John-g: 2006 Ranger Reg cab,3Ltr,auto,LB. Picking it up tomorrow, (errrrr, maybe the burned out shell?!!) What I don't like about the Ranger is the pick list. You can't mix and match things such as trim. You are kept within that package's option list even though most of the parts are small and interchangeable within packages, and are 15 minute bolt off/ons in the service bay. Another is the "Pick and Choose" courtesy option list that has various trim components listed around 2-400 bucks, what a joke. With this you can pick anything you want up to 1000$. They had a chromed spider rim which I thought would look nice rather than the stock rim, and I picked 3 other options as well, totalled 930$. I felt pretty good about it. After looking closely, it said 400$ bucks "each" for th e rims. So that means for 1000$, and if you don't pick anything else, you get to buy 2 Rims?!!! Am I buying a 2006 Ford Rickshaw? Like my granddaughter says .....Duhhhh! When I looked at the dealer, he gave me that, "Hey, don't blame me, I didn't make up the promotion" look on his face. Another thing is, you will note that none of the basic packages really shines. What I mean by that is everything is painted, or two tone with flat black, unless you go to the top XLT models, then you get a chrome grille. There is no hint of chrome that makes you proud. What shines if anything is a steel silver painted wheel. How long I plan to use it? Well I'm 60 now, and I keep trucks until they're in the same condition as John Candy's rental car in the movie "Boats,Planes and Automobiles". So my trucks go for a good 10 years. I just brought my 86 Comanche to the scrap yard today, and everything worked on it. Fix my own cars, except inner engine components. I bought it in 97. I'm on a tight pension budget, so I guess it'll be the last one, and it will outlive me. Andy

Good luck with the defrost problem. The big problem here is access to the ductwork and control valves. Most likely, a small duct is not correctly fastened to a port, and the warm air is not getting to your windshield. Another possibility is that a flexible duct line has been kinked, or blocked off with foreign material.

Issues like this cannot always be accurately explained in a "silver bullet" answer. The alarm lamp, and the issues with the door locks do suggest that a common failure with the drivers door wiring harness "might" be occurring but starting the diagnostics expecting to find that is a tactical mistake that I call "Tainted Intuition". You need a properly trained technician with the correct tool a VAG-COM, or preferably VAG5052 which would give the technician the ability to communicate with the body, immobilizer and door modules. BTW, I don't agree with the assumption that the check engine light being on won't hurt anything. Your number one warning should another failure begin to occur would the the Check Engine light getting turned on. With the lamp already on, and obviously a hard code set you lose that warning because of course the light is already on. When the lamp is on, it means the car is suspected of polluting the air at least 1.5 times the FTP testing limit that the vehicle is certified to. The tendency for owners to ignore the lamp is the primary cause for active emissions testing in many states. Finally once the car noticeably runs bad and you finally decide to have it fixed, exactly where would you expect a technician to accurately start and stop the repair? You could have any number of active failures by then, and who knows how many blocked tests have failed to run because of the active failures. Replacing the PCM would not cost $1300 all by itself, what else did they say the car needed?

I loved our two red cars, so easy to find. But our last two, and the current one, came in uninspired colors so we have grey. Well, this one is called silver but it’s still grey. I hear you on the black interior. I definitely didn’t want that, but since we were not guying new our options were severely limited. We ended up with grey seats and on the doors, but the carpet and dash are black. If I’m wearing black pants and shoes, if I look down I can’t see my legs! And since things like phone cords are black, everything disappears, it’s like sitting in a black hole.