Buy a used engine or scrap it for parts?

My Gen 1 Tacoma engine blew on my way to deer hunt this morning. It's a 97 with 225K with plenty of modifications. I put $1K into this year with new clutch and fly wheel. I have a quote for a used engine with $60K miles on it....installed for $3850. Take the deal, shop around some more or just scrap the truck for parts. So far, I have $8K into it.

 

Sell the truck to someone who is mechanically inclined enough to swap an engine themselves

 

That quote for the used engine and labor /install is insanely expensive !!!!!

 

Body looks straight. If the frame is solid, fix it! Shop around for best price. V6 or 4 banger?

 

I say fix it, but I'd shop around, that quote seems very high.

 

Is this truck a Daily Driver or a Weekend Toy ???

If it's Weekend Toy I would spend the money and have the engine rebuilt with performance parts to increase hp / tq

 

Its a weekend toy/hunting truck. It has the 4 cylinder motor

 

There's plenty of performance parts available for the 4cyl including a supercharger

 

Ide fix it that's one clean machine.

but that quote is yuck

 

You gotta do the math, (A)what's the truck worth at this moment with a blown motor, (B) What's it gonna be worth with a new/rebuilt motor, (C) What's it's gonna cost to fix it. (D) What would you spend to replace this truck.

If A+C < B, it's worth it to fix it. If A+C<D, it's worth it to fix it.

If either one or both of these is not true, prob should sell it to someone who has the time/know-how to fix it themselves.

 

If you get rid of that truck you are crazy. Let it sit and find a good deal on a motor and find someone to swap it or just sit on it until you do find a good deal and you’ve re coupe a bit. It’s a toy and your in no rush. I just bought a XJ heep and have 6k total in it brining it back to life and just blew the pinion ring in the rear. You will get a LOT of bias answers here.

As they always say, gotta pay to play. Good luck and please don’t sell that truck. If anything, sell it on here first lol.

 

Personally, as someone that has put a lot of money into an old truck, get a newer one(any generation). It’s a very nice truck and I’m sure a lot of people would like those parts you have.

 

There's more to a vehicle's "value" than just what you could sell it for.

If anything, a parted out vehicle with a blown motor is "worth" more than a complete running truck, assuming you can sell all the parts individually.

99% of the mods we all do to our truck do nothing but hurt the resale value. None of us are really "doing the math" on our trucks...

 

Spend even more money on a newer truck just so you can put all that money into more mods for another truck? I guess that makes financial sense...

 

True. It’s personal preference I suppose. I would keep shopping around to see if you can get it installed for cheaper. If it’s your daily and you have another ride, take some time to “shop” around. If you get it swapped for that engine from that same shop the 60k motor will last a long time. I wasn’t accounting the mods for a newer truck, so it does make more sense to swap. Especially with all the work into it.

 

Perfect time to do a 3.4 swap.

 

LS

 

I had a mechanic tell me that he could LS swap my old '89 for 5k. He does really nice professional work too.

 

Just for fun, let's do a little math, just to see what "pencils out" between rebuilding/replacing this motor, or buying a new truck.

New truck: (using my '17 4Runner payments as a guide)
~$400/mo, or $4,800/yr

Used 2nd gen:
$15,000 ish

Current truck:
(assuming it's paid off, god I hope so, lol...) $0/mo, or $0/yr
+
1 time $3800 engine swap

So in less that a year's worth of payments, you've already spent more than the engine swap.

Even though it seems like a lot to fork out almost 4 grand for a new engine (I'd argue you could do it for far less), it's still less than buying another truck.

 

I’d keep looking around almost 4K for all that is crazy expensive