newbie question about tacomas

Another suggestion, have it inspected (unless you are a mechanic--qualified to inspect it yourself). Hopefully you have a mechanic you love and trust. When I bought my Tundra (former) used, I hired a mechanic I got out of the yellow pages to inspect it because I was buying it from another town. He missed things. When I was able to take it to my own mechanic, he found things.

But it's a good idea regardless. It could have had body work that didn't get posted to carfax. Carfax is a good service, but don't assume it's going to always have everything.

That Tundra was probably the single biggest reason I decided to buy new. I got it with ~30K miles, it was in really nice shape and all. Looked nice, passed the test drive. But it had some mysterious issues. I prefer to be the one that inflicted all the issues on my own truck

 

Definitely a good idea to get it inspected before purchase, that goes for any used vehicle.

If you are really interested in this truck, remember that cash is king -- or money talks, whichever phrase you prefer. Since they are asking $28k, tell them you have cash and are ready to pay $24k (or whatever reasonable amount you prefer to pay) and go from there. They might not agree on a price where they take a loss, but you'd be surprised how a dealership salesperson becomes very willing to negotiate with your offer, if you already have the cash ready to go, and make it clear that this can be a quick and easy transaction for them to move their inventory. That is really their goal - keep the vehicles moving out...

 

There's another major company that does background checks too - but I forget their name.

Long story short - I've been burned on this. Wife and I purchased a very-low mile CX-7 years ago. Dealership showed us a clean history report. After about 2 years of oddities and front-end issues (suspension clunks, little pieces of paint peeling off the bumper, misaligned headlights) I decided to run my own Carfax. Turns up it was in an accident and had to be towed from the scene. Battled the dealership for a month after I found out.

 

A lot of times you can determine your amount of leverage by looking at how long it has been on their lot. The Carfax should give you an idea of this. If it has been sitting for months, they're probably eager to get rid of it.

 

Oh my mistake I read it wrong, I thought you meant it had 30800 miles on it and not the msrp. The price you stated for that truck is good. Just tell the dealer you want an oil change before you get it. It still has break in oil and God knows how long it's been sitting on the lot and ran for short times. Good luck my friend!