Another New Guy - Hello from the 802. Intro and Storytime

Hey All!

From Vermont and finally bought my first truck a few weeks ago. Happy (well I was when I first bought it) owner of a 2007 Tacoma, 2.7, 4x4 access cab.

I've been wanting a truck for as long as I could remember, but one thing or another always seemed to prevent me from purchasing one.

After replacing my wifes vehicle, I figured it would be several years down the road until I could feasibly finally get myself a truck.

Buying used cars up north can be tricky with all the rust...so my original plan was to purchase a couple years old. Buuuuut - those are still expensive!

So I decided, I was tired of continuing to borrow a truck from friends and family and I had waited too many years already. I was just going to sell my vehicle and see what I could buy for around the same price.

Enter 2007 Toyota Tacoma.
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TLDR: Finally decided to buy my first truck, thought I did a great job researching and being careful; turns out I've had to put in $1,200 worth of repairs and there is still more work to be done.

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I'm the type of person that once I make my mind up, I fully commit and am determined the maek the best decision. So, I start doing all the research, looking at different tacoma's, test driving, talking to my mechanic, etc. etc.

Finally find one I think is what I have been looking for. Only 3 previous owners and the current owner only had the truck for 1 year. Got the car-fax... went and test drove it (had test driven others before), looked at the recall history, got under the truck, etc. The truck looked really clean inside and out for 12yrs old, the car fax was clean, it had slightly below average mileage and I was able to negotiate the price down to where I felt I was getting a good deal compared to what other similar tacoma's were being sold at.

That was a about 5 weeks ago.
Things started to go sour only 3 days after bringing the truck home.

On the 3rd day, I start the truck up to leave work and hear a nasty sound coming from the engine. Never heard it during the test drive or the two days of driving I did previous.
I turn the truck off, start back up, noise goes away... let it idle for a bit..no noise. Decide to drive home and look for any patterns.

The noise comes and goes, but its obvious it's the timing chain. Then the oil pressure light starts to flash. Ugh... I felt sick.
I was nervous I was about to have to put a bunch of money into a truck I just bought.
Turned out fresh oil (the stuff in it was horrible) and oil filter...and the noises and pressure light went away. Phew!

I noticed when I test drove it sounded like there was small exhaust leak. I couldn't spot it in the guys driveway, but a quick trip up on the lift confirmed it. I had that patched up, nbd.

Now, I only have myself to blame for this, but it took me a week to notice that the AC didn't work. :/ I got the old flashing AC light when trying to run it. Trying to stay optimistic, I was hoping it was just the relay.... but turns out..... it was the ac compressor clutch. Mechanic suggested that I replaced both the compressor and clutch together and if you want any type of warranty on the new compressor (new or re-manufactured) you need to also replace the condenser, receiver/drier, etc.

This turned out to be a $1,000 job all in.

But the worst part is that once the skid plate and front shield were off, my mechanic could really see how rusty this thing was. Power steering lines are horrible, clutch line is horrible, needed to buy a new AC line and pulley. And the oil pan is leaking (I posted a question about replacing the lower pan in an old 2nd gen thread, if anybody cares to chime in)!

Anyway, I'm now stuck deciding if I should cut my losses and sell the truck (it did have recent frame replacement and all that goes with that, rear leaf springs replaced, now new ac, new rubbers, brakes)... and try to find one without so much rust.... or have even more work done to this one when the time comes.

Happy to go into more detail about the $$$ spent if anyone out there wants to chat about the pros / cons of selling versus keeping.

Sorry for the long intro - glad this place exists!

 

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Welcome to TW!