Repainted truck, odd options, walk away or no?

I'm looking at a 2002 step-side single cab Taco that has per history 84K miles.

It has the solid rear window, not the sliding one. It has Bucket seats and not bench... From what I know (tell me if I'm wrong) the bucket seats were not standard on the solid rear window standard cab. From what I also know the step-side option was an upgraded so it normally would've come with bucket seats and sliding rear window in that package...

The owner also has told me that it has been repainted.

I don't want to walk away from a good truck, but my spidey senses are tingling.

Is this a Frankentruck someone pieced together? Is being repainted too obvious a warning sign to ignore?

I haven't seen it in person yet and am wondering if it's worth an hour drive knowing this already...

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B7SGuEEgZH1DWjJzdlNRVlpaUVU/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B7SGuEEgZH1DendfLTdCSHNhaVU/view?usp=sharing

 

carfax is your friend, or some other similar service

 

Could be. Although, it may be worth paying for a thorough inspection(2nd opinion).
I am not a fan of repainted vehicles unless I know the vehicle and who painted it and why. Maybe the owner will tell you who painted it. If so and it is local, you could always see if they have records of the job and can shed some light on the reasoning.
The best of luck.

 

Sure, I check that too, but I'm not sure if what is on it is some weird trim combination and Carfax won't tell me what was done to it unless it was reported. I just am wondering if this trim combination looks familiar to anyone? Supposedly it was black prior to being re-painted...

 

Well, trust your intuition and walk away.

The question you need to ask, are you going to be kicking yourself for *not* buying this truck?

Seems that enough come on the market that you can steer away from the suspect ones.

The rear bumper & tailgate are banged up. Could be normal use, could be from a wreck that broke the sliding window - cheaper to put in a non sliding one...

 

Yes go with your gut and not Carfax. Carfax is only good if their buddy at the body shop or something else put the info in. To me Carfax is useless.

 

Years ago I had a Nissan std cab 4x4. The bench was the worst seat ever to sit in. I found factory buckets and swapped em.

Maybe you thinking about it too much?

You could have a body guy check it out for repairs that are hard to detect. Or maybe it was repainted just from looking shabby. Anythings possible.

But that's a great looking truck!!!

 

how much??? hell yea--it would be worth an hour drive--older person owner?
Fl Trucks are ususally GOOD! as long as they did not live on the beach

 

Good advice and thanks. The owner is a second owner and has no idea why it was painted. He was honest about it. I'm just wondering if they ever did any combos of solid rear window with bucket seats... If someone swapped lots of things like the seats that really worries me... I can deal with normal wear and tear but a cover-up leaves me wondering how much else might be wrong... or it COULD be a great truck... just don't know, vehicle check doesn't tell me any info on mods made by the owners of course if they weren't reported...

 

Interesting thought. I'm sure a lot of people don't report this stuff so who knows. I know I kick myself every day for selling the '96 I had but am wary of tinkering... I'd rather have stock and fixable versus tinkered with and worse than it was in the first place. 84k miles on a 2002 seems too good to be true... Was it hard to rollback the odometers on the 02's?

 

unlike todays vehicles, years ago it was common to order the truck equipt just the way you want it rather then being forced to take what the dealer packages decides it has on it.

if I were ordering a truck I would have it equipt with solid back glass and bucket seats so who is to say this is not what the original owner did?

also the back glass can get broken by cargo very easy like the rack on a 4 wheeler or a 2x4 tossed in carelessly and as mentioned if you had to buy another one, its cheaper for the solid glass or maybe it needed to be ordered so they put in what they had on hand if it was a rush job.

everything you mentioned so far can be explained by someone just doing things to make the truck more to their taste, nothing screams "trouble" to me.

 

You might be right. This turned into a non-issue however as the owner has backed out... We had an agreement to see it on a day and time then he decided to show it to someone else and changed plans at the last minute... that and sending the wrong VIN at first, which could've been a mistake, but the bad vibes and reneging ... Not a trustworthy or honest person so far, so that's done...

There is a '96 with a hand-spray painted bed liner from a can and a minor brake leak... 132K miles for 6300 a fella wants to sell... I wish he hadn't painted the bed himself even though it doesn't look terrible, just wondering what kind of damage could be under there...

 

Any significant damage would be visible from underneath the bed. Otherwise it would've been just paint & scratches.

Every truck will have *something* wrong with it.