a lot of people are asking me hey these toyota tacomas i know they're
good trucks but what about the ones made in mexico
well this 2008 tacoma was made in mexico with the v6
engine got some mileage on it now as we can see
inside we'll turn the old key it's got 134 267 miles on it and how has
it held up well i'm gonna show you first of all the owner's just done
normal maintenance engine oil change transmission oil
change a set of brake pads we're talking about
minimal maintenance now as you can see overall
still a great looking vehicle the rims are still in excellent shape
the paint and finish is still in excellent shape
the cap on the back is nice and look at the chrome
the chrome still shines yes real chrome not plastic crap no people might whine
oh it's got drum brakes in the back well you breaking powers in the front
where it's got big old discs i wouldn't worry about that it's a
pickup truck it's not a race car this breaks or so they don't fade when
you're racing stop accelerate stop accelerate stop
accelerate back brakes mainly keep your vehicle stopping straight not pulling to
one side another drum bags work fine for that plus if you do a lot of going in
dirty situations the drums actually hold up better than
the discs do you're going to get less rust
less corrosion it's a better sealed system than an open
disc with calipers that squeeze it like a lot more mud and crud in them and as
far as i can tell so far even though this thing was made in
mexico kind of sneaky though it says manufacturing de baja california
well that's mexico that's not the united states
look down here it says made mexico they have to say that but when i look inside
if it's still good yeah leather seats fading a little
but it is 13 years old the dash and everything's still in decent shape it's
got a reasonable amount of room in the back too
as we go in the back got its own door not some folding crap got a reasonable
amount of space back here with headrests it's a decent back seat a lot of people
will opt for these pre-runners just because of that
funny that it says sr5 because originally that was five-speed standard
transmissions but it's an automatic so in these days names
often don't mean anything kind of like somebody whose name is
smith maybe his great great great great grandfather
was a smith and a foundry but not anymore same thing with this
automatic transmission and speaking of engines and transmissions it's got the
ultra reliable toyota v6 engine variable valve timing
puts out 236 horsepower not a race truck but it's a mid-sized truck
it can tow 3 500 pounds and the transmission this particular one with a
v6 it's a five-speed automatic transmission
extremely reliable i personally never seen one of
these things break on a pre-runner ever and i've seen them with 500 000
miles meaning this 100 something thousand miles is barely
broken in and not just being a pickup truck
because hey it's not just two people
you get more people in here you can easily fit five if you want
more than just a plain old pickup truck you can take families in these things
too now you can get these anywhere you want
you can get four-wheel drive this particular one is just a two-wheel drive
the customer just wanted a conventional rear-wheel drive pickup truck and
there's nothing wrong with that now back in the day
this was about a nineteen thousand dollar pickup not a bad deal when you
think about it because if you look it up and i have all kinds of disagreements
with valuation books but they value this
thing today at thirteen thousand one hundred and
seventy eight dollars generally you cannot get a used one that cheaply they
hold their value so well because of the quality let's face it if
you saw this thing it's 13 years old would you think it was
13 years old i certainly wouldn't the wheels are
still in excellent shape the chrome is still shining when we go
in the back check it out the bed liner's still in
excellent shape yeah there's a little rust on this bolt
and this one they could have plated them a little bit better
but hey that's just superficial sounds nice and solid because it is so let's
close the hood and take it for a ride typical toyota product may have over 100
000 miles on it but it starts right up
it sits at a reasonable height nice high up in here and it sounds like a truck
there's no arguing that now it's got the low air pressure tire
on because one of the sensors is worn out that's just typical when they get
old like any other vehicle each sensor has a battery the battery
wears out then you got to replace the sensor the batteries aren't replaceable
so over time you'd have to change all four or just give up with a stupid light
get an air gauge and measure them yourself every once in a while now we'll
see how it accelerates
you can hear some tires sprinting it's got enough horsepower for a midsize
pickup truck not a race truck but decent acceleration
with the v6 and more pulling power which is what my
customer wanted this one's 13 years old it still runs
good goes over bumps bounces a little
pickup trucks do that but it feels extremely stable
not like you're gonna lose control at any point of time and it still has
the original shocks on it and as i said before
drums discs step on the brakes it stops fine
you can hear the antelope brakes kicking in because it's wet out today even they
still work fine overall it still runs pretty much the
same as it did when it was brand new 13 years ago
turn on the ac it's still blowing freezing cold
typical toyota and the ac's never been touched so
i gotta say it may have been made in mexico 13 years ago
but i don't see any flaws in it now when it was brand new really it wasn't that
bad of a price but of course they hold their resale
value a lot more if you want a quality used truck
that might last virtually forever sure go out and get one but if you're
looking for a really cheap pickup you're gonna have to forget
toyotas because people don't sell them cheaply they know they hold their resale
values in that case you probably be better off getting a
nissan frontier used or a ford ranger used let's say you want
a knock around truck but you don't want to pay much you're not going to get one
of these cheap the quality is too good unless you
can find a really old tacoma that's going for not much that's 25 30
years old or something but even then they go for a reasonable amount of money
and here's some more wise advice if you think about buying one don't buy
the four-wheel drive system unless you absolutely need it you're gonna pay more
you're gonna get worse gas mileage realize this thing is no gas miser even
with two-wheel drive now here's a weird fact this is a six
cylinder automatic two-wheel rear-wheel drive
it gets about 16 miles a gallon in town but if you got the same vehicle but with
a standard transmission it's only rated at 15 miles a gallon city so
they're not gas marshes by any stretch of the imagination now if you're gotten
a four-cylinder engine instead of the six
you get about 20 miles a gallon in town with the standard transmission
if you want a little bit better gas mileage so if you're buying a used one
decide do you want more towing capacity and
worse gas mileage or do you want the four-cylinder engine
that's ultra reliable get a little bit better gas mileage
and if you're the type of person that keeps your cars for a zillion miles
a standard transmission that's pretty much indestructible i've never seen one
of the truck transmissions ever break down well
that's up to you but as far as i can tell with this mexican-made tacoma
seems perfectly fine to me i haven't seen any problem the customer hasn't
seen any problems made in baja california mexico
not california usa california mexico i gotta say
i'm pleasantly surprised 10 years old the chrome's still good
the paint's still good hey nothing wrong with that
the japanese have kept them in mexico in line building these cars quite a bit of
quality with them at least in 2008 who knows when the 2020
ones are this old in 2032 i'll give a review
then if i'm still around and here's some bonus questions and
answers hb814046 says is a 2005
jeep liberty a good car well it's a lot better than the new ones i'll say that
much because that was before fiat took over chrysler now it's fiat
chrysler and they were better made before ever since the italians have
taken over the quality is going and it wasn't the greatest to start out
with now back in 06 i had customers with them and they were
relatively happy i mean if they had an automated transmission that was always
the first thing to break and if you're talking about buying an
o6 it's 15 years old now definitely pay a mechanic like me to go through it with
a fine-tooth comb check all the transmission data with
this live scan tool to make sure the transmission is good check the engine
always want a mechanic to check out a car that old you never know it's wrecked
flooded stolen what happened but they certainly are better than the new ones i
would never advise anybody except my worst enemies to buy a
brand new jeep liberty they just don't have the quality
that the older ones did the italians took over quality started to take a
nosedive they're actual strangely enough their highest quality
of the jeeps was when mercedes benz when it was daimler
chrysler some of them had german transmissions and they were actually
starting to make them better but the germans were losing so much money
that they got rid of chrysler and they ran they lost billions of dollars on a
deal but at least they were smart enough to get out of it and say well we lost
enough stop throwing good money after bad and they said goodbye to chrysler
they didn't get rid of it because they were good cars they were losing money on
the deal so if you never want to miss another one
of my new car repair videos remember to ring that bell