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THE SEASON OF hauling smells of garden compost and garage dust — the stuff that helps plants grow and the junk that has to go.

It’s a season of personal commitment to ecological balance, an Isuzu Trooper time of year.

So, naturally, I said “Yes” when the American Isuzu man asked me if I would take a week this summer to drive the 1988 Isuzu Trooper II.

“A week?” I asked, thinking of the disarray of the yard and tool shed. “Why not two?”

“Okay,” he said. “Two weeks.”

Tee-hee. The compost was the Trooper II’s first load.

Background: The Isuzu Trooper is a four-wheel-drive sports utility vehicle, an enclosed truck with cut-pile carpeting and seating for five. It was introduced in the United States in 1983.

The Trooper’s competitors include the Jeep Cherokee/Wagoneer, Ford Bronco, and Chevrolet Blazer among the Americans, and the Nissan Pathfinder and Mitsubishi Montero among the Japanese.

Until this year, the Trooper was a wimp. It had a little 2.3-liter, in-line, four-cylinder gasoline engine that struggled on the highway. A diesel version of the Trooper moved even slower.

Today’s Trooper II is a different animal. It has a new 2.6-liter, four-cylinder gasoline engine that puts out 120 hp at 4,600 rpm — 25 percent more horsepower than its predecessor.

The bigger, electronically fuel-injected engine doesn’t make the Trooper II a racer, but it helps the vehicle do what it was designed to do: carry, haul, and pull. After two weeks of picking up and dropping off loads with this machine, I’m sold on the thing. It performed marvelously.

Complaints: Dirty gasoline. ‘Twould be nice to get putrid petroleum off the market.

During the first two days of the test drive, the Trooper II groaned and sputtered, and I was getting ready to ditch the rascal. But another fellow who owns an identical vehicle told me that I was crazy and suggested that I fill ‘er up with high-detergent Amoco Silver, 89 octane.

Heigh-O, Silver! He was right. After 40 miles or so on the Amoco, the engine settled down and behaved beautifully. The rest of the time with the Trooper II — and more Amoco — went well.

I don’t know what was in the tank before the Amoco. But, whatever it was, it did a pretty good job of messing up the Trooper II’s fuel-injection system. Another high-detergent gasoline would have done just as well, I suppose. All I know — the car knows — is that the Amoco worked.

Praise: Excellent overall quality and craftsmanship. Isuzu didn’t goof up on the “little things” here. Instead, the company did a commendable job of adding thoughtful touches — four side doors and a two-part rear door, all of which open wide to allow easy access to cabin and cargo areas; comfortable seats; lots of pockets to carry incidentals, and ample room for legs and heads. I now know why people swear by this vehicle. It treats them right.

Towing and cargo ca pacity: Isuzu’s engineers say that the Trooper II can pull a 2,000-pound trailer (I didn’t try it). The vehicle can carry cargo weighing 1,297 pounds. (I loaded it close to that limit with no problems.) With rear seats down, cargo space amounts to 86 cubic feet.

Head-turning quotient: Boxy, but attractive enough to start a cult.

Braking, ride and handling: Excellent braking under load. The ride is bouncy over bad streets and similar terrain, as befits a truck. But it’s very good on normal surfaces.

Handling is very good. The Trooper II has good balance. It isn’t tipsy.

Sound system: Four-speaker AM/FM stereo radio and cassette. Boomy, but decent.

Mileage: About 16 to the gallon (21.9-gallon tank, estimated 341-mile range on usable volume), combined city-highway, running fully loaded (cargo-bay filled), and with air-conditioner on most of the time.

Price: $18,058, including $1,000 for the newly available, four-speed automatic transmission, $ 50 for air conditioning, $500 for cloth reclining rear seat, $50 for carpeted floor mat s, and a $259 destination charge. Base price is $15,399.

Purse-strings note: $18,000 bucks isn’t cheap. But the Trooper II has more standard equipment, such as underbody skid plates, than many comparable vehicles. It gets a “good value” rating.