1998/99 2wd shopping help

I'm going to be looking at two trucks tomorrow and I'm not that familiar with Tacomas (yet!), so I'd like to know if there are any "gotchas" I need to look out for. I drive a '91 Toyota pickup, so I'm pretty familiar with that and I know they need their timing chain replaced every 150k-200k or bad stuff happens. Anything like that I should look out for on the tacos? I'm looking to get the Tacoma for the wife (she likes beat up trucks too).

One of the trucks I'm looking at has (the '99) has 379k miles on it (for $2.9k), so I'd really like to make sure the seller has maintenance stuff in order. The other one (the '98) only has 188k (for $3.6k).

So far, I like the owner of the '99 better, so I'm leaning towards that one (also it has bucket seats instead of a bench), but that many miles is sort of putting me off. Both trucks are pretty clean.

 

One of the biggest things to look out for are the frames - more specifically, the frame right around the area where your leaf spring mounts are. It helps to check all throughout the frame but that's the most common/dangerous place to have rust. Take a ball peen hammer and get underneath and tap around.

After that, do your due diligence such as checking fluids for anything out of the ordinary. Of course drive it on the highway as well as normal roads.

Expect to take care of things such as lower ball joints, replacing the fluids you've checked, etc.

Question I do have is, why only limit yourself to those 2 vehicles? If both don't check out, I do hope you don't buy the "better" of the 2...there are tons of Tacoma's on CL, market place (forum), facebook, autoshopper, etc.

 

Oh, I didn't really mean to imply that it was between the two; these two are just going to be the first we're looking at. If neither are good, then we'll keep looking.

Thanks for mentioning the rust, I had forgotten that can be an issue with these trucks. I'm in the southeast, so usually rust isn't that of a deal, but I'll make sure to pack my ball peen before heading out tomorrow. I expected lower ball joints, fluids and belts needed to be changed at the minimum.

 

If we're talking about the 5-lugs, the balljoints really aren't as big a deal as they are on the 6lug prerunners and 4x4s...

Even still, with that many miles, assume you'll replace pretty much anything that moves regularly (control arm/steering rack bushings, shocks, etc...) and the normal engine maintenance stuff (oil, filters, plugs, wires, etc...).

Frame rust is definitely the gorilla in the room with all Tacomas. I think as long as the frame isn't all gooped up with frame coating stuff, and it looks smooth, you're probably fine. The hammer is a great way to be sure since they rust form the inside-out.