I guess he could HOPE to part out enough to either pay it off or at least make the payments. Good luck with that LOL.
@ MikeInNH
I am just going to try and get what I can for it and pay the rest of the loan of. It totally sucks, but it’s the situation.
I talked to one dealership this morning, who said that it was common that these frames to rust out so fast. He has seen them go in less then a year, clearly a poorly built frame.
Now I need to find a new truck.
I think you are making the right decision to move on. My brother had a 1971 Datsun pickup and the frame actually broke. He jacked the truck straight and temporarily repaired it by bridging the break with a 4x4 clamped to each side of the break with C clamps. He was lucky enough to locate another Datsun pickup with a blown engine. He bought that truck and did an engine swap. However, after a few more years, he found that the frame on the second truck was rusted and ready to break. At that point, he decided he had his money’s worth and moved on to a GMC half ton pickup.
Well, hppefully you’ve learned your lesson re: Japanese trucks. I was in the same shoes as you, got a F150, 122 k mi, w/ the six. I paid $2700, and felt like I overpaid slightly.
50k mi later, it isn’t rusted (other than the rear wheel wells) and is good for hopefully another 100k.
Visit a Toyota dealer with the truck so they can inspect it and check coverage that applies to the VIN .
There is a customer support program for frame replacement for 15 years/unlimited miles on certain 2001-2004 Tacoma vehicles. . It is required that the frame has had a corrosion resistant treatment process performed before 2011. I don’t know the details of this, you’ll have to ask at the dealer.
The parts are certainly worth more than the truck the way it sits…The engine, tranny, rear-end, front-clip, cab, bed, tailgate will all bring good money…But sometimes the neighbors get excited…
Any chance of getting another opinion on how far gone that frame is? Maybe Mechanic Number 2 will have a different take no it. If 2 says it’s at least tolerable then put the truck up for sale (caveat emptor) and let someone else fret over it.
If someone coughs up enough to clear the financial books on it then all the better.
As Caddyman alluded to with that frame replacement; the frame is not the only thing rusting and who knows how much torch or air chisel work along with destroyed widgets will be involved.
I think you’d do pretty well for yourself going the sell-it-for-parts route. But you have to have patience. You’ll get a lot of low-ball offers at first from folks who are willing to buy it now, and sell it later for a big premium to someone who needs the part and doesn’t have time to look around for one. You need to wait until someone actually needs the part you have right away. Then you’ll get a fair offer, as they’ll be comparing your price to what the low-baller has upped the price to. And you’d have to have a place to keep it while all this was going on without neighbor complaints, like in your garage or something, and you’d need to have the cash flow to support the venture; i.e. if you run out of money and starve while awaiting good offers on the parts, that’s not a winning strategy.
Parting it out is like starting a small business. If you can manage the various problems though, I think you might do quite well $$-wise. You may actually be very surprised how well you’ll do, especially since you live in an area where these trucks are very popular. Best of luck to you.
“He has seen them go in less then a year.”
Will all due respect, you are really getting some false information. This is an outlandish statement that is as far from the true as it possibly could be. You can see rust on any frame within a year but to see them “go” implies they rust through.
I don’t buy into that “seeing them go in a year” either. Maybe if the truck was parked on the beach at high tide every night for a year. Maybe.
Well, hppefully you've learned your lesson re: Japanese trucks.
You’re painting an awfully broad stroke. In the past 25+ years the 2-3 years Tacoma is the ONLY Japanese vehicle I know of that extreme rust issues. I’ve owned 3 Japanese trucks that never had any major rust issues. One of them lasting 500k miles…all miles in the North East.
The Datsun, Ford Courier and Chevrolet LUV (made in Asia for Ford and G.M.) marketed in the 1970s had rust issues.
Don’t forget the rusty Toyota Tundra
^ Honda doesn’t make “real” (i.e. BOF) trucks. Toyotas sell (used) at a sizable premium over domestic…100%+, if you take OP literally. No “brand a” vehicle is worth double over a competing “brand b,” on a utilitarian standpoint.
I buy my vehicles used, and I buy 4-wheeled domestics and 2-wheeled imports…not because I dislike import cars, or domestic bikes, but because you cannot possibly justify the price disparity.
If I could acquire a used Tacoma at Ranger prices, I’d be all over it. If I could acquire a Super Glide at Goldwing prices, I’d be all over that, too.
Toyota has a Customer Support Program for 4 model years of the Tacoma (2001-2004) and 4 model years of the Tundra (2000-2003) for frame rust perforation.
The Datsun, Ford Courier and Chevrolet LUV (made in Asia for Ford and G.M.) marketed in the 1970s had rust issues.
I agree…and that’s why I said in the past 25 years…and NOT 40 years. Almost all Asian vehicles had rust issues through the mid 80s.
It’s a conspiracy…many of those rusted Tacoma and Tundra frames were in part supplied by Dana, an American company while Tacomas are built in Fremont California…that makes them foreign made as California isn’t really part of the US.
I’d have to see the actual damage. Most frame rot issues are limited to certain sections rather than the entire frame becoming swiss cheese. If that is the case and this were mine (same circumstances financially), I would look to find a donor frame, chop out the rotted sections and patch in good sections from the donor. I’ve done plenty of frame off restorations of rusted out vintage cars but the effort was worthwhile. No way I would swap the entire frame on something like this, that’s being a glutton for punishment with questionable return. And it only works if you can do the work. Paying someone else is a losing proposition…
yeah, id be tempted to pull that sucker in the steel shop, and weld some re enforcement to the old frame. then run it till it dies
This guy quickly paid for his new welder:
You can see the weak point where the “broke in half” Tacomas failed.