Rather funny that you say it's hard to find decent cars for sale in your area... when I was searching for my truck and my car I found oodles of ebay and craigslist ads for well priced vehicles in SoCal, enough that I considered flying out there to drive something back east.
I was in Chatsworth on business last week and as we drove by a lot with pristine used cars I lamented to my co-worker the fact that anything over 5 years old in the north east is rusted to junk and jokingly commented that I should open a used car dealership in NH where I do nothing but import cars from California. Heck there was even a Cherokee I saw with a for-sale sign on it in a mall parking lot that I seriously considered buying and driving back because of the cheap price and great shape it was in.
Even with the dire used car market in the north east I still managed to find a 99 Tacoma RC 4x4 for $7K which is exactly what I was looking for minus a few amenities that I would have liked. I'll admit that I got a good deal on my Tacoma, but most of the other ones I saw for sale were still only about 9-11K and I could have picked up an S10 even cheaper if I didn't hate GM so much
Toyotas cost more because they're worth more, and their worth more because they last longer, with regular maintenance you can easily get 225K miles out of one of their engines without any problems.... but I digress.
As for Gas Mileage I would hardly consider 17MPG decent... my lifted V6 Toyota with the engine running like garbage and in dire need of a rebuild got 18 and my current 99 Tacoma gets 23-27 depending on how I drive it and if I'm in 4x or not. anything below 20 is a gas hog IMO. the fact that this truck is RWD and still only get 17 is puzzling to me. "decent" would be over 24, and "excellent" would be over 30.
This might just be semantics but even the US Government considers anything below 22MPG to be a "gas guzzler"
http://en.wikipedia....Gas_guzzler_taxModern engine management can do fantastic things for fuel economy. For instance: My fathers Z06 corvette, a 5.7L V8, got 28MPG highway...
I'm not trying to be a dick, all-round it's a decent truck, but I don't see it has having any stand-out qualities vs similar vehicles on the market. If you like it, that's great, do let my car-snobbery get in the way of your enjoyment
If you don't mind my asking... what exactly are you going to use this truck for?
Hmmm We did take quite a bit of time searching on tacomas (2000-2008 models) with an extended cab, automatic transmission, 4cyl, under 60k miles, clean title, airbags, antilock breaks... and i think thats it
Atleast here in ventura county, a tacoma with those qualities were very hard to come by for a decent price in this area.
Originally we were looking at a decent car that would get great gas milage.... but we later decided a small, lightweight pickup truck would be better because I wont be able to haul a ton of ppl around. So thats when we started looking at small pickups
I guess I say fuel economy is decent when i compare it so my friends raised silverado that gets about 10 mpg... but your right 17mpg isnt really decent
heh dont worry, i know your not trying to be a dick, im just trying to justify our reasons for choosing this truck=)
