It Lives or Dies?

[relicom]

1998 SR5 with 173K. Pretty good overall shape, but mystery oil leak and looks like tranny is starting to go (losing power and bucking while accelerating). Wife and I on a tight budget and trying to spend as little money as possible, but concerned about putting a few grand into an old car with high mileage. Should I repair and keep milking the ol' girl or "upgrade" to something younger (we can afford something used with around 100K on it). Thanks for the advice! Dave

 

[98Base4R]

I'm new to 4Runners, but I researched for a while before I bought one.

Loss of power and bucking under acceleration could indicate a tune up is needed. How long has it been since this was done?

173k miles is not high miles on a 3rd gen. These vehicles are relatively simple compared to newer models, and should be less expensive in the long run.

The car I drive every day for work has 284k. I could buy the same car with 120k, but I know the history and what goes wrong. I also don't have to worry about a used car previous owner not telling me about any problems that might not come out in a test drive (like a bad trans).

When my budget was tighter I sweated every repair and hoped nothing would go wrong. Now that the budget is better it is easier to just fix things. But the sweating didn't help anything last longer, it was just fretting.

If you like it I would fix it.