A huge, heartfelt thank you to all of you for sharing your experiences and advice.
I'm blown away by how much I have learned from this thread and am really thankful to have found this community.
Unfortunately, the car I was looking at in Arizona sold.
And I canceled my deposit and appointment to see the Onyx Black 2015' with 144k miles.
Thanks to all of you, I now have a much better idea of what I want.
I'll keep looking for a good deal on a white GX with good maintenance history.
The time to buy the TRD Pro wheels is black Friday\Cyber Monday in 2 weeks. Several Toyota dealers will have sales including free shipping. I bought mine last year (5) with free shipping and no tax at ~40% off. They can start a little early I found mine through Tacoma World. If you are looking at the flat black:
TRD Pro black wheels PTR56-89210-F2
TRD Pro Center cap new red ring PT280-89210-F2
Lug nuts black PT076-60200-02
Another advantage over the stock wheels is that they are 7 pounds lighter which helps offset heavier tires. You are going to need to determine what tires you want and if it will fit in the spare location or not. And if not? You will want to carry a spare with you especially if you puncture a sidewall. It happens.
I had an Xterra a ways back before my Taco. I feel that I haven't given up anything off road with the GX over it. And the Xterra was the only vehicle that I've owned that seemed to shrink in size inside. Interior space is tiny. Those that complain that the GX doesn't have internal volume have never tried to pack an Xterra. I ended up with a Little Giant off road trailer to carry my camping gear to a base camp when I had it.
Most of my rigs have been white going back to my FJ55 in the 70's. Solar gain is real especially in the SW. The Taco was dark red and even in Mn. come July with a blistering 87° ambient air temps and slider windoor windows open it was too hot to keep the dogs under the topper without fans.
Pinstriping is less noticeable on white as already mentioned.
Thanks for the heads up about the black Friday sales! I'll be sure to look for deals. Just need to decide on black vs. grey vs. bronze. I think they all look really good.
The spare tire fit is one thing that I've been digging into a lot lately and worrying about. I really don't want to deal with either making the spare fit in the cargo area (since I tend to be a gear whore and pack way too much for camping trips, so I'll already be maxing out the cargo space), or installing a rear/hitch mounted spare to start. I'd ideally love to go with the above mentioned TRD rims and 265/70/17 tires (maybe the BFG ones), but I've seen lots of differing opinions on whether they fit or not, likely coming down to manufacturing tolerances from car to car. From searching this forum, it seems like 265/65/17 matches the original tire diameter, just gives 0.5" more sidewall. Not sure what the best way would be to check if the spare fits or not other than buying the larger tire size and seeing if it fits.
I definitely don't want to be without a spare, since the whole point of me getting this car is to go to more remote and unpopulated places where a tire shop or any sort of help may be far away.
Really thankful for your tips about your Xterra ownership experience. Bone stock, it seemed to me like the Pro-4X trim gave me the best off-road capability for the fewest dollars. There's just not many around these days, so it's difficult to even test drive one. Your comments about the interior space kind of seal the deal for me, since like I mentioned I tend to be a heavy packer and the GX already didn't seem to be super roomy in the cargo area.
Good notes about the temperature. I'm definitely sold on white for this rig.
I can confirm that off roading a GX is a deep and expensive rabbit hole, but you can do more than enough with a stock GX on good tires to figure out if you want fall into the money pit lol. I bought my 2017 in 2020 and ran stock suspension and 265/70/17 all terrains for 2.5 years with plenty of off road trips.
One common thing I see with off road mods is people basically over-building their truck without an actual plan - they run out and throw a tall, heavy spring lift and 35s on there because they have big plans to get bumpers and regear and all that stuff even though they only ever run fire roads. Now they have a truck that rides like a shopping cart and can't turn without rubbing and don't have the time or money for everything else so onto FB Marketplace it goes...
Did you have any issues with fitting the 265/70/17 in the spare tire location?
And yeah, my biggest thing with mods for now is I simply don't have enough experience to know where I want this vehicle to evolve, so I'd rather explore its limitations stock, and learn more about what I want out of it before diving deeper.
Mostly just reiterating that the black gets hot and can be hard to keep clean. Pinstripes show against it, but I don't think really any worse than any other dark color. The dark blue would show as much. I also would not do black again if I had the choice haha. I keep saying I won't buy black cars but I'm three deep already.
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Haha, I absolutely loved my black BMW, just because I think it's such an elegant color and I think the GX looks absolutely amazing in it. But I think given that most of my trips will be overwhelmingly in the desert, a lighter color seems like the way to go.
Absolutely agree with
Banandalorian about how to build a vehicle.
As I've mentioned many times on this forum, before you purchase anything, have an end game of what you plan on doing with your vehicle and how you want to set it up. It will save you mucho dinero from having to purchase mods over again after learning/realizing your first purchase looked really cool, but wasn't what really worked.
Yeah, sometimes the end game can be a moving target, when you only plan on a couple of light mods for fire trails and later realize you really enjoy the whole off roading environment and want to upgrade suspension, or whatever. That does happen.
Another tip, an old saying, "Buy once, cry once." In short, get what you really want/need the first time, regardless of price. In the long run it'll be cheaper.
Regarding pinstriping, I regard my pinstriping as battle scars and badge of honor! I don't mind brush and bush pinstriping. It let's people know, "Yeah, he really does wheel his rig!" and not look like a poser mall crawler.
NOTE: I draw the line at buckling body panels! Or even deep scratches to the metal. I do not abide with dents! I love my rig too much to have it look like a King of the Hammers pre-runner. Plus, GX's are a little too expensive to be replacing doors, fenders, etc. all the time from trail outings.
Yep, like I mentioned above, I still don't know well what I want/need simply because I don't have any experience driving an off-road capable vehicle. For years now, any time I went on more far flung expeditions, I went with my buddy in his Tacoma, which was a fantastic rig. But I just prefer SUVs to trucks personally, so I think I'll just keep the rig stock for a while and do more trips and figure out what I'm lacking.
Not scared about the pinstripes either, but that's why I'd rather try to get a cheaper used GX, since I just know it will hurt the first few times I scratch it.
Same here. Had a black Tahoe, said never again... had a black Corvette, said never again... had a black Wrangler, said never again... but the right deal on a GX comes along and welp here we are
Black just looks so good!
Stock tires, remove factory steps, and a front bumper chop will get you through 99% of what you would even be willing to try driving through.
Definitely plan to ditch the steps down the road. A bit scared of the bumper chop since I'm not confident in my ability to not screw it up royally and make it look like crap haha. But would love to do that down the line.
I'm on my 5th GX 460 and they have either been White or Atomic Silver, all with the ECRU interior. I live in Florida and would never have a black interior. I use Adams Polishes interior detailer and only had 2/5 GX's show some slight wear along the leg bolster on the driver's seat...from entering and exiting the vehicle. Honestly, if you keep it clean you shouldn't have that big of an issue. Sometimes after detailing the seats, I'll get a little discoloration if I wear dark jeans on that on bolster, but it wipes off. Also, the Ecru comes with the lighter headliner which gives it a more upscale feel to it. I'll also add that the only issue I've ever had with any of my GX's is that my MY23 the rear safety cross sensors were actually installed on the wrong side from the factory and a radio knob got knocked it by my knee...that's it. Make sure you stand back from the vehicle and look to see if it has the dreaded KDSS lean.....that's one thing most buyers don't know to look for unless they back up from it and look. Plenty of info on this. My 2014 and 2020 had the issue...my 2010, 2018 & 2023 do not have the issue. Obviously, owning 5 of these have been absolute joy to own and drive. I put around 35k miles a year on these vehicles with mixed use from highway to large tracts of timber I manage throughout the southeast. Good luck!
Thanks for the tips! Will be less averse to Ecru based on that.
I hadn't read about the KDSS lean anywhere, will look into it.
Funny enough, while pulling up the Lexus owner's website maintenance history for one of the cars I was looking at, the history mentioned multiple visits to the dealer for a lean in the car. I thought it was odd, but I'm pretty sure it's what you're referring to.
If you don't plan of all-out, agree with
HVLA, with the exception of tire choice. Stock tire size/diameter but not stock road tire. Minimum, get something with a little more grip, especially being in CO, with snow, ice and everything else and the possibility of purchasing form a warmer state that the owners may only have street tires.
Plus, almost anything (AT?) more aggressive (and slightly larger in diameter) just makes the GX look all that much better!
Definitely, would likely either get the Wildpeak or the BFG KO2.
