Should I buy this '07 Tacoma

Hello everyone, been lurking around for a long time, and as I am about to join the world of Tacomas, it precipitated a need for an account on this forum. After a long search for my son's first truck (and mine partially to share), I finally have a deal to buy one. I am supposed to be flying up to MSP this Wednesday to close the deal and drive it back. It has taken a long time to find the right deal as the Tacos are in an unbelievable demand at the moment and very little inventory. This took searching all craigslist in a 750mi radius, cargurus, etc. Here are the details:

2007 Tacoma Access Cab, V6, manual, 4WD, topper (+original tailgate included), oil changes every 5k and regular fluids, 102k mi. No accidents, original owner. Agreed price is $12k. Looks clean from the outside and inside, and sounds like it should be mechanically sound. The seller sounds like he knows what he is talking about when it comes to maintenance.

Then I asked about frame recall. He says he had it inspected at a dealership in NJ in 2015/2016 and it was found to be in good shape and was treated with rustproofing at the dealership. As I read more about the issue I started freaking out, so I had him send me some pics of the frame underneath. Looks ok to my untrained eye, but I figured I'd post it here for you pros to opine. He did say there is some rust on the hitch (last pic), but that is a replaceable bolt-on piece. As of now I still plan on flying on Wednesday and picking it up. Thank you in advance.

 

Confirm in writing on the frame treatment but I don’t see any issues with the frame in the pics. Just surface rust developing and rest of undercarriage looks acceptable. If mechanically and cosmetically sound, I would buy it especially with that low mileage.

 

That frame looks pretty good so if you like the truck worth a trip. Do have them put it on a lift so you can get a good look at the frame. Hit frame that is up near the first catalytic converter closest to the engine. That’s a good spot to find a problem.

 

IMHO, for being an east coast vehicle, the frame and undercarriage is in impeccable shape for the year and area it has been driven in. Very low miles too. Price seems extremely fair.

 

That’s a thumbs up. The frame has been taken care off, especially if it’s been in NJ since 2007. Kudos to the previous owner, he knew what to do.

 

I have same year truck and live in Philly. Depending on north or south NJ how much salt they need to use varies. I agree that the frame looks good however it's covered over by treatment. I saw some roughness on the bottom of frame which I also had along with the seam splitting in that area however my hole occurred by catalytic converter driver side. They trust from inside out. My non expert advise is to get a cheap horoscope and look inside the area by the converter. I'd feel bad if this frame went bad on you because once that happens your screwed. Not trying to scare you just don't want you to have big problems later. Hope this does not discourage you just be careful. Not a car expert by any degree and I agree it looks very good. Good luck and hope it all works out well.

 

I'd say for 12k if everything else is good, there's almost no way this frame makes it not worth 12k. Even if it does have some rust, I'm pretty sure these trucks go for a lot more with a lot more miles on them. I bought mine for 10k this year but it has 170k miles, a rough body and superficial rust underneath. Yours is also a manual transmission which is desirable by many, so you really shouldn't have much problems offloading it if you decide it's not to your liking.

 

Check the frame everywhere with your own eyes,BEFORE buying.

 

Thank you all for the responses, I appreciate it. I do feel much better about this and sorry I wasn't clear about where the car lived its life. He just happened to be in Newark (DE, not NJ, my mistake) when he went in for the frame recall to a dealer, but this truck spent most of its life in Iowa and California as this guy moved around. Just pulled carfax, original owner, no accidents and following timeline:

2007 - 2012 Ames, IA
2012 - 2014 Temecula, CA
2014 - 2017 Newark, DE
2017 - 2020 Temecula, CA
June 2020 - now near Minneapolis, MN (which is where I am going to buy it tomorrow)

Again - I feel much better about this now. Thank you all for the help and advice. Few more pics of the actual truck from the ad (been repainted some fugly flat red, but I don't really care about the color):

 

Do the hammer to the frame test but looks good, is that paint oem?

 

If you have the vin, open a toyota owners account and add the truck. You'l be able to see all dealer performed service.

Frame looks decent from what i can see. Definitely check around the cats before handing over the cash

 

Neg, he did say in our first conversation it was repainted as the color was starting to fade. But instead of shiny metallic red, it was painted a flat-ish red.

To teach my kids (13 & 15) how to drive a stick and have a vehicle to beat around in the mountains here in CO, this was the best I could come up with after quite a search. Have to say I am excited for tomorrow. Thank you all again. Cheers.

 

I like the look of it, even though not seeing out the back would drive me mad!

 

looks good other than that abortion of an exhaust patch job! That's small potatoes though.

 

Check the area next to the muffler. The mufflers have seams and they can go bad and spout hot gasses onto the frame, which eats away at the paint and starts corrosion on the frame.

The rest looks pretty good to me. At most, from what I can see, you can knock down some of that with a wire brush and spray it with some rust reformer. Then do preventative maintenance with fluid film/Woolwax, etc to keep it looking nice.

 

The LCA hardware looks new. That's good.

 

Looks good. The flat fad, I'm not into either.

Something I missed when I looked to buy mine was the tires. They looked good, plenty of tread but they were really old and dry. I kept finding little square pieces of rubber in my driveway. Then I saw that the tires were shedding them.

For peace of mind, I'd go through the usual, look at the brakes, fluids, air filter, cabin air filter. Perhaps dump & refill the transmission and differential. Clean the maf and throttle body. Look at the plugs, regap them if they're horrible, replace once you get new ones, if needed.

Manual v6, YES. Look up accumulator delete modification or adm. If the shifter feels sloppy, replacing the white shifter bushing may be needed. If it's still sloppy, find a dude named Gadget. He'll hook you up with a re-epoxyed shifter arm. When I talked to him, he didn't have a core so you might have to ship yours to him.

Welcome to my world, I mean our world, I mean Tacoma world!

 

Is that a rust through? Or just my eyes?

 

LOL, thank you. Tires only have 1500 miles on them, according to the owner. They are some offbrand, Centennial Dirt Commander (looks like Sears or E-bay), but in the Carfax it notes tire installation at a shop 1500 miles ago along with an alignment so I figured I'm ok on that front.

as far as other stuff here is what the ad said and the seller repeated on the phone, while using proper terminology:

I've changed the oil every 5k miles. The front/rear differential fluid, transfer case fluid, transmission fluid, and spark plugs have been changed every 30k miles. The following was replaced at 100k:
-Coolant flush
-upper/lower ball joints
-inner/outer tie-rods
-front brake pads/rotors
-CV axles

It has a three inch lift with 285/75R16 mud tires with less than 1,500 miles on them. The speedometer has a Hypertech in-line calibrator to correct for the larger tires, so the speedometer/odometer are accurate.

I am almost 100% buying it tomorrow barring something unforeseen in-person.

 

Try not to corner yourself into a sale. The seller has you where they want you, it takes a lot of discipline to walk away if you sense something. Hopefully it's all good though. If you can, test drive it and come back here for more feedback if you sense symptoms. Spend the night in Minneapolis and buy it after a rest.