NathanE said:
I think people are taking the whole "indestructable" thing a tad far. The Top Gear programme on this was, as always, staged and not in any way a representation of the Hilux's true reliability. I'm sure they are very very reliable cars in the right hands but spending £500 on one is surely going to give you a right heap of one breaking down at every chance.
Actually, the best way to look at a HiLux is to get one as old and tattered as possible. IT's been run through the mill and is still going. If nothing's killed it yet, nothing's going to.
And that's coming from someone who's had either direct or indirect exposure to over 50 of them. I've owned 2, my extended family has owned 7, and friends have owned the rest.
I would highly recommend finding one of the older ones that's still running its original 18R, 20R, or 22R carby engine. The 5 speed is nice to have, but not necessary as none of these went too terribly fast to begin with. The "R" series engines are pretty much bulletproof and are the ones you always hear about doing silly amounts of miles. My most recent one was a 1979 with a 20R and it had 705,000 original miles on it when I gave it away. It would still bake a set of 65 series 15" tyres into 2nd gear, and was the only 4cyl stickshift I've ever been able to do a sustained brake stand with.
The long beds ride nicer, but the short beds look better. The short bed crew cab was the best variety of the bunch.
Try to stay away from the older (pre-1990) models that have power windows. The motor drives on them were consistently tearing themselves apart.
A/C is 50/50 come and go. If it still works, it's worth keeping up. But if it doesn't, there's not much point in trying to fix it, tear it out and save yourself some weight.
The base model pre-1986 versions are extremely simple to work on. A half decent metric socket set, a Phillips and standard screwdriver set, a 16-20 ounce ballpeen hammer, a torque wrench, a timing light and a volt-ohm meter are all you need to completely disassemble and reassemble the entire truck at the side of the road with. Unless you get the 4WD version, then you need a couple specialty tools for it.
Any mechanic type questions you might have I can either answer them myself or give my friend in Oregon a call. He was the west coast mechanics representative for Toyota for 10 years (up until a car accident left his left arm useless).
