What fo you consider "high miles"?

[SmoothLC]

Great points Mars - counting miles just gets you in the ball park of what you might expect once you take ownership, but if you can get real data on service history, that should give you a better indication of future service expectations.

And while all the points Mars brings up are potential gotchas, you would likely be able to spread some of those items out over the course of time that meets your budget and/or wait until one of those items fail. It just depends.

 

[AATLAS1X]

I wouldn't trade mine for one with half the miles. I know this one inside out and trust it to go anyplace.

Shane

 

[GaFJC]

I wouldn't trade mine for one with half the miles. I know this one inside out and trust it to go anyplace. Shane

How are you going 50 mph without being in drive? Joke of course, my D bulb is out also

 

[AATLAS1X]

How are you going 50 mph without being in drive? Joke of course, my D bulb is out also

Was out the day I bought it. Have no desire to replace it. I hear most fail.

 

[Junglejack]

A corollary to how long these vehicles routinely last is that the same parts that last close to 2 decades can be mighty expensive to replace. While insanely durable, I fear we will read more and more posts about high dollar repairs when we have more folks at or over 300,000 miles.

As for the idea of finding a $6,000 LC, that is easier said than done due to LC popularity overseas. In many places, the LC is the ultimate baller vehicle and exporting US LC/LX's never taken off sealed pavement is getting more brisk by the day.

 

[stonepa]

How are you going 50 mph without being in drive? Joke of course, my D bulb is out also

Mine burned out too - at around 150k.

 

[stonepa]

A corollary to how long these vehicles routinely last is that the same parts that last close to 2 decades can be mighty expensive to replace. While insanely durable, I fear we will read more and more posts about high dollar repairs when we have more folks at or over 300,000 miles.

As for the idea of finding a $6,000 LC, that is easier said than done due to LC popularity overseas. In many places, the LC is the ultimate baller vehicle and exporting US LC/LX's never taken off sealed pavement is getting more brisk by the day.

Yep - the export market for 4Runners, Range Rovers, and LR3/LR4 is strong and is actually taken into account in the pricing of the new vehicle leases. Land Rover pretty much counts on it to prop up the residuals of the new Range Rover.

 

[LockedNLoaded]

Mine burned out too - at around 150k.

Mine too, around 140k

 

[GaFJC]

Was out the day I bought it. Have no desire to replace it. I hear most fail.

Mine too, never worried about it and never will.

 

[SanDiegoCruiser]

I wouldn't trade mine for one with half the miles. I know this one inside out and trust it to go anyplace. Shane

Your "D" light is out. Time to trade the Cruiser in!

 

[cboyd]

Your "D" light is out. Time to trade the Cruiser in!

The D light going out means it's finally ready and broken in!

Good dissenting comments... I'd have to agree on the brake booster and master cylinder assembly. Just got done doing that one and it was painful. Need some more scrilla!

 

[enfield]

It had the second timing belt done at 219k. CVs have been done, along with new rotors and discs. Im not sure about the brake booster or starter.
The main reason I like this truck, is the fact that so much of the expensive maintenance has been done recently and it has been dealer serviced all it's life.
I feel that if I buy a 150k mile truck for $10-12k, I've got $2-4k worth of maintenance due in a couple of years. That potentially leads to me spending a lot more for a lower mile vehicle.
Maybe I'm over thinking it. I've found a few that are newer, with lower miles for around $10k, but they are all modded and have multiple previous owners.

 

[Junglejack]

It had the second timing belt done at 219k. CVs have been done, along with new rotors and discs. Im not sure about the brake booster or starter.
The main reason I like this truck, is the fact that so much of the expensive maintenance has been done recently and it has been dealer serviced all it's life.
I feel that if I buy a 150k mile truck for $10-12k, I've got $2-4k worth of maintenance due in a couple of years. That potentially leads to me spending a lot more for a lower mile vehicle.
Maybe I'm over thinking it. I've found a few that are newer, with lower miles for around $10k, but they are all modded and have multiple previous owners.

That makes a great deal of sense to me as well. I purchased mine for $13,500 last April. It had 71,000 miles and had 2 previous owners. Original owner was in Kentucky and the second Virginia.

While in excellent condition, all servicing for the past 5 years was done out of the dealer network or any other where many if any records existed. Erring on the side of caution, I proceeded to baseline pretty much everything. This has cost at least $2,000 and there has not been a single mechanical failure. I did replace the O2 Sensor myself as the dealer wanted $500 and it is ultimately a giant spark plug (looks like one anyways)

Moral of the story is even with me purchasing a low mileage, never wrecked LX for a pretty good deal, I would have been better served spending closer to $16-$18,000 to purchase a turnkey LC/LX. Could have most likely gotten the 5sp transmission too...

 

[2TonTater]

There's a D light? I thought no light is how you tell your'e in drive...

I rolled the dice last summer on a 223k mile 2000 model year in nice condition. My thought process was similar: a lot of major stuff had been done including a reman front suspension, brakes, timing belt, etc. over the past few years. No leaks, CVs in good shape, and it had a new set of Michelin MS tires and shocks all around right before it was sold off and ended up in a used car lot. Only 6k miles on it since I got it, but it doesn't even hesitate to start.

I do think you do need to have some financial room to deal with a major problem to make one of these higher mileage beasts make sense as your DD. But if you have that flexibility, then it can be a good deal.

 

[enfield]

I started reading about the brake booster failures and I think it might have scared me off, lol. I would hate to spend $2k on brakes!

 

[Semjb]

is a 2002 lx470 with 109,259 miles on it too high for $17,159 (final price)

 

[Junglejack]

is a 2002 lx470 with 109,259 miles on it too high for $17,159 (final price)

Not with a solid service history and satisfactory PPI. It is becoming a parlor game to purchase the absolute cheapest LC/LX it seems. Considering the costs involved, I would focus more on owner history and what immediate reconditioning costs are needed. That is purchasing a 100 Series that costs $1500 more, but is a turnkey vehicle makes a great deal more sense than purchasing a bottom dollar one from some gold chain wearing cheeseball salesmen at one of those low budget car lots that always seems to offer LX's with 20 inch spinners...

 

[patrickfinley]

There is also another good point to bring up. There is nothing wrong with a high mileage vehicle, as long as they are your miles.

If you've owned the vehicle forever you know what needs to be done. Picking up somebody's truck you have no idea how it was cared for.

 

[cboyd]

I started reading about the brake booster failures and I think it might have scared me off, lol. I would hate to spend $2k on brakes!

It's more like $3k when it's all said and done. And that's with a sweet parts discount through my club at my local dealer. I had a few non dealer mechanics look at this and none would touch it due to the liability or lack of the SST to do the full bleed with the ABS.

It's one of those things I knew might be a time bomb, but hoped it wasn't the whole booster. Thought maybe just the MC plunger or accumulator. Turns out it was a time bomb... But given what I have in the truck with my build, seemed pretty stupid not to fix it right.

It's clearly an issue on 99-2000s from the threads here, so maybe toyota got it fixed and improved when they introduced the VSC. Don't hear as many issues with those here.

 

[enfield]

I've seen a few threads where people replaced, or rebuilt the motor, and master cylinder. It seems like that would save a bunch, but the pump itself is pricey.