Low mileage Gen 1 or high mileage Gen 2?

Shopping for a used 4WD V6 Access Cab to add Four Wheel Camper. Budget is $10-13K. Hope to get plenty of years of use out of it. Willing to spend money upgrading as things wear out.

For that price, is there a consensus on lower mileage (<130K) Gen 1 vs higher mileage (>180K) Gen 2?

I really like the looks of 2002-03.

Thanks!

 

I feel like with how big FWCs are, it would fit better on a 2nd gen.

They look funny on the smaller 1st gens.

 

Check the Buy/Sell/trade forum for some ideas.

 

I dunno that FWC Swift looks pretty sweet on your Gen 1 DC!

Back to my question, low mileage Gen 1 or high mileage Gen 2? According to FWC, they can direct mount the camper to the bed (no turnbuckle or bed bracket) on, up to and including, 2006. The camper will always live there and, hopefully, I will too!

 

Welcome to TW!!

 

Not mine, I have a Vagabond Drifter. I just collect photos off the internet

I am pretty sure that is incorrect. From what I have seen of the direct bed mounts, they are 2005+ composite beds only. If you get confirmation of this, please let us know so I can replace this info in my brain with the correct info.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0WpKtzeUIg

 

There's no reason you can't have custom bars made for a 1st gen that do the same thing.

So to your original question, for your parameters <130k 1st gen or >180k 2nd gen, I would just go out and start looking at them. See what is wearing out more on the more used 2nd gens, but
MOST IMPORTANTLY, inspect the frames. It looks like you're in Tahoe, so you'll get mixed results shopping out towards Salt Lake City where the trucks will have more rust than one from the Central Valley/SoCal/rural Nevada. RUST KILLS THESE TRUCKS.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CptDzJPEzz0

 

Wow. Those are cool. 20k for the Fleets. Youseres

 

Any year Tacoma is going to have decent reliability, but the 1st gens seem to be extra reliable. See the Tacoma by year comparison from carcomplaints (.com) below. Rusty frames are probably the biggest thing to look out for on a 1st gen or if you live in a wet/salty area where the frame could corrode.

 

Test drive both and pick which one you like better.