Advice: Buy 2006 Taco with 78K miles?

Time for me to solicit more advice from this wonderful forum! I own a 2006 Taco, PreRunner, SR5, 4-cyl, 5-speed. Bought it used @17K, now has 34K. Everything great, except tires are old. But for work purposes I now need an Access Cab. Trying to do this:

- Sell my Taco.
- Buy a bare-bones used Access cab: 4-cyl, 5-speed. No SR5, no PreRunner.
- Come as close as possible to break even $$$. (Cash is tight and I'm in Cali which means an extra 10% to the state in tax, reg., fees, etc.)

No-frills Access Cabs seem rare here, esp. under 50K miles. When I find one the asking price is $15-18K (!!) I just drove a 2006, exact config that I'm looking for, even the color I prefer. Good maintenance records, looks and drives great. Clean Carfax, FWIW. But has 78K miles. Seller is being deployed to Iraq (ouch!) and wants $10,800K firm, which is about $1500 below private-party KBB.

I've never bought a vehicle with over 20K miles on it and I'm nervous about doing so. Yeah, it's a Taco and all, but still ...

I don't drive a lot: put about 1K/month on my current Taco. I just hate to start out at 78K even though the car seems fine. What do you all think? Thanks in advance!

 

I think that you are getting into it for a good price, so lets say it does go south worst case i would think would be a transmission goes out you replace it and then sell it right after, you would probably have lost 2 grand if this all happened in the first month.

Im just saying the best way to minimize risk is to get it cheap up front so you can always get out.

I really would have no worries about this.

Good luck with what ever you end up doing.

 

Thats seems to be a good price on that truck, if your needs are for a access cab then & money is tight, Id jump on it. As 06Red said....even if the tranny went, the most you would lose is 2g's. But its a yota, 78k is only at 30% of its life right now.

 

Thanks for the advice! I did purchase the Access Cab with 78K on it. Should be picking it up today or tomorrow. I still cringe at basically trading a 34K vehicle for a 78K, but I guess that's the price of an Access Cab.

Right after the deal was completed (of course) I found two low-mileage 1st gen. Xtra Cabs, one 66K and the other 45K. That's what I'd been hoping to find for several months and finally gave up on. If anyone from SoCal is looking, you can find them on AutoTrader. Both are from private parties asking $10K+/-. Seems to me like a good price range but I haven't checked KBB. No point in it now.

 

Good Luck with purchase. throw up a Pic of it sometime.