Hi all, I'm looking to buy a first gen Tacoma and I'm pretty unfamiliar with the degree to which something is "too rusty" as the only cars I've ever really owned have been on the newer side. Of course, given that even the newest first gen Tacoma will be pushing 18 years soon, I'm not expecting the frame to be absolutely spotless.
Hopefully the two links I tried to add work, they show an example of the type of rust I'm trying to figure out. My intuition says that this level of rust is probably fine and to be expected for a car this old (especially if it isn't a car that spent its whole life in the desert).
Someone painted over the rust, hiding it. That should tell you something right there.
You need to pay attention to the critical spots, not the visible open sections. What matters is welds, bolted connections, support brackets, and any section that is load bearing. Steel often rusts from the INSIDE OUT.
That was my thought as well, the painted areas seem very rough. If it was a light layer of non flaking rust that they painted over, it would be fairly smooth, and might be okay, but that looks scary. I also see some holes on the bottom of the frame, is that supposed to be there, or rotted out?
I would proceed with extreme caution. Too bad it isn't closer or you could check it out easy.
@nlord regarding shapes and alignment of those holes, I don't believe they were made by a factory.
It looks like some of the holes you see at the bottom of the frame are also in the same spot on the other side of the frame, so that makes me a little less concerned. I also see similar holes in pictures of other frames for these first gen Tacomas, so hopefully that's not a bad sign for this one.
What gets me is that the rest of the frame looks pretty damn solid and that it's only this part that seems questionable to me, which makes sense since it's right near the catalytic converter so I assume this part of the frame gets the hottest. Guess I should just ask the seller to record a video of him banging that part of the frame with a hammer, haha.
Yeah get a video if you can, and let him know that worries you, and you plan to check it very well. If he won't do a video, ask him if he doesn't mind whacking it some and let you know how it goes. Hopefully if he knows you are going to check it really well, he will be honest and tell you before you drive a long ways. It could very well be okay, just hard to tell without really testing it.
Check it out by hitting rusty parts with a hammer. If it is solid, it is OK, if it crushes, it is not.
A Scotty's video about rust.
Good luck!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8428jjsqKWw
I’m familiar with the hammer test and I’ve done the research on which spots of the vehicle’s frame to pay the most attention to, but the difficult part is that it’s hard to find local trucks to look at, so I’m hoping to be able to visually check to quickly write off some trucks and not accidentally travel a state or two away for nothing.
I’m aware that visuals can only offer so much since people can obviously paint over the rust and conceal it, but for the example pictures I shared in the OP, if you were hundreds of miles away does it look like it’s good enough to take a chance on?
I feel like the posts and videos I’ve seen about rusty frames are all of vehicles that are OBVIOUSLY too rusty and I’m mostly having a hard part with visually inspecting the vehicles that are in the middle ground.
In other words, I’m having a hard time understanding to what extent you can tell if it’s not “just some surface rust” anymore from just looking at a vehicle.
Hope these videos answer your question
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YzUf1YtSxDM
and
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RsYhOBCjzl8