My First 4Runner

[Weave]

With the recent destruction of my beloved Sporttrac (we really need to raise the legal driving age, but that's another topic), I was in the market for a new/used vehicle and came across a 2003 SR5 with 65K miles, V8, 4x4, and most of the other goodies except leather and a sunroof. The price seemed right, so the little 4Runner will have a new home by Monday.

I've performed a cursory search of this website, and was curious if first-year 4th generation 4Runners had any issues or quirks that need addressing in the 50-100K range. I'm aware of the timing belt requirements, but as with any vehicle, subtle nuances arise over time that the factory could neither predict nor anticipate.

Thanks in advance for your feedback.

Weave

 

[progress4m]

:hello:
Welcome!

Besides regular maintenance two things come to mind:

1) Exhaust sulfur smell, so make sure that you VIN number not under TSB for that.
2) Some earlier V8 may develop a crack in exhaust manifold (s), so I would recommend check for that. I believe percentage of trucks having that issue is very small (wild guess is less than 0.5%) so hopefully you have nothing to worry about.