It happened to come with the automatic headlight option, which was nice but not used much, as I prefer to stay in control of the lights.
FORD EXPLORER LIMITED EDITION 1998 FULL
Everything was power-operated and the floor mats were nice and plush, but we covered them with a full set of Husky Liners to make it easier to keep clean.ĪBS was standard, and it came in handy more than once as stopping distances definitely seemed on the long side compared to what we were used to. We did use the CD player it came with a lot as the sound system was quite good for the time. Which is where they remained the entire time we had it. What else did we have? Well, I recall it came with a 2” towing ball and wiring harness tucked into a cardboard box in the rear interior body side. And while you could override it, really, for about 99% of the populace an automatic AWD system is the way to go.
FORD EXPLORER LIMITED EDITION 1998 MANUAL
What was nice about the V8s was that instead of the manual 4WD system, they came with an automatic AWD system where you would keep the switch in “Auto” and the car would figure out what was needed. (much lighter than I’d assumed until I looked it up), a couple of hundred pounds heavier than the V6 version. We certainly did not need a V8, but it was a luxury I wanted at the time.
Nobody really cared about gas mileage then even though we had some of the highest fuel prices in the nation, regular was still under $1.25/gallon. Never mind that it averaged maybe 14 mpg around town and struggled to hit 17 on the highway gas was still very cheap and 9/11 was still three years away. It was a great combination 215 hp, lots of low-end torque (280 ft/lb), nice rumbling engine noise and low-rpm highway cruising. The V8 was the 5.0 “Windsor” engine, which was paired with Ford’s four-speed 4R70W transmission. Having no kids and just one dog this did not seem to be an issue, never mind that the dog (who is still with us at 15 years of age, go Melbourne! (update: She sadly passed away in the summer of 2015, a couple of years after this was first posted, best dog ever)) vomited in it on her third trip–thankfully, back in the cargo area. Ours had running boards, as my wife is on the shorter side, and inside we specifically wanted cloth seats, having looked at used Explorers before deciding on a new one and noting that Ford’s leather didn’t seem to hold up nearly as well as their cloth, even on very low-mileage vehicles. The front was pretty much the same at it had been since 1996, and the interior was a little bit different, mainly in the seat design. Looking back, that seems like a huge amount of money for 15 years ago… (Update: the first two pictures in this post are of it the day we (very proudly) brought it home, I finally found my missing box of pictures)įor 1998, Ford had redesigned the body slightly, most obviously at the rear, which had a very different lift-gate design than before. The document shows that over the next four years, we’d be paying Ford Credit just over $500 in TOTAL interest, the bank would be paying us 5% just to keep our money with them, and we’d simply send in the payment every month. Since it was getting close to the end of the model year we ended up looking all over the Bay Area but ended up finding the perfect one at San Bruno Ford, some 15 minutes away from our home.Īnd so it happened: According to the copy of the purchase contract in front of me, on Octowe became the proud owners of a 1998 Ford Explorer V8, for the sales price of $26,750 and a total price of $30,124.64 including tax, title, and license, of which we financed all but $2,000. We were pretty particular about what we wanted–the XLT trim level, in Light Denim Blue with a gray fabric interior–and I insisted on the V-8 model which came with standard all-wheel drive. Seeing as how it was pretty easy to get a nearly 5% return at the local banks then, and we actually had the cash available to buy it outright, it seemed like a great deal – park the money in the bank, earn 5% on it and every month, send in a payment based on a 0.9% interest rate. Since it was late summer, traditionally the time when sales promotions started, Ford was offering 0.9% financing over 48 months. My wife-to-be’s parents had succumbed to the trend a couple of years earlier, and I always enjoyed driving their ’96 when we visited them.
So being somewhat flush, we decided to do what everyone else seemed to be doing at the time and look for a Ford Explorer. As a Print Broker during the rise of the dotcom boom in Northern California, it’s almost as if we were printing money instead of marketing collateral. (First posted August 11, 2013) Towards the fall of 1998, I’d started to realize that my switching jobs earlier in the year had been a very wise move.