Hi!
As you can tell, I'm new around here. I've been lurking around the past few days looking at 80 series, Tacomas, and 4Runners. I love the look of the 80s, but at the moment it's not a smart investment for me. I've decided that a 4Runner would suit my needs - which are minimal maintenance, lower miles, needs to get me on & off 4WD roads but not rock crawling trails, need to be able to lay down in the back - 6' 4" here - so I can live in it in the summer, and most importantly, reliable. I love doing landscape photographry and as long as it can get me to the places I need to go, I'm happy (i've been cruising around in a Honda CR-V which has gotten me almost everywhere, just not enough room to sleep in the back).
That being said, if anyone had some spare insight or recommendations on what I should expect on a 4Runner for my price point (~$15k max, hopefully $10k + $5k to fix it up to reliable or small box build-out in trunk), all is welcome. I'm not extremely mechanic savvy (might do some repairs from a shop ), but I'm a huge advocate of YouTube University and always down to give things a shot. I'll keep reading on here, so if there are any relevant articles I might have missed, I will definitely check them out as well! Looking to learn as much as I can before I'm back in the U.S and ready to purchase one in April/May. Thanks in advance and happy muddin'!
As you can tell, I'm new around here. I've been lurking around the past few days looking at 80 series, Tacomas, and 4Runners. I love the look of the 80s, but at the moment it's not a smart investment for me. I've decided that a 4Runner would suit my needs - which are minimal maintenance, lower miles, needs to get me on & off 4WD roads but not rock crawling trails, need to be able to lay down in the back - 6' 4" here - so I can live in it in the summer, and most importantly, reliable. I love doing landscape photographry and as long as it can get me to the places I need to go, I'm happy (i've been cruising around in a Honda CR-V which has gotten me almost everywhere, just not enough room to sleep in the back).
That being said, if anyone had some spare insight or recommendations on what I should expect on a 4Runner for my price point (~$15k max, hopefully $10k + $5k to fix it up to reliable or small box build-out in trunk), all is welcome. I'm not extremely mechanic savvy (might do some repairs from a shop ), but I'm a huge advocate of YouTube University and always down to give things a shot. I'll keep reading on here, so if there are any relevant articles I might have missed, I will definitely check them out as well! Looking to learn as much as I can before I'm back in the U.S and ready to purchase one in April/May. Thanks in advance and happy muddin'!