...until the transmission died. I ended up getting it replaced, but the brakes also need some work, plus I've been working from home, so it's been parked for a while. I'm hoping to put it back into service as my commuter vehicle whenever I'm able to start going in to the office again. It's got 160,000 miles and the interior is basically in near mint condition. The body work and paint need some attention - we don't have a garage and our driveway is lined by pines and a huge oak, so the sap has done a number on the paint over the years, and I can't even count the number of dings from acorns and falling branches.

I also own two '02 Troopers that I acquired as projects for dirt cheap a few years ago. One has a bad engine and the other has a bad transmission, so I had planned to do an engine swap, but without a garage to work in, it just hasn't worked out. I'm coming to accept that I may just have to punt that project.

Isuzus were pretty cool vehicles and had some stuff that was ahead of their time, such as the "Torque on Demand" system that used sensors to tell the engine how to split power between the front and rear axles when in 4WD mode. It's a shame GM had their hand in the design and used some really crappy components, none worse than the weak 4L30E automatic transmission. That has doomed many an Isuzu to the junkyard over the years.