Fifty Plus (50+) - OT: Goodbye Red (sniff)

Last month I learned that my ’98 Tacoma’s frame was getting extremely rusty and the rate of rusting seemed excessive. About the same time I received notification from
Toyota Motors that they were offering an extension on the Frame Rust Perforation
warrantee due to many complaints. My model year is included in the extension. I
was instructed to present my vehicle to Toyota for inspection of the frame. It’s a
goner! I loved that truck. Being a short box regular cab with a manual five speed
it was almost as much fun as driving an old sports car, only a little more top heavy and
way more useful, especially hauling long recumbents around town. Sigh, and life goes on.

So sometime in the next six weeks I’m supposed to receive a package from Toyota
thru an intermediary company offering to buy back my truck. They are supposedly
offering “Buy Back Candidates” 1.5 X’s the Kelly Blue Book suggested retail value
of the vehicle as if in excellent condition, regardless of the condition of the truck. I
can find no fault with a program such as this and will pay down a bunch of debt
with my check, but I won’t have a truck. I won’t have my fun to drive little red
truck.

My wife’s Camry has passed 150000 miles and we figure it’s got one, maybe two
years left on it as the body is rusting away. We’re thinking of replacing the Camry
and the Tacoma with one vehicle instead of two. Perhaps an extended cab pick-up
with an automatic transmission (her bad leg) will fit the bill as a vehicle we can share.
I really want to stay Toyota but don’t want to have the same problem all over again.
Guess I’ve got some research to do.

In the meantime, I've still got an old beater sitting around, I've just got to rig up a
way to carry the recumbents and the tandem on top of that old '88 Caprice. Whew,
I had it for sale during the Summer...lucky for me everybody shied away from the V-8
due to gas costs. Another one of life's hidden little blessings no doubt.

Happy Trails

Must be the area you live in . I've owned 3 Toyota trucks and have never had a rust problem . My first was a 1978 SR5 I put over 180,000 on before i sold it after buying #2 a 1992 standard p'up which has almost 250.000 miles on it and I still drive it . Five years ago , three years before I retired from work, I bought #3 a 2003 extended cab with auto trans. , and A/C , something the other two didn't have . I know what you mean about getting attached to them . I've started to sell the 1992 twice , even had a couple of folks look her over , but I decided to keep her. She still gets 28 MPG around town , better than the 22mpg the 2003 gets . kirby

Begone old rust bucket!

Must be driving in lots of winter salt. Got 183,000 on my Camry, no rust, took a young driver with poor judgement to take it out. I'm not a fan of roof mounts, may be a small trailer would work, easier to load, readily moved between vehicles once the hitches are mounted. And many cars have the hitch attachment points already installed.

OMG !!!! Toyota contacted me today. They're buying my truck
back for $250 more than I paid for it in 2001. Good deal for me
in as much as I 've basically had free use of a truck for seven
and a half years, but bad deal as I had expected to get many,
many miles and many, many years of use from this vehicle. Now
I have no truck and I don't have the means to acquire another
one. I will however, be able to pay down the loan I took out to
reroof my house last year.

The good news here is that the company, once they accepted that
they had a problem, took care of me.

This is not an advertisement for toyota, and I've read that they have
a lot of new cars out there with serious problems, just a statement
that they did a fairly good job of taking care of my rusty tacoma
issue. I'm having a hard time sorting out my feelings on this
as I can't decide if I'm going to miss the truck more than I'll enjoy
having my roof paid off.

Now please excuse me while I try to figure out how I'm going to
transport my long tandems and recumbents.

Now please excuse me while I try to figure out how I'm going to
transport my long tandems and recumbents.

Feel lucky in that you did not have a Lancia. Made in Italy from Scrap metal from all over the world. Forgotten the model but about 20 years ago- I was in at a body builders next door to a Lancia Dealer and they were replacing the front crossmember of 3 cars that had rusted through- Before the cars had even got into the show rooms- And another great Marque- Alfa Romeo- The Alfa sud was a great little sports saloon. But they used to fail the 3 year road worthiness examination that we have over here- With rust problems.

And from a tandem owner- Put a Roof rack on the car and lay the recumbent on its side. I strap up the bars so they don't move and take the wheels off to make it lighter- but that is how I transport the tandem.

Italy has improved the quality of the steel they use now- but I still don't trust them- now aluminium is a different matter but haven't found any italian C.F.To test ride yet.