My experience working on a Toyota for the first time

Over the last few months I've gotten down and dirty with my 1st gen Tacoma. Until now I've spent my life working on BMW cars and Japanese motorcycles.

Some jobs included basic maintenance - oils/fluids, driveline greasing, spark plugs, brakes, suspension, ball joints, and now I'm diving into the cooling system and tracking down some leaks. This truck only has 115k easy road miles on it, but it has hardly been messed with other than basic oil changes in the past so it had some deferred maintenance building up.

My impression is that it has been very easy working on this truck. Each time I expect to encounter some plastic covers or need a special tool, but most parts are right out in the open to access. There is plenty of access for tools and getting my hands in to work on stuff. I think I've only encountered one bolt that needed some creative thinking to access.

The materials used for the hardware and metals is decent, but corrosion is an issue. I live in California yet there is surface corrosion everywhere and the paint is peeling up. I think the undercarriage, hardware, and paint coatings are definitely lacking in this generation. The leaf springs are rusting, bolts are rusting, any metal-on-metal joints are rusting.

I see tons of parallels in the design and manufacturing with my japanese motorcycles. The way they design small brackets, the castings, etc. It's remarkably similar, I wouldn't be surprised if the same engineers crossed over or they shared notes on design philosophy. Very simple designs that almost look too simple and cheap, but work great.

BMW's on the other hand have a much nicer "fit and finish", but also over-engineered and complex designs.

My last comment is on parts cost. I expected them to be lower, and maybe it's getting old enough to become a scarcity issue - but the cost of parts is pretty high. Not really any cheaper than what I'm used to.

 

Your analysis is spot on except for the parts being pretty high. What kind of parts are we talking about here? You don't always have to purchase OEM Toyota labeled parts. For some parts, you can always go with brands such as Denso, Asin, or Timken. They all produce OEM parts for Toyota and other OEM brands. You'd get the same quality parts for less than OEM prices.

 

So far, some items that come to mind are:
-Gaskets (I haven't found aftermarket equivalents to the intake gaskets)
-Ball joints and CV's (OE is the only source for high quality sealed units, per the Toyota hive-mind)
-Miscellaneous small items

There have been some cases of parts being much cheaper, such as a generic fuel filter or air filter.

 

Easy to work on for the most part…yes. I find your concern over surface rust on the underside of a vehicle that is at least 19 years old, if not older, just a bit laughable. Even if you do live in Cali, if it’s only got 115k on the clock, it’s sat for extended periods of time. Simple condensation will cause surface rust. You need to reset expectations in a bad way I think.

 

Gaskets, ball joints, and CVs are all parts that should be OEM so you made the right choice there.

He's in CA, but the truck could have spent most of its life near the coast. Salt in the air does will do its thing on the undercarriage. European cars do a good job with undercoating to protect the undercarriage for longevity. Japanese cars do tend to skimp in that area so it's a valid argument from his perspective.

 

If you saw the amount of rust you'd probably laugh as it's still miniscule, but compared to other brands with zero rust it's definitely a thing I've noticed. If I lived in the midwest I can imagine it would be horrendous.

 

Unfortunately, these trucks are getting old. Surface rust shouldn't be a surprise no matter where it's from. Overall, 1st gens are very easy to wrench on. I don't like where the TB tensioner is. They did skip all logic on the LBJ design. It will be an expensive day when Toyota decides to stop manufacturing those. 555?

 

Hopefully you won't mess with the starter soon, the bolts are easy enough but getting it in and out can be akin to a rubik's cube.

You've been to the threads on frame rot, correct? The box frame has a reputation of rusting inside out, there are horror stories. If you just have surface rust, you're fortunate. When you're all done with the major wrenching wool wax or fluid film the undercarriage. Supposed to do it annually but in a fair(er) climate you may get away with "as needed."

Yeah OEM parts are expensive, but check out parts.mcgeorgetoyota.com, I did a spreadsheet when I did my suspension work and they have most other OEM places beat. Any critical parts, like ball joints/steering rack, OEM only, but there's a lot of parts you can go aftermarket. Lots of threads here on some aftermarket failures, enough to bite the bullet and go OEM on critical parts.