Does anyone know in what year Toyota corrected the rust problem for their pickups? I owned an 88 which I absolutely loved but got rid of it because of all the rust. I want to buy another one but I want to make sure it isn’t going to rust out like the last one.
i dont see how the model or anything affects rust, except for paint, you might have got a bare spot and the rust spread
Why are you blaming the rust problem on Toyota?
You had an 88 that rusted and that may or may not mean anything.
How much rust, age, and where you live has a lot to do with it.
If you live in Minnesota or Ohio then salt is going to chew anything up.
I have a theory on the toyota rust.
You see a lot of toyota pickups that only have rust on the bed under the tailpipe, my '89 included. I think this is where it starts, and I believe the reason why this happens is that if the exhaust hanger in front of the muffler breaks, the hanger on the other side becomes a fulcrum and the tailpipe starts pushing up against the bed. This scrapes off the paint and heats up that spot, rapidly accellerating the rusting process. I also think that because the exhaust pipe after the muffler makes a couple of sharp turns, that exhaust shops tend to put the pipe too close to the bed to begin with.
So it’s not like it’s a metalurgical problem that makes rust inevitable. You see plenty of old Toyotas driving around that look great. If you find one in good condition and are proactive about keeping the underside clean and making sure the problem I’ve described above doesn’t happen, there’s no reason why you can’t get years and years of good service out of one.
Rust technology has changed a lot in the last 20 years. I suspect Toyota has used that technology in their new pickups.
I heard that Toyota exported pickups to California without beds (to allow for a multiple use, such as flatbed, pickup, specialty use, whatever) and that the beds came primed . . . not finished, to be assembled as per customer order in the U.S. The break in the manufacturing process was the reason for the rust problem, with the beds rusting on 80’s and early 90’s, fixed later by Toyota. Anyone else hear about this? Rocketman
Toyota, Nissan, Subaru and Honda all had problems in from the 70’s through the mid-80’s on their vehicles prematurely rusting out. We would have kept my wifes 80 Datson 510 longer if it didn’t have some pretty good rust by 87. Her 87 Accord had very little rust when she bought another Accord in 96.
Since the late 80’s or early 90’s very few vehicles rust out prematurely (even American)…and even in upstate NY.
The toyota pickups were awful as you know thru 1998. They improved but were not perfect in the 89-94 generation. My parents had to sell a perfectly running mechanically 1989 Toyota 4x4 pickup with only 140k miles due to excessive rusting and it would not pass inspection in 2000. I believe they improved more in 1995 as a Tacoma and I would not worry much about the current generation.
I meant awful thru 1988 in my post above.
Rocketman:
Both Toyota and Datsun used to import there trucks into the US without beds. This was because it was cheaper. If the bed was not on the truck it was considered an incomplete vehicle and they saved money on import tariffs that way. The beds were imported on the same ship under the classifacation of PARTS and the trucks were put together at the port of entrance. This was strictly a money saving procedure.
~Michael