worth it !?04 Taco

2004 TOYOTA TACOMA

PRERUNNER 3.4 V6 rear wheel drive, 143,000 miles asking price $9,700 looking to buy this truck i found, is it worth the price? only thing holding me back is the year since it is pretty old now

 

Pop the hood. Total color changes are tough. I do paint and body as a hobby.

 

Personally, I would steer clear of any vehicle that has been repainted.

 

The clear probably was trashed and if you want to do it right, a full paint job is how you do it. Not cheap to do and if the frame is good, it may have been taken care of well and is mechanically sound. It's pretty easy to figure out if a full paint job has been done well, anyone who has done a full strip down and not just a tape job isn't usually doing it on a mechanically POS vehicle.

 

POS vehicle or not, seller typically repaint for 2 reason: body damages or bad paint. I seen $6k paint job not last more than 3 years with issue. I also seen painter not paying attention to detail and over sprayed or have paint run because it wasn’t prep correctly. Not saying all paint job are bad. But personally, I rather steer clear from any vehicle that has been repainted to avoid issue after the purchase.

you usually don’t notice flaw until it’s in your garage and have more time to go over the vehicle.

 

Paint concerns aside, that's pretty low mileage for an 04. If the motor's healthy and regular maintenance has been kept up, that's a pretty good price

 

Rust on the frame is more important than the paint - how’s that look. Mechanical stuff like if the timing belt was ever changed and the condition of the frame are the things I’d be more inclined to check than the paint. Original paint is nice to see the condition of body panels, but that won’t get you from A to B.

 

Noticed that the passenger door weatherstrip is on incorrectly - the gap on the bottom should be positioned where the door check arm is. Reason I mention this is because there's reinforcements in specific parts of the rubber and if it's not aligned just right the doors will leak water into the interior. If left long enough, you'll have a mold problem from the carpet getting soaked. It certainly could be dry inside, but it's a possibility.

 

Is it just me or does the passenger airbag look different shade than the rest of the dash? Also noticed the side panel on the passenger side is busted. I'm nitpicking here.... paint job on grill looks shitty too.

These are minor details, but personally I'd pass.

 

That's true but have you read the threads about that awesome paint many [including taco's] vehicles have straight from the factory? Modern water based paint isn't the greatest stuff, I was using Imron back in the day and that stuff was like iron and if prepped properly, would still be there after we exchanged nuclear missiles with Russia. That crappy single stage old stuff is still in excellent condition on my 30+ year old car, I haven't seen 20 year old base/clear that has held up close to it.

I've never seen a properly applied paint strip off in sheets like some newer vehicle colors unless it was old and damaged. New paint [5 years or so] stripping is due to poor primer adhesion.