2 hour highway trip and got 19.2 driving 55 with the cruise set. Nice truck. I like
it better than my 2000 for comfort. tmm