I kinda feel like I stole mine early last year at a little over 2k seeing where prices are now. Crazy thing is I ended up with one of the unicorns without even knowing it.....
All that was really wrong with it was an oil cooler gasket, a leaky shoddily repaired original radiator (new one was only like $130), and some hack bondo work. Lots of little things have had/ still need to be fixed. Granted it has 371k on the clock, but the engine is less than 50 percent worn out by the Toyota 5VZ spec I found.
It’s had 1k in body work so far to fix the ugly. But slowly and steadily she’s turning into one hell of a nice rig. Lots of Toyota parts into it, but it’s still way cheaper than a side by side, plus no trailer need. A/C is a real plus. I’m not even into it new four wheeler/arc money into mine yet even with several thousands in parts and goodies.
Originally I wanted a JKUR, but the simply retarded money those bring caused me to give up on that idea. I have a thing for paid for vehicles now due to my past life experiences. She’s purely a toy for me (what a marvelous one she is too!), the way it’s built though, it could be a daily easily if needed. It still knocked out 19mpg on the way back from Moab.
I totally found this one on accident. So happened to be a highlander.......Guy was hard up for money I think, and couldn’t or didn’t know how to fix anything. Luckily for me I was able to throw a crazy low ball number out for it and got it. Of course knowing how to fix things is a serious plus on this situation.
I’ve easily had double the monies worth in enjoyment so far with my 99’ sport according to the dealer printed build sheet. The suspension and tire combo is great. The durobumps are awesome at the bottom outs. It’s lives for the high speed rally, and it had no problem rock crawling in Moab either. It ate up hells revenge and find and things without issue.
It’s not big horsepower, but what an absolutely kick ass fun rig. That all said, for north of the $25k mark I’d probably do something different. Your squarely in 5th gen territory there, not to mention JKU territory. No, those aren’t the skinny big Boobied gal that the 3rd gen is, but they have a lot to like also.
I think people get too hung up on how much something is worth. Transmission rebuild isn’t that bad. If you have a decent engine machine shop around the engine isn’t that bad either. I could redo both of those for 4-5k all in. Yeah it’s a lot of money, and I’m making my time free for myself, but that’s still pretty reasonable overall in my book.
Don’t be scared to fix them yourself. The era of YouTube made the education part much easier and cheaper. I had to go to a heavy diesel tech school plus a few decades of experience to go learn what you can watch for free on YouTube for practically anything you can imagine.
I’ll sell mine for $20k?...............lol...........nah, that’s horseshit........she ain’t for sale.