I am a ford bronco Fan. However I have recently been looking at a lot of 4runners. There is one for sale locally and wanted to get you guys the experts opinion. It is 1993 SR5 with 3.0 V6 manual Transmission. Has 200,000 miles on it and has been well maintain I think. Has never had Head Gasket or timing chain replaced. He is asking 3000 blue book on it in excellent condition is 2400.00. Do 4runner usually go above blue book.

What else should I look for it is sagging a little in the rear which sounds normal.

I will not be towing or anything with it. I have F350 Powerstorke for that. It will be a daily drive/hunting/light trail rig. What are your thoughts

 

Unless I just wanted something else to piddle with or something different, I would buy diesel for the powerstroke. Our trucks are getting old and they just take a little more work then something with less miles. How the truck has been treated has a lot to do with it. I have a v6 and am happy with it, most are not. Mine seems to be the exception but it gets good gas mileage, has good power. I maintain it very well, but its not easy to work on at all. I have another pickup, wifes car, tractor, brush beater, plows, lawn mowers, weed eaters, chain saws and Im sure other stuff to work on, but that v6 pickup is my least favorite to work on. The vacum lines alone would stretch from here to Seattle and theres very little room to work on most things. Its 20 yrs old, its gonna need a few things and if that dont upset you, go for it. My pickup is hard to work on, at least to me it is, but its not for sale and Ive sure had lots of people wanting to buy it.

 

No timing chain, a timing belt. And it should be replaced every 96,000 (Sched. A) So you're probably due. There is no replacement interval on the head gasket, but long, long ago there was a recall on it. You can take the VIN to a Dealer to see if it was done; I think Toyota will even do it today if it hasn't been done yet! (But my guess is that your seller wasn't around 200,000 miles ago and doesn't really know the history.)

The Toyota V6 is a great engine with a few, uh, disgruntled owners. It's actually pretty easy to work on, compared with carbureted engines of yore or pure-computerized engines of today. Not the most powerful, but if you like it on a test drive you'll like it for years.

Truck prices are VERY regional; Blue Book is almost valueless for that reason. $3,000 sounds pretty low to me, but Craigslist (or PennySaver, etc.) will be the way to find out.

 

My recommendation, unless it's VERY clean, would be to stay away. Having owned one of these motors, i can tell you that it's not as bad as people say (I had better luck with it than i have with the "bulletproof" 4 cylinder) but you would only be getting about 4 MPG better than your powerstroke. I averaged between 16 and 18 highway with my 92 pickup with about the same amount of miles and extremely well maintained.

 

not looking to replace the Power Stroke.. Just something small to go around town and hunting and a little trail running. The powerstroke is here to stay. It is a 4 Door long beds so it in not real good bird hunting or around town.

 

I second Scope103 on checking Craigs list and other local pricing sources. Around here (northern Colorado), 90's era 4Runners go for well over blue book. Check the body carefully for rust and other decay. If it's in good condition it's probably a decent buy. Rear sag is normal - not too hard to swap in new springs and fix that.

You should expect to do the timing belt, which is $800+ if you have it done. (Mostly labor - change the water pump while you're in there.) I wouldn't touch the head gasket unless it's leaking. It may well never give a problem. Mine never has in 200K miles.

If the 3.0 is running well now, it likely has good miles left in it. Most 3.0's were pretty trouble free - it only takes a small percentage of failures to drop below Toyota's normal reliabilty and make it look like a "problem" engine. It's still a better engine than most other brand engines you'll find at that mileage level from that era.

 

Arguably the best route, is to buy a 3.0 w/ a busted engine and swap a 3.4 in. With a manual, you can pay someone like toyonlyswaps.com (see their facebook page for pics) ~$3500 to do it and should be able to ship it to them for less than $500...

If you pick up the rig for less than $500 and the clutch, tranny, axles and diffs are in good shape, that's a great deal for a total in ~$5k range... For the $7-8k range, you can buy a rebuilt 3.4L or install a supercharger, $10k for both:
http://www.yotashop.com/5vzfe-3-4l-dressed-block/
http://www.lceperformance.com/Superc...-p/7015249.htm

Rather than watching for a 3.0 with good maintenance for over a year and a half like I did, it's also something you can find pretty quickly. There's even some Yota Only yards in Colorado (where toyonlyswaps is located) that might have good rigs for the swap short of searching junkyards locally... Also some builders in the NW that do swaps too... Actually the junker and immediate swap is the route I'd go if I did it over. I easily have $1000+ in maintenance on my engine already with valve adjustment, soft rubber hose replacement, new distributor and other sensors, etc...

 

*Toyonlyswaps is in OR, not CO. Sorry, not sure why I was under that impression.