i only got my truck a couple months ago but now i have everyone telling me i should trade it in. mainly because of the gas and the rust. its a 96 5.2 ext cab short bed with 140k miles. i make payments on it(about 280 a month) but its only for 2 years.the rust is bad but can be fixable. has frame rust but doesnt look very bad. grinder and some por15 should cure it. i would need some new suspension parts(bushing,balljoints,leaf spring and shocks) but its not mandatory yet. the body rust is what im worried about. bottom of doors are gone and so is the rockers. that is the main rust. floor boards are ok. im guessing a body shop will charge me $400-600 to fix the rust. plus paint. but i can live with primer patches. the only thing i have done to the truck since i purchased it sadly is oil change and a new factory radio.it does need some window weather stripping and the cat. is gone also. maybe a oxygen sensor also(have no checked). this is in addition to a tune up. the wife wants me to trade it in( even if i have to pay more to get out of this trucks contract) and get something with better gas mileage. i get 10mpg right now but this is with a bad cat, o2 sensor and no tune up. im hoping if i did all the repairs i can get 15 maybe 16(i mainly do city driving). she wants me to trade for a toyota corolla........... not funny..... but with gas prices the way they are she does have a point. i told her if i did get something newer it would be a newer truck std cab ram. the only thing i dont like about that is i pay less then 300 a month, yes its old and needs work but in 2 years its mine. if i get say a 2002 or 2004 dodge ram i will pay 300 for 5 years or so. which id hate. so im kind of undecided what to do about this. any advice would help. or if anyone was in my situation it would be great tohear what you did and the outcome.

 

you're lucky man i am paying 371.50 a month for mine and i still owe over 14,000.00
and the engineis crapping out on me and it only has 67,700 miles on it
and i have problems with it that aren't caused by me, like broken windows
but i bought my truck 9 months ago with 61,400 miles i drive very little so i dont have to worry about
a fuel efficent vehicle.
my wife also likes rice burners a.k.a. honda,hyndai,toyota,volkswagon
but i got her a 2002 dodge durango and she likes it. so i got out of the rice burning section
and our durango is only 278.00 a month

 

ok, you asked for opinions, so here is mine.
i understand you just bought the truck, your payments are 280/mo for 2 years = about $6720, so i will assume this is your payoff. i also understand it to be rusted out bad and running poorly at 10 mpg.

when i ask kelly blue book for the value of the truck, i will assume 4wd, and fair condition due to the rust. it might be poor, but i'll give it the benefit of the doubt. kbb says its worth 4200 to sell or 2820 to trade in.

IF you could sell it for more than owe, then you could make money and that would be a good thing. if you can't sell it for ABOUT what you owe, then you end up losing money, and that is a bad thing.

IF you trade it in on something newer, you will get lose about 4000 on the deal, and that is a bad thing.

this is what i recommend, assuming you like the truck ok
1. fix your gas mileage. tune it up and replace the 02 sensor. you should be able to get about 13 city and 15+ hwy. you didn't say if you have a lift, but if your tires are huge, consider trading them for something smaller, or if/when they wear out, put on moderate size tires, say 31-33 or smaller.
2. don't put a lot more money in the truck at this time. you didn't say what your interest rate is, but if you have extra money, pre-pay the loan to save money on interest.
3. consider trying some low cost diy repairs, and using the truck for practice. if you have a local tech school, some of them offer classes in body repair, and you can use your own truck as a project. be on the lookout for cheapo parts at local junk yards.
4. if the rust doesn't bother you, then don't let others talk you into something. i drove my rusty chevy for 30 years and told all my friends to shut up. it was sort of ironic because one minute i was catching hell about rust and the next minute there was a project to 'take dougs truck' and go do such and such. (always some $hitty job). so it had a purpose in life and i enjoyed that.

 

just getting to respounding to this topic i didnt think anyone answered me.

what i decided to do is actually whatdhvaughan sugguested; im going to do a tune up and fix the small problems it has. the only thing i hate is the rust. the frame im not to worried about because i plan to grind it and coat it but the area im worried about is the seam line on the cab. when you open the door, on the floor that seam line is rusty. now i dont know how bad but i did some digging and it doesnt look so bad(fixable) but it doesnt look like i would be able to fix it myself which means i would have to pay someone else if i fix it. i dont care how it looks really just so it doesnt get worse and worse maybe creating a big problem for me later to fix.