How much would you value my truck at?(Salvage)

I was wondering whats the most one would pay for a salvage title truck.

I have a 2004 TRD 4x4 V6 Tacoma (Manual Transmission) with rear E-Locker. Mileage is currently around 75,000.

Only one caveat, car has a salvage title and the bodywork done on the car isn't too great. My dad purchased the salvage vehicle back in 2005-2006. Fortunately it wasn't damaged in a collision. It appears a tree fell on the cabin, so basically my father purchased it and got it repaired on the cheap, hence the pictures.

Honestly I wish my dad would have spent a bit more to get the bodywork done right, but I guess he was trying to save some money. This truck has been passed on to me for the past 3-4 years, and I've babied it since I've had it. Since I have a mechanical engineering background, I obsess over the most minor details and get all the maintenance done on time. Right now I'm considering painting the truck. I'll have to ask around for prices.

Edit: I'd like to add that there is no rust on the chassis. It has been treated and undercoated by the Toyota dealership.

 

That's a tough one as it looks like an overall pretty clean low mileage truck! do you know if they replaced the actual cab or is it full of bondo?

KBB says it's worth somewhere between 11 to 13k depending on fair or excellent condition. Now if it's not full of bondo and just needs a new paint job then I'd say it's probably worth somewhere around 7 or 8k give or take. If it needs a new cab to be properly fixed then that would obviously not help the value at all. There is a shop a couple towns south of me and that is all they do is buy salvaged Toyota's and rebuild then sell them so I'm just kinda going off of what I see them sell for. If you find the right person you could probably get even more. I found some info by searching around that says as a general rule of thumb the value of a salvage vehicle will reduce the value anywhere from 10 to 50% just depending on if the repair work has already been done or not and if it was done right. If your frame was never bent at all that is a huge plus.

 

I'd say 5000.00. Good things are the lower mileage and the fact that the dealership sprayed the frame. Odds are it's going to rust to pieces and you'll get a new frame. unless they have some kind of sentence that eliminates salvage titles from frame replacements. bad thing is the bodywork. it will have to be redone unless the buyer doesn't care about looks. Does the cab have a whistle when you're at highway speeds? trucks like yours in northern wisconsin go for 6500.00 all the time with over 150,000 miles so yours being lower mileage i'd say it should be 7500 but the salvage really affects prices.

 

I'm pretty sure just the roof was replaced because I have a receipt for it. Although yea, theres a ton of bondo where it was welded to the body, therefore in my opinion, its a crappy job. If I would have been older when it was done, I would have insisted my father buy a new cab. Also frame is untouched since the cab was the only part of the car damaged when it was given the salvage title. I've inspected the frame myself when I've done maintenance to it.

I'm pretty sure my best course of action would be to keep the truck until the motor fails since it has so much life left in it.

 

With the low mileage and the fact that you are keeping up with the maintance that thing will run forever. Just drive it and have fun with it. Btw i like those wheels, what brand are they?

 

Pro comp 3029. They are size 16x8

 

Thanks for the info. I see you are in NY, are you in the path of the storm that's coming? I'm listening to the news now, sounds pretty bad for you guys.

 

Yea man, but we're ready for it. I got fresh All-terrains on the truck so I should be fine to get around

 

I might know of a perfect cab for sale.
Do a cab swap.

 

How much labor is involved in such a thing?

edit: after doing some research, this seems like quite a project.

 

If you're doing it yourself probably about two months easy just in tear down and prep to remove the cab.

That's why a frame replace from Toyota goes for four months (I think)

 

The paint and body work can be fixed and done right, no need to swap cabs and possibly have an issue with your state DMV when swapping VIN tags from cab to cab. A competent body shop should be able to strip off that bondo down to the metal and use filler correctly to prep for a repaint. It would be better to have only a single strike against the truck (salvaged) instead of having 2 strikes (salvaged) (body work) against the truck when trying to sell it.

 

How much do you think a job like that would cost me.

PS: If anybody around the east coast knows a good place, please let me know.