These old trucks seem to last FOREVER! That is at least if they don’t salt the roads which tends to be the end of many. I am sure the engines and engine accessories are in great shape as they are in your truck. My area has a decent number of older cars but rust eventually kills them.
The main reliability issue on my 92 Corolla has been the starter motor. On 4th or 5th by now. Ray mentioned on the show that his shop had been replacing this era’s Toyota starter motors many, many times. I presume the reason you haven’t had that problem on your truck is b/c the starter motor is a different design than for the 92 Corolla. Part numbers are different. Makes the curious among us what the differences are?
92 Corolla, 1.6 L engine, 281001611084
93 Truck, 2.4 L engine, 281003408084
93 Truck, 3.0L engine, 281006502084
The mounting flange is a different shape/size and the battery cable is on different sides. there’s a couple differences.
I can literally think of no other vehicle which offers as much quality, reliability, ease-of-maintenance, and overall bang for the buck as the 1997-2001 Camry. Even to this day, these remain commonplace, and parts and service for these models are readily available. And of course, I would recommend buying one with the 4-cylinder engine.
I understand the starter motor for one engine won’t generally fit on other engines, but the question I’m asking is about the functionality & reliability. i.e. this poster was able to get 300K + miles on his truck’s starter motor, while I had to replace the Corolla’s after 50K miles, and another every 50K miles since?
Depends on whether or not you’re talking new or now. New, yeah, 90’s Toyotas were pretty bulletproof. I still have one. But now? That bulletproof MR2 of mine needs work every year, and it only gets driven on nice summer days that aren’t too hot. 30 years will do bad things even to the most reliable and well-maintained cars.
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Are you sure it’s really the starter motor and not just the contacts? Some of these have rebuildable solenoid / contacts components.
On mine the solenoid contacts went out every 70-100k. Did you check them, George?
You folks are correct, the failure mode on early 90’s Corolla starter motors seems to be the solenoid contracts wear out, other parts remain sound. Obtaining the replacement contact parts isn’t as simple as a quick trip to the auto parts store, so as a practical matter (since I’ve already removed the failed starter motor) I install a new starter motor and replace the contracts on the prior one at my leisure. Flip/flop process. At this point one of them is a Toyota oem part, and the other is a Denso rebuild unit, both good quality.
The question remains however, why do the contacts fail on mine, and not on the OP’s truck (maybe referring to a different thread)?
Maybe he takes long trips, you take short ones, with lots more use of the starter.
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Last starter motor I had to replace was on my 1984 GMC pickup. All our vehicles after that had original starters when we got rid of them.
My 50 year old truck still has its original starter motor. There must be something about the design of the early 90’s Corolla starter that makes it not so robust. It is small and light-weight, so that’s a good thing I guess.
Could be. Starters should be judged on the basis of number of starts before failure, not miles driven. But I suspect if my Corolla came equipped with the aforementioned truck’s starter motor it would still be original.
The 1993-1997 Corollas also had a MASSIVE oil burning problem
I hope you’re not planning on buying one of those older Toyotas as a daily driver
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I was not aware of this problem, however this generation has become very rare for some reason. I actually see the previous generation (1988-1992) on the road way more often, and I don’t know why. I also see a 1987-1991 Camry on the road just about every day, but I seldom see the 1992-1996 generation. The 1997-2001 Camry remains one of the most common cars here.