Quote:
Originally Posted by T4R2014
Lol, if I was selling a car and someone asked me if they could drain the coolant from the radiator I would probably tell them to screw off. Maybe if the guy was paying a shop to do a PPI then I'd be willing to allow that since he's probably serious. Just being realistic after having dealt with selling used cars. Plenty of characters out there that will do anything to get a quick deal.
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Agreed. This question is a matter of your risk tolerance. It's old and has a bunch of miles. I've put more into my 3rd gen than I ever intended to but it's a great truck. On this whole radiator/trans thing, I suggest opening the radiator cap, when cold, and pulling the trans dip stick. Look for any evidence of a mix of the two. When I was looking, I was also reading maintenance records and if I saw a radiator replaced, coolant flushed, trans flushed in the same service, that meant that it had a pink milkshake in its past. I was not interested in buying that vehicle unless it was priced well enough that I could replace the trans.
To the OP, these things have been documented as stupidly reliable. The 3rd gen 4runner/1st tacoma platform are arguably one of the most reliable consumer vehicles ever produced. There are a few common things that I've seen lead them to the junkyard, outside of normal accidents.
1. Rust - Rust eats frames and they break. Do not buy one with bad bones.
2. Pink Milkshake - Seal between trans cooler and cooling system (in radiator) breaks, mixing coolant in the trans. The water is nearly impossible to truly flush out of the trans and leads to an early death. Depressurization of the cooling system and trans fluid in it can also lead to overheating which means head gaskets. Search adding a separate trans cooler on this forum.
3. Front lower ball joints - Search this issue. Front lower ball joints break after 150-200k miles and cause an accident leading to suspension/body damage. Replace these with OEM as a maintenance item at your desired interval (150-200k?) and you should be ok.
4. Head gaskets or hairline cracks in the heads - This is not uncommon in these vehicles at 200k+ miles. It is not an inevitable issue like it was with the 3.0. There are plenty with way more miles that have not had it happen but it does happen.
Other than those things, they're still old and high mileage. Stuff happens. There are other common but non terminal issues to look out for (rear axle seals, leaky valve cover gaskets, etc.). They're still pretty darn reliable overall. They're easy to work on and parts are abundant. When you go to resell, I think they will continue to be desirable. It will take longer to sell than a 5 y/o vehicle with an obvious market value but you should be able to sell it without too much hassle I'd think. It is a niche market and you won't be able to trade it into CarMax for a price you'd like.