Is Craigslist really the best place to find a used T4R??

[Ahawl03]

CL here too. Took several months to find a decent one that I could jump on right away. I got lucky - had one day off from work, and saw my 07' V8 sport pop up. Went to drive it a few hours after the posting, and I was already 2nd in line. I matched the offer from the other guy, and the seller said he went with me because he felt like I wanted it more than the other guy. Works for me!

 

[gbouton]

Despite all the time and effort it took to find the "right one", it does at least make me feel better if/when resale time comes around. After buying my 4th gen, it only took me one day to sell my 3rd gen, and with it being a clean, lower mile 5-speed, I even got offers above my asking price. I can only hope the same will happen in another 10 years if I sell my current '07 V8 Sport.

 

[duffdog]

If you talk to any dealer in CA, a 4wd v8 4runner will last about 10 minutes on the lot. Most (if not all) of the listings on Craigslist are scams or people trying to hide major problems and disappear with the money before you find out. I have never seen a craigslist seller of a car who was not trying to scam me in some way or another. Luckily, I knew what to look for going into the deal and called them on all of their scaminess in order to get a better deal.

 

[dsieber]

Found mine on Craigslist in April, but it was a dealer ad. I had to fly to pick it up because I couldn't find anything locally that wasn't either super-high mileage, or priced at an insane amount. I probably paid a bit more than from a private seller, but it was an '07 v8 4wd with 73k miles, and exactly what I wanted. 1 prior owner. The good part about buying it from a dealer was that they paid to fix the exhaust manifold when I brought it home and the problem was found when I had to take it through an out of province inspection.

Have to say there was also someone else waiting to buy it if I hadn't taken it.

 

[luke87gt]

Craigslist here too but it took quite a while to find a clean one with reasonable miles (115k in my case) and fair price

 

[Boudin]

The last 2 vehicles I bought ( T4R and Chevy SS) I found on cargurus.com

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[vachss]

I looked on CL, Autotrader and cars.com. My take is that there's a lot more sketchy vehicles on CL, but if you take your time and know how to inspect then you can find vehicles significantly cheaper there as well. Autotrader seemed a lot better for those really clean looking $15-20K-ish Runners while the sub-$10K deals were all on CL.

It took me 6 months of looking but I found an 04 4WD with 115K miles for under $9K. I couldn't touch that on the other sites.

 

[Stuffman]

for me to do research plus purchase was little over 1.5 years.

 

[cherishzm]

Found one

Just found one (08 2WD V6). I really wanted V8 4WD Limited, but it was impossible to find one with low miles in the last 6 months' of searching. It has 80k miles and has been in FL and sourhern VA, one minor accident. It drove and ran well without anything wrong. Is $12k good price for it?

 

[Elan750]

Man I guess I lucked out. I searched for about 4 days, Then found an 05' v6 4wd sport edition with 120k. Great shape. It had only been listed on craigslist for about 15 minutes. I bought it that day for $7800. I was surprised as it was a dealer too.

 

[cools20]

reason i ask is almost all that i find there are either:

a) clapped out

b) tons of miles

c) rust buckets

d) a combination of the above 3

e) scams

it seems like *maybe* one clean 4Runner pops up per month within a ~200mi. radius of my area (NYC) and it's gone within 2 days.

goddamn this is hard.

got a crazy deal on my 08 limited on craigslist just might take some time to find the right one.

 

[Dre's runner]

Got mine on the USAA car buying app. Got lucky with a one owner fla 4wd in my hometown. If you are not a USAA member I think it uses true car which is good too. I paid 14,900 for a fully loaded 05 with only 70k miles in 2014. Not the deal of the century but I paid a fair price for a fair truck. I actually came into a 4Runner by accident. I wanted a 4 door Tacoma. Couldn't find one with less than 100k on it for less than $25k. I found it weird that the 4Runner is more expensive new but cheaper used.

 

[JeratBP]

Man I guess I lucked out. I searched for about 4 days, Then found an 05' v6 4wd sport edition with 120k. Great shape. It had only been listed on craigslist for about 15 minutes. I bought it that day for $7800. I was surprised as it was a dealer too.

Maybe I paid a bit too much for my '05, but I'm psyched to own it. I found it on Autotrader or Cars, or something other than CL. I had searched for a week or two and then sold my '08 Tacoma on 9/9. Found my '05 V8 Sport and bought it from a dealer 4 hours away, last Friday 9/16. I gave them the deposit, they brought it to me and I test drove it before I handed over the remainder.

Paid: $10,500

Everything I found/researched locally around the same year, was listed at over $12k. One local dealer in VA Beach had a Limited with over 120K miles, and the dash/seats were cracked. They wouldn't budge from their $12k sticker.... NEXT

 

[fayraree]

Thanks for all the advice in this thread! Just started my search about a week ago when I started feeling a consistent engine shudder while driving my 1998 Nissan Pathfinder SE 4x4 (which I also found on CL).

I only found 1 car on CL that matches my needs (2008, sub-$20k, v8, 4x4, Sport or Limited). I live in the NYC area (Queens) and I have to say it's pretty tough to find good ones nearby and driving around to explore makes one take a bullet in the head because of traffic congestion. NJ had a couple of options but I'll wait till the weekend to explore.

I did test drive one yesterday at a nearby dealer: 2008 v8 4x4 Sport, with only 34k miles, asking a little less than $20k. I checked KBB and it makes sense, because the car is in mint condition. I offered $17k and was shown the door, lol. I might follow up on that one, because it was mint.

Any advise is welcome!

OP, hope you found yours!

 

[4rcybr]

I think you're more likely to find a good vehicle on one of the enthusiast sites like this or ih8mud or the like. I watched CL for a month finding nothing, but there is good stuff there-just more crap to sort through.

Beyond that, expand your search-I bought a vehicle ~1200 miles away from me. Sure, it added a flight and some gas and some hotel stays on the way home, but if you build that into your costing you can shop anywhere in the country and adjust accordingly (there also is fairly affordable vehicle delivery these days).

Ultimately, you need to be quick. A good deal will go in under 24 hours-and if you didn't catch it you'll miss it. I messaged the seller within 2 hours of them posting, and had made an offer within 12 hours. I'd tried to get a couple others earlier but never was quick enough.

In a similar vein, I just sold my Civic on craigslist. I posted last night about 7pm, and I had a deposit in hand by 9pm. Finished the sale at 5 today. Had several other offers that came in after I had the deposit in hand (including one that was actually higher!) that I had to turn down because the first guy had been so quick to come out and put down a deposit. That ad is no longer visible-anyone who didn't look in a 22 hour period would never have seen it.

 

[fayraree]

So I just bought the one I test drove yesterday and apparently it had been listed for 17 days. They reduced the price on it by $2.5k to the $19,768 that I bought it for. I only saw it 2 days ago and thanks to the advice on here, rushed to it. Albeit, the Manhattan market might be significantly different when it comes to 8 year old cars but I wasn't taking any chances!

I was planning to check out a car I found on CL, 2007 v8 limited with 74k but it didn't have a squeaky clean Carfax and the leather was ripped (seller asking $15.5k which was too much I think). Decided not to after signing for mine at the Toy dealer.

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