[2005 X-Runner] One Month Ownership Waiting on Parts [Pictorial]

<story post with lots of pictures, to skip the boring pre-purchase story, scroll down until you see a Tacoma on a trailer>

I want to preface this post to say this has been a dream vehicle for me for the last 16 years. I did not fulfill the dream until now as I never thought I could get the hang of driving a manual transmission. The truck is not perfect (162k miles) and is not in pristine shape (it was a well used truck), but the price was right and I want to learn as a hobby on how to work on it and make it better. If anyone has any tips or things I need to know, please share, I am learning more about this truck and Tacoma's in general every day. The goal is to keep it factory and retain its original design.

Back in 2004, I owned a 2002 Tacoma Pre-Runner in Imperial Jade Mica. One day, I was on the Internet and saw an article for the 2005 Toyota Tacoma X-Runner seen below.


I read about the truck and everything it had and I was hooked, until I read about the manual transmission only. Fast forward later in the year, I got excited about a video game that was popular across the forums and in school, Gran Turismo 4. I bought my first PS2 because of that game and guess what you could drive in that game:


So my craving for the Speedway Blue X-Runner was satisfied and life went on. Fast forward a couple years and I forgot about the truck, got a desk job and made the first picture of this post as my desktop wallpaper. Just a dream I would never have. I live in a small city of about 30k population and there was a red X-Runner I would see occasionally (it actually lives 3 blocks away from me now), but my interest in the truck again went away (as the red color was not as good as Speedway Blue) as I moved to a different job and had different interests.

I missed my Green Tacoma and so fast forward all the way to 2018 where I bought a 2013 Ford F-150 in Green Gem Metallic. Life was good and the car I traded in my Taco for (2006 Chevrolet HHR in Daytona Blue Metallic) began to bore me as it did not have a backup camera compared to my F-150 and I started to look for a replacement. Having 2 vehicles was something I always wanted because I wanted to learn about being a mechanic as a hobby and tearing down a car but still able to go to work was impossible with only having 1 car. So, I started looking at Lincoln MKZs and Ford Taurus' because they had the same screen with backup camera. At the same time, someone offered me private party amount for the HHR, so I took it.

This was at the start of COVID-19 and car dealers were pretty proud of their inventory, $10k-$11k for 145k mile vehicles of those Ford variety. Then I saw if I spent around $15k, I could get a 2017 MKZ with the new grille design, but with a 2.0 4 banger and the 400hp V6 was at $20k. I initially only wanted to spend $6k, but the only cars available in good condition were Focus' and Fiestas' and I am not going down that road after being made fun of for driving an HHR (part of the reason I bought the F-150).

So, my budget blew up from $6k to $20k. I got discouraged, so I settled for a 2013 MKZ/Taurus and started talking to dealers. Cars kept selling faster than I could ask questions, Taurus SHOs and Ecoboost MKZ started to hit $12k but were wrecked, 1 got totaled by a hailstorm before I could talk to the dealer. Frustrated, I looked up X-Runners for some reason. All were $12k plus, either wrecked, modified, and/or salvage titled and I got frustrated again.

Then, the perfect (for me) X-Runner became available. A 2005 model (Speedway Blue is the only color I would ever buy), on sale below $10k, near me so shipping would not be bad, no reported accidents, no salvage title, fully stock except the headlights. I contacted the dealer and another thing car dealers were doing was ignoring me after I stated I lived out of state and wanted to buy the vehicle and have it shipped, even during COVID-19, dealers did not want to play ball. But this dealer had no problem, I asked for maintenance records and the carfax, they provided them with me no problem, but before I could ask them if I could have a PPI done, they told me they had 2 appointments later that day for the truck and the pictures did not throw any red flags (162k+ miles), so I bought it, yes I know that is a sales tactic, but this truck fell into my lap after a couple months of frustration and I had to have it and took it as fate gave me what I wanted. Enough with the boring story and now onto the pictures.

Vehicle on the trailer, looks smaller than I thought.


Post-Pre-Purchase Inspection:

First thing I noticed was the coolant level was really low, actually below low. The vehicle had an oil change and with the low coolant, I was dreading about a blown head gasket due to the forums. The coolant was at most 80k miles old based on the carfax, so I already decided to replace it. I also learned that low coolant could be due to evaporation over the years and may not actually be a problem. Truth is after registering the vehicle on Toyota's website, I saw it was changed 40k miles ago which was 5 years ago, but I still changed it.


Radiator Cap Issue. Saw the crusty stuff that fueled my head gasket issue worry this forum made me believe, I learned that radiator caps need to be changed every couple years, so I already planned to change it out since it was cheap and easy. I learned about changing them from my HHR as the mechanic told me they can't hold their stated pressures forever.


Milky Oil Cap. Would you believe that the oil cap had a milky like substance on it, again making me think head gasket issue because the truck got a $3k discount only 2 months after it was listed for sale, I tried to convince myself the discount was due to COVID-19. But I did learn that the milky oil cap does not mean you have a head gasket issue, it could be because of short trips and that the engine does not run long enough to burn off the moisture.


Battery. Couldn't read or decipher how old the battery was, but I did read that the "strap" holding the battery does break, so I bought a replacement just in case for when the battery gets replaced. If you can decipher the battery code, brownie points for you will be given.


Steering Wheel. The steering wheel looked really good and almost new, I wondered if the 60E recall was part of that. Doing research, I read that the 60E recall was the Takada airbag recall, but also the child safety restraint label recall, but I ordered the covers to plug the holes regardless, all remaining recalls had been done to this vehicle prior to sale and it was cheap to replace those covers.


Headlights. So the vehicle had aftermarket headlights and they had to go.


So I went online and on ebay, someone was selling an OEM new headlight for 40 bucks as a "cleaning my garage" sale. Well, it was a cheap chinese replacement, but I returned it and got refunded promptly with no hassle from the seller, I assume they did not know what they had, so i paid $200 each for the headlights. Buying parts online from a dealer 50 miles away plus shipping is cheaper than getting the part from the dealer 5 miles away as a walk-in, just fyi.


Front Grille and Bumper. So, when inspecting the truck, I noticed that half of the clips holding the aftermarket headlights, grille, bumper, spoiler (ground effects), were missing. So, since I was changing headlights, I learned to dismantle the front end and spent time buying and fixing the clips I could for now. The ground effect hooks that go into the bumper are missing so I will have to dissemble it again and make my own and JB weld them to secure the spoilers to the bumper. Project for another day.


Front Parking Lights. Not working and right now, I don't care. The aftermarket headlights that were installed and were spliced into the existing lights, so when I took off the splicing junk, I cut the wires completely, so my repairs may not have worked since those lights do not work now, but oh well.


Spark Plugs. I did not see where the spark plugs were changed in the vehicle on the car fax, so it was something I planned anyways. The car fax was generic when it was "serviced" and did not specify what was being done to it. New Denso plugs for this baby, check out the Bosch double Iridium plugs, 2 of the 6 have a shorter reach than what the truck called for. The 2 shorter ones were in the 2 easiest spots on the engine block, so I wonder what that means (back 2 passenger side).


Throttle Body / MAF Sensor. I learned how to clean the Throttle body and MAF Sensor on my F-150, so I had extra CRC cleaner made for both components and cleaned them both, the throttle body was in good shape (I think), I did replace the o-ring since I was there. Air filter was replaced 2 months ago. This is a before picture.


Floor mats. As you can see, both front floor mats are missing (the recall for the clips to hold the floor mats was done prior to being sold to me, for which I remember taking my 2002 in for the same thing) and one of the rear ones has a stain. I ordered new OEM ones for the price of aftermarket rubber mats, but the vendor sent them in plastic wrap so they got torn and stained so I got a replacement set from a different vendor. Much better now.


Also of note, they changed the bottom of the floor mats to grip the carpet more, I assume the one on the right is factory original, with the left being the replacement I ordered.


Lug Nuts. You can see a good one and a bad one. They put new tires and brake pads and shaved the rotors prior to selling the vehicle so the damage was done at that time or noticed and ignored. Some of the lug nuts are loose and some I cannot get a socket on to remove or to tighten to spec. I sent pictures to the dealer and they agreed to send me a check to cover the cost of replacement lug nuts.


If you have troubles removing the lug nuts, it is only a cap that you can break off and reveal another 21mm nut to grab on to. I had to break 2 of them in order to get them off the truck. Over half of the lug nuts on the truck were damaged and could not easily been taken off because the socket would not fit without using a hammer.


So after getting the new ones in, they were bigger than the ones already on the truck, but did not see any reason to ask for a refund as you really cannot tell once they are on. The brake pad picture has the new ones and the brake drum picture has the old ones.


Coolant Drain. So I said I would drain and refill the coolant. I bought 2 gallons of the Toyota coolant and knowing it was low to begin with, I would remove slightly less than 2 gallons since this truck takes 2.5 gallons. The radiator drained .6 gallons, but the passenger side drain plug on the engine block took out 1.15 gallons. I had to remove the engine protection cover that is on the rail and use a long 10mm socket to get to this, but it can be done without removing the tire if your arms are long enough to put a tube on the output spout. I needed to loosen the 10mm bolt because it was stuck shut. Red circle shows where on the engine block is the drain plug.


Thermostat. Since I was draining the coolant, replacing the thermostat was a logical choice as I did not see on the maintenance logs it was ever replaced. Hopefully, the o-ring was not in the truck like that before I yanked it out. Simple to do just like my F-150.


New Frame. I read about the frame recall and noticed it did not cover vehicles in the state the truck was in nor the state I live in, so I was a little worried about what the frame would look like as I did not do much research on the recall. When it was on the trailer, the driver told me to look underneath the truck as this would be a good time to check it out easily and to my luck it looked good. Anyways, I registered my Tacoma on Toyota's website and scanned it to see if the carfax was leaving stuff out and in 2015, the truck frame failed and was replaced. Really happy to see that, the carfax only mentioned "vehicle serviced".


Tailgate rust. So I noticed the rear stepping pad below the license plate was broken and I wanted to replace it, but I assume the frame recall did not mean replace the rear bumper support. Got a file and brush and removed all the rust I could, then used Rustoleum Rust Reformer and then added some Rustoleum Rubber Undercoating. Put on new parts and good as new.


Options. The vehicle had 3 options from the factory: OBX sports pedals (due to recall the accelerator one is missing, I do want one if anyone knows how to get one), auto dimming mirror, and kick panel guards.


Car Cover. Now to put it to bed for the day, kind of a pain to put it on since it was new, but it will be worth it to avoid all the tree twigs and bird droppings. The price was under $300, it is the Mosom car cover from Coverking. Only had it on 1 day as I write this, so I cannot write a review on it.


Tonneau Cover. Okay, so the sag in the truck bed bothered me, after 3 days of rain I had a small swimming pool in the bed, so to make it easy to take the cover off and roll it into the bed of the truck when I am using it, I got a cheap tonneau cover for that and to prevent the sag.


Well that is all for now, after physically owning it for 1 month today and not driving it due to the lug nut issue, I am happy to start driving it and stalling it. In the future, I want to remove as much rust as possible, change the remaining fluids, diff, trans, power steering, brake etc. Get some touch up paint and go over the truck (it has been gone over already and has alot already on it), fix as many broken clips as possible, the front bumper has been hit several times so it needs extra tlc on that. It got a new windshield so I will be looking for leaks as time moves on.

Thanks for reading.

 

Nice. If i wasn't so poor when i was buying an xrunner would have been the choice. Wish they still made them. Enjoy it. And don't google googl charger or turbo

 

Sweet and welcome to TW!

 

This is awesome. I too played Gran Turismo 4 and had this truck in the game.

I think I managed to upgrade it to have 450 hp. Was overtaking all types of sports cars with it.

 

I’ve got an 06 X I’ve been whipping on since 2015, it’s a fun ride. I did have the throw out bearing chirp at 93k miles I changed it all out clutch,pressure plate, TO bearing, and fork. The biggest improvement though came draining the fluid and going back with Redline MT90. I’m at 145k now and it runs great. Shift at about 4 grand stay in the powerband. Standard shift is the way to go.

when it came time for tire replacement I went up 2 tire sizes on those stock rims. It looks better too. That’s two sizes wider and taller. It softened the ride just a little but I’m more of a straight line racer anyway.
Have fun, we are definitely in the minority here.

 

There's one in our area I've been spying for one of my boys.

 

Great job! Everyone knows that Speedway Blue Metallic is the fastest color!

Bought mine new after a semi killed my 94 Hilux in 2008. It does everything I need in a truck...hauls what I need, handles a corner like a sports car...and plays on the weekend when required. I've kept mine completely stock, and I'm approaching 90K with the only mechanical failure being a burned out brake light bulb. The only thing I've done that deviated from stock is change from the summer tires to all season performance tires. It doesn't feel like it pulls as many Gs, but I get 2X+ the tire life. I have two lighting upgrades that will be installed over the summer. First is "the ultimate headlight harness" to feed the headlight bulbs full juice from the battery, and the second is the DD fog lights, which is currently on back order and probably won't arrive for a month.

If you can keep your "foot out of it" and drive ~60 mph, you can get ~24mpg on the highway. I think the best I ever got was 26 mpg, and I got that twice. If you go up to 70ish, you'll probably drop to around 21. I get ~18 around town.

Enjoy your X!