First off, big apologies if this is the wrong section.

Guy in my area is selling a 1981 4x4 "Pickup Hilux" with 350k miles on it with the original engine and transmission for $8k OBO. Pictures look pretty good and the ad claims it runs well and that it's a daily driver up till now.

Unless I'm missing something though, the price seems insane. Can't find a baseline for what it might actually be worth at that mileage, and don't even know if I could expect it to have enough life to make it worth buying at all.

I'd appreciate any input from y'all.

 

In my opinion, I'd say that's high. But it's complete, no rust, has AC, and looks pretty nice. I think $4000.00 would be a fair price, with $6000.00 being reasonable to. With that being said, how bad do you want it, and what do you want? You won't find many others that are as nice as this one appears. Bodywork is very expensive, so is any other work nowadays. This one might not need any of that. See if the owner is flexible on price, and can you afford to pay $8K for it. Dean

 

It's a nice truck, but not that nice. IF there is nothing more that surface rust on the frame and body and it runs and drives well then I'd be ok with throwing $3,500-5,000 at it.

 

Thanks for the replies, guys.

I was thinking 3000-4000 made a lot more sense.

I'll throw an offer out there and see if he bites.

Provided he does, can I expect there to be much life left in the bearings and tranny at this point? It's probably going to end up being a daily driver, if something major is likely to take a dump soon it's another thing to consider.

Thanks for the help, again

 

That truck is no cleaner than the one I daily around same color and everything I paid 3k with 156,000 on it two years ago. I think 3500 would be as high as I'd go.

 

If you ask 10 people you'll probably get 10 answers

I'm in agreement with the others, nice clean first-gen but 8k is way overpriced. I'd say 3k would be my top dollar, maybe up to 3500 if it was to make the deal. That one doesn't seem to have any rust or body issues as a lot of these older trucks do but I think most people in the market for an older toyota are more concerned with the mechanical than the cosmetics anyway. At 350k it would all depend on the maintenance, if its been kept up theres no reason it shouldn't have some life left in it but at the same time you're talking about a vehicle thats already done 350k miles The way I look at it is ultimately its a 35 year old vehicle with 350k. I guarantee if that was to get wrecked the insurance company wouldn't be paying anywhere near that.

 

Oh, and to answer the OP's earlier question,if the maintenance has been kept up on the engine there shouldn't be any issues there. Honestly about the only issue I've seen with the manual transmissions on these trucks are leaking and some bearing noise in 5th gear (don't mention 4 or 5 speed), both of which are really more annoying at detrimental. I've seen them with quite a bit more miles than 350k still in service. You may need a clutch at some point but thats relatively cheap and at 350k I'm sure its been done a couple times so it may have been recently done.

If it was me, I'd look more into the front end, cooling system, electrical system, rear suspension. In my experience those are the areas that break down the most over time. These toyotas run forever but a lot of the time the rest of the trucks can degrade around the drivetrain.