98 with 315k miles, what would you pay?

A 3rd gen just popped up for sale from a local guy in my town!

From the pictures I can see that it has the full-time 4 wheel drive button, but I do not think that it has the rear locker. Assuming that it looks good inside and out and that it does nothing weird or strange... What kind of price range do you guys feel like would be fair?

He is asking $4500 or best offer. For perspective, a 96 that's totally mint with full time 4wd, the rear locker, and w 165k miles, goes for about $8-9k here in Georgia.

I though about offering him $2-2.5k depending on the condition and whether or not there's anything that I can use as a haggle point.

As far as inspecting it, is there anything very specific I should look at? I was thinking about seeing if they could do a compression test. I'm also going to figure out if he knows if and when the front lower ball joints were replaced

 

4500 ??

does it have zero rust I mean ZERO

if an automatic check the age of the radiator because 4runners had the strawberry milkshake problem and
radiators over 11-12 years old on those things are time bombs, guaranteed. if the radiator is not OEM ask about why
it was changed, because if it did dump into tranny, and tranny was not fully rebuilt, issues.....

 

Okay I'll add that to my list of things to check. So just to confirm, I want to figure out if it's the original radiator and/or if it's ever been replaced or serviced.
I'm assuming if I check the transmission fluid and I don't see milkshake...is that a good sign?

Also, I'm going to check when I go look at it but he claims that it has minimal to zero rust.

 

trust me on this, you want to replace that radiator asap if it is original. the tranny cooler inside it well known to split it's connection
and milkshake the tranny.

just checking tranny fluid is useless, it could have been flushed and you'll never -see- a problem. but if it did
get wet inside, the tranny is doomed.


anyhow just be aware that gen 4runner had this issue.

another tipoff is the radiator cap itself. if tranny fluid touched it, the rubber gasket will swell up 3x size, and become useless. a new or non-oem radiator cap is also a 'suspect' indication. don't be paranoid, just look for this type of stuff and ask about it.

 

Okay I've got you, I'll look at the radiator cap as well.

Did you have any opinion on a best offer?

 

How'd you make out? If alls good, the 4500 price point is a great starting point...

And great advice from localhost up there, I had a 97 that went milkshake on me...toasted

When I bought my clean 99 I have now, first thing I did was decouple the tranny from the rad and installed a dedicated tranny cooler, milkshake impossible now

 

It actually sold already sadly. But I found another guy just this evening who has one with 136000 Miles and he's only asking 7000. He's only asking that low because apparently there's some light rust.