help my buddy out...

so one of my friends has a chance to pick up a 96 reg cab 4x4, 4cyl AT with 85k on it from a realitive of his for $4500 it also has brand new wheels and M/T tires, aparently his computer just crashed and he wanted me to hop on here and check for frequent problems ect, anything he should know when buying this truck? i wanna hear the good and bad, i know the price is a steal but he wants to know what goes bad with the first gen's

thanks!!

 

frame rust possibilities

 

X2 and leveled out leaf springs.

 

ok thanks for the responses, what is this leveled out leaf springs you talk about?

any common drivetrain problems he should look for?

 

96 Tacoma leaf springs seem to be any combination of flat, broken, cracked and missing. But my 96 has 297k...

 

The leveled out leaf springs is basically where the springs flaten out lol. And no drive train problems that I know of. Just on the 96 V6 (5VZFE) engines had leaking headgaskets that had a recall and all models were perfect from 98-on. But that was with the V6 so not sure if the same problem applied to the 96 4cyl.

 

Cracked exhaust manifolds are common on the 4 bangers.

 

x2 on the manifold, but thats easily fixed. Sounds like a great price for an indestructable truck.

 

Or a good reason to upgrade. And X2 on the indestructable truck part.

 

Hey this is the buddy, probably going to buy the truck. I put it up on the lift and it hardly has any rust underneath it and the engine bay looks like brand new.

I wanted an extended cab but with only 82k miles and the price, I can always sell it if I need to.

 

Looks good, especially for an Ohio truck!

However, makes me feel better for going to Cali to pick up my 96 extra cab v6 for less than what you're going to pay for a reg/4cyl

Where at in Ohio?

 

Jump on it !!!

Frame rust will happen from the inside (not always visiable) but underside parts will usually show some corrosion.

 

That's ok I'll feel better about getting better mpgs and not having to change a timing belt/headgaskets... I live NW of columbus. The gas gauge went kind of crazy yesterday, do these trucks have fuel level sensor problems?

 

Not that I have ever heard of. The only common problems that I am aware of are, frame rust (gotta keep it clean), weak suspension and cracked manifolds. Thats all I can think of?

 

Since the buyback recall for this particular truck is essentially over, not you should worry about rust prevention. So wash all the crap out/off of it with some frequency, ESPECIALLY in the winter (keep the salt AWAY). You should also look at doing some rustproofing treatment.
Other than that, there's pretty much no issues with these. The 2.7L engine is great, tranny/t-case/drivetrain are great, and if the springs are leveled out or saggy, just replace them with OME or something.

 

Yeah we should throw it ipon the rack and give it a good undercoating, u drivin it yet?