very nice super clean looking yota, but still paying almost full dealer retail in this economy, is it even an limited? also I would recommend looking on forums or craigslist I picked up an 03 v8 4 runner fully built with 15k in receipts for parts, 76k miles original owner, he owed 14,500 on the truck and thats what I payed for in in leather with my current mileage 85k its worth about 20k I've seen similar for 20k on toyota 120, just be a bargain shopper really be adamant about getting the best deal cash is king, its a buyers market, i feel you can get a better deal for 20k + good luck
Thanks for the feedback. It is not a limited, and I know it was expensive. Believe me we did try your suggestion; during the first few weeks of our search we met several Craigslist sellers as well as looking at the dealers.
Craigslist was rough. One example: we were seriously considering an 07 Sport 4WD V6, "original owner, clean / highway miles, great shape, all records"... 82k miles for $16,700. Anyway we drove to another city to meet the guy and it was not what we expected at all. The 4wd low did not engage; he was going to fix until quoted $2100 at his shop and changed his mind, saying he'd sell it to someone who didn't care about 4wd. Also, big dent in the bumper, tires had bad cupping wear and needed balancing (noise and vibration on test drive), and there was rust on the frame at all the weld spots and bolts and other parts. He had lots of dealer records and dropped his price quite a bit- but I didn't want to buy a vehicle just to take it straight in for repairs, then get it back just to break out the wire brush and rust removal chemicals.
Some more examples, we did see a couple of Craigslist 05-06 V8's with around 100k miles for about $15k, but the timing belts had not been done (over $1,000 service) among the other little issues. And believe it or not, some of the owners did not have a clue as to what had been done. Not sure if the timing belt had been changed, not sure what a differential was- much less if it had been serviced (of course they had no records). Was leery about what other maintenance had been skipped.
Even some of the dealers were no better... Our local Honda store had a 2owner 07 Sport V6 with 81k miles which they dropped to $18,500 when we were leaving there. However, it was pretty stained and scratched up inside and they had put brand new "Capitol Precision Trac", small size, street tread tires on it. When I pointed out that a 4wd should at least have some all season tread, medium-size (maybe even name-brand) tires, they said they made that choice to keep the cost down...
When I got my Wrangler TJ two years ago I bought the absolute "best deal" in terms of low price (an 01 with 90k for $5,000) but ended up spending the dollars I saved in maintenance and repairs, and spent hours treating rust and doing other work like replacing the top and fixing other issues from the prior owner.
So this time we decided to spend a little more for this 4runner because it was one of the only ones we found that was rust-free, where everything works (4wd low, center diff lock, etc), and it appears to have been well-kept (dealer records, Toyota parts on it, nice oversized tires).
