For Sale 97' LX450 74k miles

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I stumbled across this truck a couple of weeks ago and after much deliberation I've decided to pass on it. The lady that owns it has cancer and is trying to get her estate in order. Her niece is actually the one selling it. I have no affiliation but the people are nice and have no idea how to sell a cruiser like this so I told them I would put the word out.

The truck does not have lockers but it also doesn't have a port added roof rack (awesome). The body is strait aside from a couple of garage marks on the bumper corner. The paint is good but it has been sitting for about a year and has not been cleaned up. The interior was dirty and smoked in (go figure) and had a couple of burn marks on the e-brake handle and one on the passenger front door vinyl panel. The under carriage was dry (no leaks) but not as clean as I like to see from a low mile southern truck. Definitely not eaten up but some of the welds were brown as we're some bolt heads. It has spent its whole life in TN. After having driven it, I have no doubt the miles are correct...everything is extremely tight. The windows are even fast.

The only other negatives I found were an air bag light, which I believe can be attributed to sitting too long with a dead battery, the interior driver door handle didn't work (easy fix), mild dry rot starting in the michelins, and greasy knuckles. I ran a carfax and autocheck report and they both check out but there are no records on it aside from the receipts in the glove box. The leather is great as are the cushions...now I know what the seats are supposed to feel like. The whole truck could be phenomenal with an extensive detail job and some minor repairs. I only passed because I'm severely allergic to smoke and I found another cruiser w/ 2x the miles that was clean, locked, and cheaper.

PM me and I'll get you her contact info. Asking price is well below book value.

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I believe TeeTee picked it up yesterday. Maybe he'll chime in show some pictures and remind me how dumb I am for not buying it?
 
would love to know what he paid for it
 
$9k was the asking price but he ended up not buying it after driving 9 hrs to look. I assume it's still available but that makes two well informed mudders that have looked at it with cash in hand and walked. It's a shame but this one may need to be forgotten about.
 
$9k was the asking price but he ended up not buying it after driving 9 hrs to look. I assume it's still available but that makes two well informed mudders that have looked at it with cash in hand and walked. It's a shame but this one may need to be forgotten about.

What caused him to reconsider? At $9k it would be a "retail" deal, but mileage is a plus etc. Sorry, just a fellow FZJ80/LX450 future owner here and am interested in what the decision process was.
 
KBB retail is $12,880 so it's not really retail. I also know the lady will take quite a bit less than she's asking. Maybe TeeTee will chime in but for me it was just all the stuff it needed in order to meet my standards. They all need something but I didn't feel like going through all the hassle of cleaning it up, rebuilding axles, chasing airbag gremlins, fixing burns, having a smoke headache, etc... My heart just wasn't in it. It would take some dedication and effort but if you want to win the low mileage contest you could do it. I just decided I'd rather have a clean well documented locked cruiser with twice the miles for a lot less money vs. the one with the lowest miles. There's no way I'd ever put 300k on it and since age causes just as many issues as miles on these things, it's not like it would be maintenance/problem free just because of the mileage.
 
Frankly, I am really thankful she did not clean it. It perfectly represented the care and attention spent on the truck. Hawgleg tried to warn me. I am guessing nothing was done to it in 17 years. It looked like a farm truck. The inside was filthy with stains and loose dirt. The paint was never washed. The dirt was almost embedded. There were other things that hawgleg picked up on. The insurance was sketchy, the toyota oil filter ( no dealer within miles), only 1 maintenance record written in the book from 1999. It was really hard to walk away. Especially after driving nearly 600 miles to look at it. Again, hawgleg tried to warn me.

-Tim
 

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