The Best Used SUVs You Should Buy

toyota 4 runners are the best suvs for your money now they're a far cry from the early 4runner the early 4runner 1984 had a whopping 110 horsepower four-cylinder engine with a carburetor on it their small toyota pickup that they added seats in the back it's pretty much what it was they were very reliable but they rode like pickup trucks they were clunky they didn't have much horsepower check it out got a big v6 engine with 270 horsepower quite an upping from the 110 that the original one had and of course it's fuel ejected and if you got an original floor runner with an automatic transmission and that four cylinder they were dogs they couldn't get out of their own way but this thing it's got a very reliable five-speed automatic transmission it even has the manual shifting if you want with the improvement of modern computer control transmissions and this big 270 horsepower v6 engine this thing's got plenty of power with an automatic it's got the bulletproof toyota v6 engine with timing chain no timing belts to mess with and there's a differential in the back you like rear wheel drive vehicles classic driving this is for you basically it's a nice large suv built on a truck chassis solid rear-wheel drive now you can get these things an all-wheel drive my customer didn't want to show the extra ponies out for all-wheel drive you don't really need here in houston texas but if you're an off-roader of course you go for all-wheel drive now of course they're not giving these things away but that's where buying these things used can be great if you can find one this thing was over 40 g new my customer picked it up for like fifteen thousand dollars it wasn't one owner trading at a four dealer smart move buy a toyota had a ford dealer they can't tell you how great they are because they have to say the fords are great so not a bad idea and check out the interior this baby's luxurious it's got the leather seats sunroof a lot of room in the back and of course in the trunk look at all that space room galore of course the back seats fall down if you want to have a whole bunch of room for carrying stuff it's also got a nice trailer hitch so you can tow stuff and it's got the obligatory roof rack which in this case is chrome plated but this is the only part i find funny it says sr5 years ago i had a toyota corolla sr5 and the sr5 meant something it meant it was sporty it had a five-speed standard transmission now in this case it's got an automatic transmission so i think it's kind of silly that they put sr5 on the back names don't always mean what they used to mean i guess toyota just liked the name sr5 and they knew they had americans they didn't want to drive a standard transmission luxury suv so they kept the name but not the transmission now even though it's a 2011 it does have electric power steering all the bells and whistles so it gets the best gas mods you're going to get out of some big thing like this this particular one gets about 23 miles a gallon on a highway it's pretty good for a traditional rear-wheel drive big old truckee vehicle that has 270 horsepower and let's face it toyota's legendary reliability i have customers with 4runners at over 500 thousand miles on them and when you compare the looks of this tunnel the 84 ford runner you think they came from different universes of course it's got four-wheel discs discs in the front discs in the back the old one had drums in the back it's got all the bells and whistles of modern cars this one even has heated seats in the front you can turn them up or down whatever heat you want because really if you've ever had leather seats in the car and it's cold outside those leather seats are called the heater really comes in handy then and it's got great range for an suv this one will go over 400 miles on a fill up it's got chrome plated door handles not those horrible painted ones where the paint chips off these look a lot snazzy just like my wife's lexus and with their legendary toyota reliability these things outlast just about every suv out there don't even waste your time comparing it to say a gm or a chrysler suv these things will last three four five times as long and as i said if you want to buy the four wheel drive version they're actually decent off-road vehicles and they sure ran a lot better than the old four runners they were like buckets going down the road but this thing it can do both you can have a nice ride in the city and if you get a four-wheel drive one hey you can take it off-roading too all my customers these things none of them ever took them off-road it's too nice of a vehicle to take off-road and get it all ruined with mud and rocks knocking holes and things most people will buy a beater if you want a toy for off-road hey go buy an old 80s or early 90s 4runner and use that but for an everyday luxury suv you really can't beat there's this 2011 4runner sr5 it's got a lot of luxury but it's got toyota reliability it'll always get you where you want to go and it's not really a giant gas hog on a highway and you really can't beat a toyota highlander i have a customer with one that's got 450 000 miles on original engine original transmission the stink still runs like a clock and it really doesn't matter what engine you get in it this one's got the four banger if you want more power you can get the v6 let's say you want to put a hitch and tow stuff i'd advise getting the v6 then versus the four cylinder if you're going to do towing but for normal driving the four cylinder has got plenty enough power got 185 horsepower that's plenty enough to get this suv going wherever you want to go and it gets pretty good gas mileage on the highway and see there's lots of room inside got a big back in this case this one's set up for its dogs they're going on vacation they throw their dogs in the back and that leaves the dogs with one two three four and five windows they can lay out of them highlanders are notorious for taking abuse and just keep rolling down the road as you can see this one's become a receptacle for a bunch of high-flying birds still goes perfectly fine and with the back open you can really see the kind of space this thing has it's roomy you can carry a lot of cargo with it too if you want but the main aspect of the highlander is toyota reliability my customers with them if they ever do get another one because the old one finally wears out with half a million miles on it invariably they go buy another one this is his customer second and since he's now retired he claims it's going to be his last car it very well could be he's not putting the mileage on it like he used to this thing's six years old but it's only got thirty four thousand miles so i wouldn't be surprised if the car got less sim and of course they come with all the bells and whistles computer stuff like all the modern cars do and it sits up high enough you have to worry about speed bumps you can go through a reasonable amount of water if there's flooding going on it's not an insanely high vehicle but if you want a vehicle that's a little bit higher up in the air check one of these out and if you want third row seating that's available on these too a lot of people always say to me scotty i want something with third row cds i bought some gm stuff it was junk it just fell apart what can i buy i tell them to buy a highlander the ones that listen to me boy they're always thanking me no sure they're not giving these things away that's why it's a very good idea to buy one used we're not talking about something like a chrysler vehicle that when it's used it's generally falling apart it's going to be an endless money pit the toyotas can last so long that there's nothing wrong with buying a used one say the thing's gonna last 400 000 miles maybe it's only got a hundred thousand on now you're gonna get a good price with a hundred thousand miles if you use your head just don't pay whatever somebody's asking if you buy one with a hundred thousand miles on it say it goes 400 000 miles that means it's only used up 25 percent of its lifespan and if you only have to pay say 30 or 40 percent of what the original sticker price was and make it not like a gangbuster and in the case of this four cylinder ah look at all the room under the hood there's all kinds of room if you do your own maintenance it's easy to do it's not crowded in here there's a lot of working room of course being a toyota probably wouldn't do much work on it i mean the major things of the older ones were you had to change the timing belts every 100 000 miles or so but for ages they use timing chains in these things now so odds are you're going to buy one it's going to have a timing chain as long as you change your oil frequently the change generally lasts just as long as the engines do and really let's face the facts these mid-size suvs they all look pretty much the same i have a heck of a time myself these days trying to figure out this is a toyota is it a jaguar suv they even make porsche suvs now i mean they all pretty much look the same they got pretty similar styles and what i like about this one even though it's six years old it's got the old style grille it doesn't have that horrible scowl that they all seem to be just falling in love with with cars these days and since these things have so much room i even have one customer he lives in his he travels all over the country sleeps in it he's got a refrigerator he's got all kinds of stuff power inverter hooked up watch his flat screen tv in it if he wants all my customers love their highlanders well except for one and the problem with that was he bought it used from a car rental place and it turns out it had been a gigantic wreck and they didn't tell them about it because a lot of these car rental companies they're self-insured so if you go through the record there might not be any record of the thing being totaled and put back together again because they do it in-house another reason not to buy a used car from a car rental agency and if you're worried about that heck just buy a brand new one my son was looking for a toyota and i started looking around for a nice used one for him and finally he said hey dad forget it i'm just gonna buy a brand new one because they're gonna keep the thing for twenty 30 years or more what the heck i'm gonna get my money's worth out of it so i don't care and he just went out and bought a brand new one but out scotty hey i'm cheap i still would buy a used one personally i just hate wasting money and if you hate wasting money on a vehicle get yourself one of these highlanders once you buy it you're not going to have to worry about much for quite some time here's an 07 acura rdx turbo all-wheel drive top of the line well this one's 13 years old still runs like a charm the accurate speed and handling is still honda's pretty much legendary reliability especially in the past 13 year old one like this now they weren't giving these things away 13 years ago this was a 37 thousand dollar car because it's a fully loaded one but for that 37 grand you got a lot check under the hood got a four cylinder intercooled iv tech turbocharged engine that puts out 240 horsepower obviously it's holding up this baby doesn't burn oil still runs like a scalded ape even though it's 13 years old it's not that marginally on a gasoline this particular one if you drive it slow gets about 18 in the city and 22 on a highway because yes you pay for speed and for a reasonably large sized vehicle now this is a fully loaded one all wheel drive check the interior around black one nice leather seats 13 years old they're still holding up and check this out the armrest isn't ripped yet it's leather but it's better than a lot of them it's not ripped and of course being a honda product starts right up first time this one's got a killer stereo system oh the satin have everything automatic transmission that's pretty bulletproof on this model got the sunroof needs servicing but that's what it's here for i'm going to be doing that and this baby's turbocharged it's got a turbo boost gauge on it and as we check out the backseat might help if we unlock it and as we check out the back seats got a reasonable amount of room now it is older and more bass so you check out here it doesn't have a special rear air conditioning unit that's kind of a minus on this car killer stereo there's more speakers back here even more inside here killer sound system and lots of leg room i got the front seat back the hallway and there's still plenty of room back here you get back outside it's got a nice luggage rack on the top we'll pop the trunk it's got a reasonable size trunk plus be an suv you can pop the seats down and carry a reasonable amount of stuff in this thing also has nice dual exhaust now they really don't make enough noise for me now you can hear under the hood a little clicking well it's kind of normal for these things as they age it runs perfectly fine but it's over 100 000 miles on it these honda engines often make a little bit of noise this particular one a lot of that is the injectors clicking a little bit but let's see how it runs okay we'll step on the gas this thing gets up and goes and even though it's 13 years old corners great that's the thing about these acuras they're known for cornering stops on a dime and being all-wheel drive it's great in all kinds of weather these things are pretty solid made still has the original struts all around it doesn't ride bad at all with over 100 000 miles these are solid built cars you paid for them they weren't giving them away but a used one can be a pretty decent car if it was taken care of honda makes a pretty good all-wheel drive system and this thing is killer especially you live in mountains or where it snows and rains a lot you don't mind a high price they're excellent vehicles and it is the first turbocharged one that acura made but it's not a gdi it's just a turbo so it kicks in when you want to go fast and it doesn't if you're not it didn't cause that much excessive awareness baby it still doesn't burn any oil and it's 13 years old i can't say i go for this stupid wind deflector to keep bugs off the windshield i mean i think that kind of takes away from the look of the car but when you consider the luxury of getting one of these cars you don't mind spending this kind of money hey there's nothing wrong with one of these and like i said sure they're not great on a gas much but you don't buy a fast racy little suv and expect to get great gas mileage that just doesn't happen even the rating systems here are a bit false because i have customers with late model cars that have four cylinder gdi turbos and they may be rated high for gas mileage but the way they drive them fast they get just as poor if not worse gas mileage than this thing turbos theoretically get better gas mileage you pump it all the time make them spool up and spin fast and accelerate quickly they're going to get bad gas mileage that's just pure physics so really if you want a fast great handling mid-size suv there's nothing wrong with these acura's they are solid built cars you don't mind the price now my customer bought this used for a son he was happy with the price and it runs like a scalded ape so he's totally happy with the car of course he didn't fork out the 37 thousand dollars for it either he's like me so if you're one of those people that just feels i have to have an suv with all-wheel drive nothing wrong with these now the four-cylinder ones they don't have as much power as the big old v6 ones the v6 ones did have a tendency of burning the transmissions out in the all-wheel drive accuracy but this is a four-cylinder version and i haven't seen any real problems with the transmissions in these it was mainly in the ones with the v6 engines that had more power that burnt the all-wheel drive system out faster now ten years ago when this rav4 was new went for about twenty four thousand dollars not a bad deal it's ten years old and it's still in excellent shape but i do have to say on this particular one as we start it up it only has 52 000 miles on it so 10 years old and that small amount of mileage isn't a real test to the vehicle they can go a lot more than that but it's still an excellent shape 10 years is still 10 years regardless of the mileage you can see on the inside it's utilitarian it's black and silver it got a nice steering column it's got the vinyl seats typical toyota freezing cold air and when we look under the hood it's a toyota dual variable valve timing the intelligent one this baby has a legendary four-speed automatic front-wheel drive on it my celica has a legendary four-speed automatic front-wheel drive my matrix has a legendary four-speed automatic front-wheel drive transmission these four-speed automatics when they finally wear out three four five hundred thousand miles i find places that remanufacture them and now this is unheard of listen to the warranty this remanufacturer of these transmission gives our rebuilt toyota rav4 transmissions come with a five year unlimited mile parts and labor warranty try finding another remanufactured transmission with that kind of warranty five years unlimited mileage they pay for the labor if it goes out these guys know these are excellent transmissions and when they do finally get one that's broken and they rebuild it they know they're so well made that they can give a warranty i've had remanufactured chrysler transmissions you know what they come with one year warranty that's it that shows you how well built these transmissions are when they finally wear out eventually anything will wear out the guy can rebuild it and give that kind of a guarantee he knows they're good transmissions you'll never see that like i say in a chrysler or other ones sometimes they give a couple of years but never unlimited mileage and free labor guys know they rebuild them right they're going to last a really long time and as an overall vehicle it's got the classic roof rack on it and as i said the interior it's utilitarian you go into the back seat grandkids seats lots of room these flip back if you need to it's a nice rift for walk walkthrough if you detest having trunks that open and fall and hit you on the head nothing beats a door that opens on the back easy access got a nice swivel top to hide stuff good room here and like any toyota you can plop these down so you have a lot more space well thought out easy to get in and out too and i kind of like the old style having a spare tire on the back you can put whatever cymbals you want on it it's even got decent alloys that if you cleaned them up they'd still look good missing the hub here it needs another hub but that's just for show anyway and the engine got a timing chain don't have to worry about timing belts being a toyota you ever need an alternator this is still the original one you can see it's dirty but if you need one you can go down to autozone any place and buy them let's take it for a ride typical toyota start it up starts right up nice cold ac now the tire purse your monitoring light is on because it's got low air in the tire that i got to fill up now we'll give it a little acceleration test floor it not a race car by any stretch of the imagination but it goes you can hear that transmission shifting shifts nice and strong the four speed is working great they're not race cars they're not meant to be race cars they're small suvs and as you're driving around they corner quite well for a vehicle that's relatively high and the ride is what you expect from a small suv realize they're based more on a truck chassis than there are car chassis so you're going to feel bumps i feel bumps in the matrix it runs perfectly fine it actually handles a lot better than this because it's more of a sporty suspension but this thing's 10 years old still rides decent and yeah you can hear and feel the bumps as you hit them but you got total control it tracks fine take your hand off the steering wheel it still tracks really well all in all it's an excellent small suv you can tell by looking out you're relatively high up in the air not as high as that truck but it's still high enough for people who drive in snowy areas that if you're worried about getting stuck in the snow this is quite a bit higher no this is only the two-wheeled version my daughter-in-law in boston has the four-wheel one that they use all the time in the winter and never gets stuck so you got a choice of whatever you want here in texas you're throwing your money away in all wheel drive now it's 10 years old when you look down here you can turn the traction control off if you want to drive a little harder and of course realize it's a toyota the traction control system is well made it's not like one of those crappy gm traction control systems that breaks all the time and costs a fortune to fix so then most people say the heck with it i'll drive without traction control the stuff's well made 10 years later it still works fine heck 20 years later on my wife's lexus that still works fine because there's a big deal of difference between complex electronic technology like traction control that works and complex traction control systems that either don't work from the get go or break soon after and never perform correctly not only do you have better safety in these things you got better safety that keeps going year after year and not breaking down once the warranty is up and really even though they call it a smaller suv you look around an awful lot of room inside these things when you add it all together lots of windows so you can see you don't have blind spots because i have more customer over the years with suvs that said we really like them but we're always bumping into things vendors are bumped bumpers are scratched up but there's a lot of blind spots in many suvs they're always hitting things with them consequently if you can't see where you're going unless you're willing to put four cameras in like that 2020 corvette that baby had four cameras so anytime you want when you're parking you can see everything front back and both sides if you hit anything in that car that's on you not on the car utilitarian small suv you can't really do much better than this 2011 toyota rav4 this is an 07 toyota sequoia got the big v8 engine now it's only rear-wheel drive there's no front wheel drive on it you don't need that with all this weight got plenty of traction and as you can see inside a lot of room in the front yeah a little other seats worn and torn a little it's going to happen when they get to be this old and we open the back door and what do we find the baby seat there's plenty of room got the nice leather seats and then more seating and we're not talking about tiny look there's leg room here this thing has a lot of space as we open the back we'll get an even better view we got a nice cargo space here then we got the third row seats now of course if you take the third row seats out then you got even more room and if you move those forward you got even more room kind of like a truck really got the original toyota hitch on it for towing and as we can see on the top got a big old luggage rack now when it was new this baby was about 36 000 now my customer recently purchased it he's gonna export it to africa he paid about five grand for it pretty good price for a solid vehicle like this but when we go inside we'll check the mileage does have 184 000 miles on it now i have seen them with 500 000 miles on them so they can last a long time well see how this baby starts up turning okay starts right up now back in the day it didn't come much much so somebody stuck a pioneer stereo in it but it's still got freezing cold air conditioning in it nice cool air big out sunroof and check this out it's even got an entertainment system on it this was a top of the line vehicle when it was new and being a toyota everything pretty much still works it's older so it's still got a pretty much utilitarian steering wheel it's just got the cruise control nothing else and just the plain old interior i mean look at the space look at the design this baby has a lot of space and look at the leg room and as we check here look at this it's got rear ac and heat controls too this is a luxurious suv but it is 13 years old so let's look at the data okay we got no trouble codes here so let's look at the raw data where they can't hide anything from you at least for me there you go live data this is where the rubber meets the road i can see what shape this vehicle actually is i'm scrolling through and so far everything looks pretty good but we're going to get pretty deep here short-term fuel trim each bank is pretty close to each other they're just a little bit off something with this much mileage that's only subtracting a tiny amount of fuel like that and pretty much evenly to both cylinders is in excellent shape for my experience of these if somebody wanted to perform a full fuel injector cleaning service where i put my pressurized machine on it would probably make the short-term fuel stop having to subtract stuff because it would be spraying less fuel in they all drip a little bit as they get a little bit aged now we look at the target air fuel ratio 0.996 now 1.0 is perfect so it's pretty close to perfect for an old vehicle like this and check out the variable valve timing if you remember the genesis i did a short time ago they both were supposed to be zero zero and then when you look at what they were they were way off it's still zero it's doing exactly what it's supposed to do it's perfect as i showed on that genesis at idle the degrees were changing they should remain at zero when it's idling this thing actually has more mileage than the genesis had on it by about 80 000 miles yet it's still zero perfect at idle shows that toyota is making a much better engine than the genesis has it we checked the misfire counts for them all all eight cylinders they're all zero that's perfect so for such an old vehicle it's in immaculate shape now let's check under the hood and what do we have under here big old 4.7 liter v8 engine but do realize this is a big heavy vehicle 13 miles a gallon in the city and about 15 miles a gallon on a highway they are gas guzzlers there's no if and buts about these things most of my customers that own them they never check their gas mileage i ask them well what kind of gas mods you're going to say it's got to be so bad we don't even want to know we just fill it up with gas all the time but with the coming recession and oil prices going down hey gasoline is going to be cheaper for quite some times it looks like now being a toyota hey they don't break down that often but one big disadvantage of this v8 engine is they hide the starter way under there you got to take the intake manifold the top of the engine off to replace the starter bad design for sure but i got my boar scope out and looked at this it still has the original starter on it at some point in time that'll have to be changed and it's an expense because of that design but it's not a reason not to buy a vehicle the interlock braking system still works perfectly heck it's still got the original radiator and it's not leaking and look here's something you won't even see today the headlights are still clear and the new ones oh they fade pretty fast they even used to make the headlights better these are plastic ones the new ones are cheaper and as you can see under the front coolers galore special coolers here got a coolant fan for the ac condenser got a big old fan for the engine huge i got friends that live in deserts they love these things they don't overheat they are made to take high temperatures and throw their heat out even the wheels are holding up i mean they ain't clean and they're dirty but hey front and back they're still solid a few hits on a curb but you can polish that off if you want let's close the hood and take it for a spin solid hood too corners pretty smooth yeah it's a big truck but step on the gas see what happens now that's a big v8 engine but it is heavy it takes off but you know it's not a race car you can go fast but it's awful top heavy i would not advise racing around in these things like a maniac on curves rogers good let's hit these big bumps in the road say i mean it handles them pretty well it has a truck after all i mean it's not going to ride like a lexus but it handles the bumps quite well even with all this mileage on it and look at this 184 000 miles still idles no shaking this is a quality giant suv there's no arguing that hello it's got cavernous room here so now you know the truth about toyota sequoias and if you're looking for a big three-row seating suv hey it might be what you're looking for if you don't mind expensive gas bills so if you never want to miss 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Channel: Scotty Kilmer

Views: 164,526

Rating: 4.9139929 out of 5

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Id: 852Xl8mYoEY

Length: 29min 42sec (1782 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 02 2020