dodge truck owners

I want to share the story of my 2000 Dodge Dakota, lovingly known in our household as “Grace”. I purchased this truck used from a local dealer with 68,000 miles. At the time, I was working in construction and traveling anywhere from 500 to 1600 miles per week hauling air conditioning and electrical materials and equipment. I did that for about 2 years with “Grace” and she never failed me once or left me stranded. That’s important, because, believe it or not, I am a woman that did construction work and was traveling alone all hours of the day and night. Due to health reasons, I had to give up that line of work about 3 years ago. By that time, my husband became disabled and had to quit work, so we downsized out of necessity to one vehicle. The one vehicle we decided to rely on was “Grace”. She had over 200,00 miles on the dash by then, but never gave us any problems and was always reliable. With the money crunch that came with the disability and the change in career that we faced, we could only hope and pray that “Grace” would stay on the road. The mileage was so high and we weren’t financially able to make any repairs or preventative maintenance. To make a long story short, “Grace” passed on last weekend. She is now resting in our driveway waiting on her “transplant” as we cannot part with her and have decided to have another engine installed when we can afford it. My husband and I have told our story of “Grace” to our friends and family so many times in the past, that they really don’t believe us. During the 6 1/2 years we’ve owned our Dodge, here is a listing of the maintenance (other than regular oil changes) items we have had to do:
1) Replaced original battery about 1 year ago
2) Replaced the muffler about 4 1/2 years ago
3) Installed a new thermostat about a year ago
4) Installed two (2) sets of tires
That’s it!!! No plugs, no belts, no hoses, etc.
Now, does that sound amazing? When you hear that “Grace” finally left us with 299,000 miles, it’s really amazing. Up until the day of the tragic event, she still ran as well as the day we picked her up at the dealership. I know that sounds unbelievable but it’s true. We always believed that angels put “Grace” together just for us at the Dodge plant. With our financial situation in the past 3 years, an ordinary car or truck would have put us under with repairs. “Grace” safely got us to work and to the places we needed to be without ever asking for anything in return from us. It’s my belief that if all Dodge trucks were like our beloved “Grace”, Americans would drive NOTHING ELSE!!!!!!! So, please say a prayer for us and “Grace” that we will be able to get her on the road once more so that we can spread our story for several more years to come. We thank God for his amazing grace and for giving us our “Grace”.