How long can a battery possibly last
My brother swears his ford ranger had the original battery in it for 14 years. He drove 43 miles each way to work and did little else with it. 254,000 miles on this two wheel drive, 4 cyl. when it was to roached out to much to drive anymore.. Rusted to hell, but only put one clutch in it and this I know because we did it. Wish I had a picture of this thing, the rust was amazing, he had riveted straps to hold panel sections together. The rear bumper fell of just before he junked it. He took the passenger seat out for storage because he didn't trust anything in what was left of the bed. My big brother is as cheap as they come. He lived out in the country and his wife made him park it behind the house. Bought it new and got his monies worth. It got great mileage and it ran perfect to the end.
Those old S10 and Ranger 4cyl stick shifts are about indestructable.
My sister put 200K miles on her first S10, dad bought it new for her to drive to school.
It was still nice body wise when she gave it to me, but she hit a cut stone about 18" in diameter, and smashed it dead center with the engine cross-member, never scratched the paint, but the tops of both tires were sticking out the front fenderwells.
She said she backed it back down the road to the local fire department, and they used the jaws of life to cut the sway bar to get the rock out.
I bought a front frame section from the wrecking yard and fixed it. I could not keep my wife out of that little gas-sipper. Wife wrecked it one day, not her fault, I just beat it back out and ran it some-more, until the safety inspection was due, it was not worth fixing again, traded it in on a used neon, and got $1400 out of it.
Sisters current S10 has over 350K on it, she runs the crap out of that little truck, it will not die.