HELP: I Bought a Lemon Overlander

[Ziro]

See original post, thanks in advance!

HELP: I Bought an Overweight Overlander

Hi everyone, TLDR: just bought a Tacoma with 138k on it a month ago and have had to replace rear axle, and now the transmission is shot. It seems I bought a lemon, what do I do now? I’m desperately seeking advice as I seem to have found myself in one of the worse situations a new overlander...

www.expeditionportal.com

 

[Dopesick]

This isn't a "lemon" by any means of the imagination. It's a used, 14 year old vehicle. It does sound like buyers remorse, and I really feel for you on that.

That said, you now find yourself at a crossroads. Your Tacoma with 138k, Has a new axle, and needs a transmission, has a power steering leak, and a noisy bearing. The bearing and power steering rack isn't too terribly expensive, nor difficult to do. Realistically you could DIY a lot of work, and have a professional do the difficult final bits (Press the bearing in and out of the spindle, and do the alignment after the rack is replaced - if it needs to be).

You can either sell it and take the loss. Or put in a new transmission (and upgrade to an external transmission cooler if it doesn't have one), finish the other bits and keep on building.

I don't want to be rude. I will be blunt. If you think Overlanding or Offroading "carefully" means never having a breakdown or cost expenditure on a vehicle. You are clearly mistaken.

I wish you the best of luck in your choice.

FWIW: I bought my 2001 4Runner for $5k. With all the upgrades and $hit I have broken Overlanding and Offroading. I'm $18k into it total. Wouldn't change anything I've done, if I could back and do it all over again.

 

[Tex68w]

I would chalk this up to $hit luck. You can't really put any of this on the previous owner/seller. None of it occurred immediately after the purchase and at the end of the day it is a used 14 year old truck that has seen heavy use. The wheel bearing isn't surprising especially when you consider the weight that has been added to that vehicle. Power steering can be a crap shoot and it appears that you lost that one, fix it and move forward. It sounds like the first dealer might have misdiagnosed the rear-end issue that could have been the transmission all along. If so that sucks but that money is already gone and you shouldn't ever have an issue out of that rear end ever again.

At this point I would suggest that you just eat the cost of the transmission and continue to use and enjoy your rig. You won't come close to replacing it with something that built and thought out for what you could get for it if you sold it (you'd still have to repair the transmission in order to sell). You'll likely never recoup what you've already spent in repairs either, that's just the nature of the beast. These are easily 300K+ mile trucks with routine maintenance, you've just had some bad luck, but it's easily rectified. At the end of the day you have to take into consideration how much weight has been added to the truck and respect the fact that it is a mid-size light duty truck that will encounter failures and need repairs when used for this type of travel and when pushed to the max or even past its GVWR/payload capacity. Again, it's also a decade and a half old, items will fail just due to general age and mileage, driveline components should be regularly maintained and considered collateral damage when they do fail given the type of travel/use and weight of the build components introducing added stress.

Take this one on the chin and continue mission. In the end this will be a small hiccup and a drop in the bucket compared to the experiences and memories it will bring you along the way. Best of luck moving forward and safe travels.

 

[Dopesick]

I would chalk this up to $hit luck. You can't really put any of this on the previous owner/seller. None of it occurred immediately after the purchase and at the end of the day it is a used 14 year old truck that has seen heavy use.

This is how I see it as well. I've had some failures on mine as well, that likely would have never happened to the previous owner. They only used 4wd two-three times a year, and only in the snow. They never went off roading, and certainly not at the level that I do. We all need to keep in mind, especially on the trails: "$hit happens".

 

[phsycle]

Question I have is: The Tacoma is pretty built out. Do you find yourself actually benefiting from these upgrades in your travels? Would a stock Tacoma with a slight lift and AT tires do the trick? GVWR discussion in the linked thread is a very valid point of concern. I'm sure many have done fine being grossly overweight. Others like this Tacoma, not as well.

 

[Stupidkid]

Are you having the transmission shudder when accelerating? Or something else?

I had a similar shudder, replaced trans fluid and has been gone for 120k miles. (240k on truck)

Check and see if the vibration still occurs with the transmission in "4" instead of "D"