So I'm contemplating purchasing a small, used pick-up. Budget is around 2-3k, really don't want to spend anymore than that. Just a little beater truck to pick-up stuff for the backyard from Home Depot, and transport large items once in a while.

Don't care for the looks, ride quality or fuel economy. Much more concerned about reliability and costs of service, because whatever I end up with, will most likely have a lot of years and miles on it. I'm even open to consider something with salvage title, if it was rebuilt after an accident but doesn't have as much miles and years behind it. It will probably never see any high speed highway driving, so I'm not very concerned with its frame/suspension integrity. It probably wont be driven more than once a month.

I would prefer it to have the following
96+, so its ODBII (nobody seems to do ODBI inspections anymore). I don't know however if my budget allows it.
4 cylinder.
4wd would be great, but rwd is fine.
6 feet bed, but 4 feet bed is fine as well.
Standard cab.
cheap to insure.
not popular amongst car thieves.

So there you have it. I know there are Nissan Frontiers and Ford Rangers that have what I'm looking for, but what else is there? I know Toyota once made a small truck, was it T100 or Tacoma?

 

I've driven an older ford ranger truck and it felt rock solid. you cant go wrong with that or a tacoma.

 

For that money either a older Ford 150 or tundra. We both know that Forf trucks were "built to last"

 

I would go with Ford F or Toyota Tacoma.

 

I would stick with an old Toyota truck

 

But only one built after 1990. 1980's-vintage Toyota trucks were shipped from Japan to the West Coast without the beds, and the beds were welded on after they reached America (this was done to evade the import-truck tariff, at the time, of 25%). To put it bluntly, they were crappy, defective welds....and virtually all of them rusted out from the inside, where it could not be stopped. You'll notice that almost all of the existing Toyota trucks from this period have serious line-rust problems around the bed/belt-line...by 1990, this problem had been largely solved.