Hated to see her go...

All,

Although I hate to leave the Toyota/Tacoma community, Toyota recently made me an offer I couldn't refuse on my 1998 4WD.

I have to also acknowledge that it was a very positive experience, despite the loss of "my baby".

I brought my truck in for inspection early in December and within 30 minutes the service advisor came out to report they had created a hole in the frame and that the truck would be bought back. Having known of the lucrative buy-back offer, I had mixed emotions. I've only had the truck myself for 3.5 years and put on only about 25K of the 219K miles on the truck, but it ran very well and I only put tires, brakes, and a battery in the truck during that time. I kind of realized, though, that with that kind of mileage, something would go wrong eventually and thought maybe this was a blessing in disguise. Plus, I've already got another truck that doesn't get used enough; the Tacoma was my daily driver and commuter vehicle.

The process went pretty smoothly after they completed the inspection. I was given a Camry rental for a period of about three weeks. I was contacted by ISG within about a week with an initial offer. Not intending to "look a gift horse in the mouth", I had trouble duplicating the number that was offered to me using KBB. I kept coming up a bit short. When I called back ISG, I found out that they had some of the details of my truck wrong - they had it listed as a 5 speed instead of an auto, and they didn't have any of the power options included. They confirmed the correct options with the dealer and changed the offer accordingly; this added about 5 days to the process overall.

This past week I got a call from the agent who had my check and we met back at the dealer about 4 days later to finish the deal. I signed over the title, signed a few other forms, and took the check. The agent told me I could take basically anything I wanted from the truck, indicating that it was going to just be crushed (no salvage). I pulled all of my aftermarket speakers, the floor mats, and the jack and tools. Since I had just put new tires on 500 miles before, the agent had also suggested I try to sell the tires, only needing to swap them with a nearly equivalent wheel. Found a neighbor who needed tires on his truck and we went back today to swap them out.

With that, I'm out of a Toyota and Tacoma, but hope to be back at some point in the future. It was a good truck and I am astonished at how well Toyota stood behind their product with the frame corrosion warranty. I'm also pleased at how smoothly the buy-back process actually went and how pleased I utlimately am with the outcome. My message to others - don't overlook the recalls and warranty letters when you receive them!

I plan to still hang around the forum. Thanks to you guys for all I've learned over the past few years.

 

Sorry to hear, hope you find another one soon.