christophe

I guess i wills start with saying hello and thanks for letting me participate in the forum!

As of Tuesday of this week, i have become the owner of a 2001 4runner. When i was 24 i purchased an 01 4runner new and I always regretted selling the SUV a few years later with only 50,000 miles on it. This go around, i found what appeared to be a nice 01, thundercloud gray with flares, running boards, sunroof, spoiler, and tinted windows. I flew from Birmingham, Alabama to Houston, Texas to pick up the car on Tuesday. The used car salesman picked me up at the airport and we took a 30 minute drive back to the dealership in the 4runner. Everything appeared to be great-clean car, seemed to ride well, run well, etc. I checked the SUV out when we got to the dealership and noted that it was not detailed at all like the seller said and the engine did not look like it had been touched. The seller had informed me that the timing belt, water pump, etc had recently been replaced, but the entire engine was pretty dirty and did not look like anybody had been working on it recently. I was also informed that the car had been in Houston its entire life. Anyway, i looked the car over and on the exterior and interior, everything seemed to be great for 130,000 miles. Minor scratch here or there and the carpet was a little worn in the back, but overall good-minus the mold on the roof and the broken antenna. Well, at this point i am pretty exhausted, i had been up since 4:30am, and i did not pay much attention to the title-i know, stupid. I drive home 10 hours and note that the exhaust is getting louder, the car has a bad shake on rebound from large bumps, and that the interior smells terrible-just old and musty.
So problems
1. The headlmamps are very dim in low mode. I am not sure if they are misaligned or if someone replaced the bulbs with crappy units.

2. The car turned out to be from Maryland and the muffler and tailpipe are rusted. The gasket between the two is blown out and it is so rusty in that area that there is no way to unbolt the tailpipe from the muffler. That lying SOB, i should have been on higher guard around a used car salesman. I am thinking of going with the Walker muffler and tailpipe. Opinions??? i would like the exhaust to sound stock. I hate loud exhaust, except if it is on a mid sixties muscle car.

3. From what i have read, it appear that the shaky feeling in the steering after hitting a large bump is possibly the upper ball joints. The struts and shocks are done for. This thing rides like an 88 caddy around town. I was cussing yesterday on the way to the local dealership to pick up the antenna mast. QUESTION: i dont want any lift on the truck. Has anybody used the monroe complete struts? They are 116.00 a piece from summit and that seems like a very good deal. I would also like to replace the rear springs, as i can squeeze the coils down with my hand, but i cannot find them anywhere.

4. the power seems to be down and if i floor the car, it shift before i reach the redline, about 1,000 rpm before redline. Is that normal?? I dont remember. Here is what i have done in the last two days
1. I replaced the fuel filter-I am not sure it was ever changed. When i removed it and turned it on its side, black fuel poured out.
2. I replaced the spark plugs and plug wires today. maybe it was not necessary, but i have no records of when the car was serviced. The plugs had a little bit of white powdery build up.
3. Oil change.

Plans,
1. i just ordered new carpet and a leather interior to get rid of the smell and make at least the inside of the car smell like new.
2. Definitely need new shocks, struts, and rear springs if i can find them.
3. Ball joints are a maybe. I see that toyota had a recall on lower Ball joints, but i have no idea if these were serviced or not.
4. New exhaust from muffler back
5. Valve cover gaskets need to be replaced. They are leaking a little bit.
6. I need to go through all of the fluids and make sure they are alright, even though the express oil change said everything was ok. I dont trust them. It did not look like they removed the differential plug.
7. Coat everything that has rust on it with some sort of rust converter or neutralizer. Here is what i have observed so far-exhaust is pretty rusty, along with the fittings to the rack and pinion. One other thing that i noted today while replacing the fuel filter was that the brake line blocks/joints, connectors, whatever they are on the drivers frame rail near the fuel filter, where very corroded. Enough to make me concerned.
other than that, the car looks great. I am a little pissed off that i was too exhausted to note that the car was from the land of salted roads, but i have good mechanical experience and i know that i can put the car back to like new condition. I will just need a little help and some tips along the way.
Anyway, in advance, thanks for the help and i look forward to being a part of the forum.
Chris

guitarplayer360

1) Try replacing the bulbs. Stock headlights are never too bright anyways. Sorry, this is the only advice I can give on this.

2) If you want it to sounds stock, just put some oem exhaust components on it. You can find these either online, or from a junkyard of some sort. Cars on the coast get alot of salt, so they rust quickly. There are some threads here on where to find original toyota parts. Just use the search function up top.

4) If I floor my truck it will get high up in rpms before shifting, especially if i'm in 1st gear. None of your replacements should affect this. The auto tranny ECU will do what it normally does unless it is replaced.

Sorry this isnt much help. It's a hefty post. Google search and the yotatech search helps a TON. especially for issues on original parts and stock trucks.

welcome to YT!

MAD 69

It sounds like this truck was in a flood - moldy smell and rusted out parts. With only 130k miles it shouldn't need upper and lower ball joints unless (as I stated in your other thread) the PO beat the mess out of it. For an '01 it shouldn't need all the work your planning on doing to it. If it's possible I would contact a lawyer and tell him about the shady dealer who sold it to you. Did you get any kind of warranty? You should have the dealer reimburse you the cost of tge repairs at the very least, if he doesn't agree tell him you want your money back and you can return it.

christophe

Definitely not in a flood. Somebody took the carpet out and pressure washed it and it just smells like some type of nasty fragrant cleaning spray. The truck is actually very clean.
The only rusty parts are a few fittings, the muffler from the tailpipe back, some surface rust in the inside of the chrome bumpers, and the brake fittings/couplers about half way back on the drivers side interior portion of the frame rail. The car has a carfax and it was never in an accident and was a one owner car until it was traded in at a Mercedes dealership in Houston. I assume the people that owned it moved from Maryland to Texas. The salt they put on snowy roads is brutal. Just look what it does to tundra frames. I had an 03 tundra before this 4runner and it did not have a spot of rust on it because i live in the south where we never get snow.
Anyway, the suspension is pretty tired and at 130,000 miles, that seems about right to me. I could be wrong about the upper ball joints being bad. I thought i would replace them to see if it would get rid of the jitters after a bump, but i will start with the struts/shocks and springs. The car does not have mud on it anywhere underneath. I know what trucks look like when they have been offroading/mudding from abusing a blazer when i was a teenager-you can never get rid of all of the mud and stains and somebody definitely did not scrub the underside of this 4runner. I think the car must have just been driven on really crappy roads and perhaps hard. Overall, minus a lack of power under full acceleration, it runs great and its getting 19 mpg on the highway.
The guy was the typical used car salesman. I paid 8500 for the 4runner, and it has sunroof, roof rack, 4wd, traction control, flares, spoiler(which i dont care for), running boards, and an sony cd player. The paint is in really great shape. What pisses me off is that the guy lied to me about the maintenance on the car. I am a very trusting person, but that is starting to change. I want to see records from now on. The belt change will only cost me 200.00, with a new belt, watepump, etc, and about 4 hours of time. Its just not something i wanted to do. Its not worth getting a lawyer involved at this point.
BTW, the brights work great, it is only the low beams that seem a little dim or misdirected.

Also, went back through the records and the car was only in Maryland until October of 2006. Just shows that 5 years of salt will eat the hell out of unprotected steel.