Never owned one before, and actually never seen one in person, but my local dealer has one for sale, and I really want it.
I live in Ontario Canada, and there’s a 2007 FJ 4WD auto for $16,500 + tax. It has 208,000KM
I don’t know much about the dealer, but they have 150+ 5 star reviews on Google, I see they’ve sold a few FJs before, and it’s sold certified. They also seem to be a small business. I actually pulled up at 10pm to look at it, and they were inside their shop working on a car. Owner came out and happily answered my questions, and said I can take it for a test drive tomorrow during open business hours.
The body seems to be in pretty good shape. Few dings, and a lot of swirls from people who don’t know how to wash a car, but overall no rust visible on top.
I took a couple pics of the underside, but it was 10pm so they weren’t great.
Now surface rust is pretty damn normal down here, but it’s hard to tell with this black shit they coated everything with. For reference, my 2005 silverado rusted out completely a couple years ago. Running boards, fenders, everything just fell off from the rust. So overall this thing looks pretty clean.
$16,500 CAD is a lot of money, but it seems like these things just keep going up. Not to mention other FJs in worse shape seem to be around the same price.
What do you guys think? Any advice? Thanks!
mmh. All that fresh sprayed black undercoating is a big yikes in a salt-using winter rust area, it can cover a lot of sus stuff. The uncovered portion of the hitch looks god-awful. It’s not a Tacoma at least but it is still body on frame, and Toyota is not known for usable rust proofing.
That’s just what everyone around here does. Unfortunately the vehicle was sold a few hours later, so I never got the chance lol.
I found a different one with less km but $24K CAD. I’m going to look at it in a few hours and hope it doesn’t sell.
Every dealership I’ve talked to all tell me they’ve undercoated, so it’s going to be hard to know. While some definitely do it to be shady, a lot of people do it to make it look better. Unfortunately all it does is hold in moisture, when they should just be spraying it with oil instead.
I didn’t know these were body on frame. That actually makes me more confident in buying one, because there’s potential to do a frame swap (or complete frame restore) in the future. I have all the tools and shop space for it. Obviously that’s a lot of work, but these things are NOT cheap in Canada.
Not sure if you know anything about these vehicles at all, but if so, would you happen to know what the hell this is? A weird black square panel with the antenna on an angle? I’ve never seen any FJ with it before. The other side also has a black panel here instead of colour matched with the frame.
Thanks!
That is the stock location for the am/fm radio antenna, I don’t know why thr antenna is diagonal out like that though. Looks aftermarket, maybe it is an adjustable mount.
But when in doubt, go pay a mechanic for a thorough inspection BEFORE purchasing. That’s really the only way to be sure of its condition, have it get up on a rack and get poked around in.