Man, we are in some crazy times with regard to used vehicle prices… Years ago my wife’s grandpa gave me his 03 Tacoma regular cab 2wd/auto, with ~60k on it. Was a nice truck and I was excited about it, but feel it’s surprisingly gutless compared to older Toyota’s I’ve driven and it didn’t get the fuel economy I expected either after driving it around for a month. I expected mid 20s but best I could squeeze was like 21mpg only - heck my 93 4wd on 33” mud tires almost gets 20mpg - So I gave it to my FIL since we live close by and share vehicles often. Fast forward to two weeks ago and he ended up sliding sideways on a back road, right into a telephone pole. He didn’t take any pics of course but from the description it sounded like a just replace the bed type of situation because it missed everything and hit only the bed and shell, as it hit behind the rear passenger tire - He got lucky for sure and didn’t go down the hill or deploy airbags, not even a ticket from the cop. I immediately started looking for a replacement bed to fix it ($600-1000 used), but my in-laws frequently just do shit a whim without even considering getting 2nd opinions, so when I showed up a day later to check it out, it was being strapped to the tow truck, headed into the body shop for an insurance evaluation. Long story short, body shop says $6500 to fix it up. Insurance then values this 20yr old bare-bones single cab Taco 2wd/auto w/~130k……at $11.5k! I know used vehicles are expensive right now but that’s crazy talk to me, I say let them have it if they’re going to pay that much We still have 3 Toyota pickups between our two houses and this one’s lowest on the totem pole compared to those, so off it goes! He’s not happy in the 98 Taco he’s driving currently because he’s a destroyer of manual transmissions - I think I’m gonna go find him one of those v6 Rav4s I’ve heard about My SIL went through the same thing earlier this year - totaled her 06 Taco prerunner 4dr w/180k —she got over $17k for that truck. Just nuts I say, nuts! Be safe driving y’all and I guess make sure you carry insurance on your trucks
Oh yea theyre paying crazy $ for used cars. Sold a Camry i had gotten for my mom years ago for 17k. Profit was 5k
Thanks. Yeah, got lucky for sure. FIL was driving back from breakfast with his buddy, I believe it was raining and he fishtailed it around a turn, doing a 180 across the road and hit the pole on the other side, before going down an embankment a little bit. He's freaking lucky he didn't go further down the hill as it could have been sooooooo much worse knowing the area where it happened.
