Buying a crashed 3rd gen

If you don't know what you are getting into, then you probably aren't ready to tackle a project like this.

I have a friend who does what you are talking about. He has access to a frame machine and already has a good idea of what he needs to do with any particular vehicle. Him and his wife both drive vehicles that he fixed.... both are pretty nice shape and he saved a ton of money. It's a lot of work to do though.

 

I imagine getting that skilled eye for this sort of work wont come cheap either, guys who pull this off arnt the run of the mill mechanics.

 

Some photos of my truck, no air bag deployment, but still needed some time on the frame machine.


https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/smokey-bear-2017-dcsb-v6-mt-mgm.458673/page-2#post-14496225

I had a salvage title Jeep Cherokee Sport, I really enjoyed driving it, except during and after rain, it leaked and smelled for days after.

 

Nope, you need to be pretty much eat up with the car bug.

 

I passed on it, after pricing out parts i was looking at around 5-6K not to mention the labor cost (i cant do everything, airbags, frame machine etc)
If i could have scored it for 8-10K then it would have been a possibility

 

Probably a good idea.

Wrecked Toyota's command a high dollar at auctions. I have to look very hard and very long before I can score a deal. Even a deal for a Toyota will be expensive for a domestic vehicle.

I can't lie, I love buying and putting these trucks back together. I don't know if it is experience or the internet, or both. It seems to get easier every time I rebuild a truck. Once you rebuild a wreck and it turns out good, you won't be able wait for the next one.

Here is a picture of what my present daily driver looked like. It cost me $5600 in 2014. It only has 40k on it, but you can see that these trucks are rarely cheap.

If you look closely, the wrecked truck is a later model, actually an '04. Because I had a donor truck, a 1998, I was able to switch front ends and save much money.

 

lets not forget everything related to that airbag system will have to be replaced

 

Somewhere I read that the airbags can be $1000 each to have fixed. Maybe they're cheaper now days.

OP - I think you chose wisely. It doesn't hurt to always be on the lookout for a wreck deal. The more you go through the exercise of analyzing each opportunity, when a true deal comes along you'll spot it readily. It's all about risk and managing it.