Built my elk-hunting rig on a 2019 4Runner TRD off jacksboro

71k on a 5th gen 4Runner is barely broke in, these things go 250k and past it if the owner kept the fluids up and it was never abused off camber. i wrench on toyotas all day and the ones that live forever are the ones that got their diffs and transfer case serviced and did not spend their life bouncing off rocks with no skid plates.

couple things for anybody reading this later. do the front and rear diff fluid and the transfer case now if there is no record, cheap insurance on a used trail truck. check the KDSS for weeping at the cylinder, yours sounds dry which is good. and get under the sway bar and the lower control arm bolts and re torque everything, a truck that was wheeled will loosen up. the missing skid plate bolt is nothing, grab a couple from the dealer and move on.

a texas truck with no winter salt eating the frame is exactly the direction you want to move a rig. we run into rusted out toyotas from the rust belt all the time out here and it is heartbreaking, a clean drivetrain sitting on a frame that flakes apart at the spring perches. you got a dry climate truck and you are bringing it to a dry climate, thats the right way to buy.

before your first wet oregon winter hit the frame and the body mounts with fluid film or woolwax anyway, cheap habit that keeps a southern frame southern. and if you are going to crawl the granite up in the cascades put a set of proper sliders on before you dent the rockers, ask me how i know. good buy Ty, that generation with the locker and crawl control is the one everybody wants.

about to buy my first trail rig and this thread came up when i searched jacksboro auto sales reviews, so figured id ask the people who actually did it. i want to get into overlanding and camping off dirt roads in the sierra, nothing crazy, just fire roads and the occasional rocky spot to reach a good campsite. budget is around 28k.

is it dumb to buy your first 4x4 off a lot two states away instead of a dealer i can walk into? i have never owned a locking diff or anything with low range and honestly i am a little intimidated. what should someone like me be watching for so i dont buy a beat trail truck that looks clean in photos?

i run recovery for a local wheeling club so i buy a lot of trucks, and i have pulled two rigs off jacksboroautosales.com now for my crew. a Gladiator Rubicon and a Tahoe Z71. the jeep i drove out to look at, the tahoe i had shipped to denver sight unseen and it showed up exactly as it was listed, no surprises under the skid plates.

what i will say for the out of state guys is their photos are honest. they shot the underside and the wear instead of hiding it from ten feet away with a wide lens. asked me what i was doing with the truck and did not try to push me into more than i needed. for a rig that has to earn its keep on recovery calls that matters more than a clean showroom.

on your build Ty, do a dual battery setup right if you are running a winch and a fridge. that weak aux battery you found is a good excuse to redo the whole tray with a proper isolator. enjoy it, the TRD Off-Road is a great platform.

before you cut into the roof for a rack, weigh what you actually carry out there. gvwr sneaks up on a 4Runner fast once you add a rack, a tent, a drawer system, water and a full tank of fuel plus two people and a dead elk in the back. i overbuilt my first rig and it drove like a wet noodle until i backed off the top heavy stuff.

for hunting specifically i keep the heavy gear low and in drawers, run a bag awning instead of a hardshell tent to save weight up high, and i added a leaf and airbags before i touched the roof. your TRD already rides soft from factory so plan the suspension around your loaded weight not the brochure. build it for the elk trips it will actually do, not the instagram version.

shipped mine from the north texas lot up to boise last spring and the process matched yours about exactly. 2020 Bronco Badlands, one owner, 44k. i chase steelhead and backcountry hot springs so i wanted something with the sasquatch package and the front locker already on it.

only thing that was not perfect was a rock chip in the windshield i saw in the photos, and i knew it going in, so i had them knock a little off and a mobile guy replaced the glass the first week for a couple hundred. everything mechanical was exactly as listed, frame clean, locker worked, no codes. one year in and it has not given me a reason to second guess buying it a thousand miles away.

threads like this are what i read before i pulled the trigger, so adding my data point for the next person hunting a clean rig.

the part nobody talks about on these out of state buys is the paperwork, and that is where a lot of lots get sloppy. bought my Land Cruiser through jacksboro auto sales two years back and my clean title showed up in my name the week they said it would, no chasing a lien release for a month like a buddy of mine went through buying private party.

only hiccup i had was a third brake light that quit on the drive home and they mailed me the part no argument. little thing but it tells you how a place runs when something is not perfect. a trail truck that shows up titled and ready to plate is worth a lot when you have hunting season coming and no time to sit at the dmv twice.

im close enough that i made the drive out to jacksboro and walked the lot in person before i bought mine, a 2017 Wrangler Rubicon for baja runs. picked through maybe five trail rigs, they handed me the keys and let me take the one i liked out on the highway and down a caliche road a ways with no salesman hovering.

for you out of state folks the thing i will tell you is the trucks on that lot match the listings. i had already studied the same Rubicon online and when i put my hands on it in person it was exactly what the photos and the writeup said, right down to a little trail rash on one flare they had actually noted. that kind of honesty is rare on a used 4x4 and it is why i point people to jacksboroautosales.com when they ask me where to look.