Thoughts on purchasing a new, discontinued vehicle?

Midget

Midget

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I'm on the fence between the Toyota Tacoma (dual cab) or the Toyota FJ Cruiser. I know the Cruiser is butt-ugly -- don't care.


Looks like 2014 is the last year for FJ Cruisers on the market. I'm primarily worried about the accessibility of parts of services for a discontinued vehicle, am I just being paranoid or does that seem like a valid concern? I try to keep vehicles for about 10 years.

Tacomas are pretty cool too but for some reason, I'm enamored by the FJ Cruiser. It'd be pretty practical for the type of outdoor commuting that I do.

Thoughts?
 
I can tell you now, the parts/service accessibility on an FJ Cruiser is already pretty bad. I've been selling automotive parts on the retail and commercial side for 7+ years now and I can probably count on one hand the number of times someone has asked for parts for one, whether it be a shop or a walk in customer.

In my opinion, the FJ Cruiser is on par with a Hummer H2. They're both cool vehicles but the cost of ownership is going to be quite a bit higher than others. Parts and service for the Tacoma will be much cheaper considering there are many of them being used as commercial delivery vehicles and fleet trucks. They're also made in much larger quantities than the FJ.

The Toyota dealer should carry enough parts to service the remaining FJs until their warranties are done for, but don't count on too much support after that besides the basics. I've tried to source parts for Hummer H1s, which are no longer produced, and it's a real hassle.
 
I don't think it would be any different than any vehicle that's replaced by a newer model year design or new model altogether (Toyota Echo replaced by Yaris for example). I'd imagine they keep a certain amount of stock based on total # of units of that particular vehicle sold. Now if the company was going out of business altogether or pulling out of North America then that's another story, like Mitsubishi, Suzuki, Saturn. I'd be more concerned with getting parts in a situation like those than a discontinued model from a still existing manufacturer. Those are my thoughts anyway!
 
Didn't the Chinese buy Hummer? I wonder if they still make H1 parts over there? Not even any aftermarket manufacturer parts? Considering the number of H1s (Humvees) still in military use I'd think someone somewhere would still be making parts.

00ChevyScott said:
I can tell you now, the parts/service accessibility on an FJ Cruiser is already pretty bad. I've been selling automotive parts on the retail and commercial side for 7+ years now and I can probably count on one hand the number of times someone has asked for parts for one, whether it be a shop or a walk in customer.

In my opinion, the FJ Cruiser is on par with a Hummer H2. They're both cool vehicles but the cost of ownership is going to be quite a bit higher than others. Parts and service for the Tacoma will be much cheaper considering there are many of them being used as commercial delivery vehicles and fleet trucks. They're also made in much larger quantities than the FJ.

The Toyota dealer should carry enough parts to service the remaining FJs until their warranties are done for, but don't count on too much support after that besides the basics. I've tried to source parts for Hummer H1s, which are no longer produced, and it's a real hassle.
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I wouldn't worry about it really. Over 170,000 of em were sold in the u.s. and while that's not near what other models have sold... it's still over 100,000 vehicles that will need parts and service in the future.
 
I looked into it a little more and see that it shares quite a few drive train parts with other models (tundra, Tacoma, etc) so parts availability may not be as bad as I thought.
 
Tacomas are excellent trucks despite being smallish.

But yeah there's somewhat a FJ community so parts will be sold but like mentioned it will be pricey.
 
I like the idea of the FJ but wish they'd made it a proper 4 door. Would love to get a 4 door Tacoma as a second or third vehicle. I don't need one but it'd be nice to have!
 
One problem with the reverse opening door that most people don't realize until using it, is the trouble when you are parked in a tight spot. The front door has to be open before the rear. Once both doors are open in a tight spot it is tough to get past one of them to access the vehicle. I had an extended f150 with the backward door. Pain in the butt to load groceries in the back seat. Fine if no-one was beside you, otherwise it sucked. I almost bought a Cruiser but had the experience of the F150 that put me off. Got a Highlander instead....Tacoma will most likely be next vehicle, but the highlander only has 212,000 miles so it's got a couple years left.

Grizz
 
By law, the manufacturer must provide parts for their vehicles for 10 years following discontinuation of a model or change. I think it's 10 years anyway. But there is a legal requirement.
 
SVTFreak said:
By law, the manufacturer must provide parts for their vehicles for 10 years following discontinuation of a model or change. I think it's 10 years anyway. But there is a legal requirement.
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What law is that? I've never heard of it.
 
I looked at parts availability at work and everything seems like normal Toyota parts/prices until you get to suspension parts and some electronic parts. The fuel pump shows to be a dealer only part (at least for now) and the control arms are $200+ each.
 
SVTFreak said:
By law, the manufacturer must provide parts for their vehicles for 10 years following discontinuation of a model or change. I think it's 10 years anyway. But there is a legal requirement.
Click to expand...
Actually, I believe it is 7 years....
 
Thanks for all the research and input guys. I'm def on the fence but I'm still thinking tacoma is the way just due to the sheer popularity and commonality of the vehicles on the road. I'm not a car or truck guy, just want something reliable to get me where I'm going, ideally for the next ten years at least.

Here's another Q.

When I search pre-owned or certified preowned tacoma, sometimes the prices are higher than my quoted pricing on new ones... ??? Am I missing something?



ps I have only bought one car in my life -- my trusty 350z which was fast and looked cool all it's life but isn't getting through the snow in Massachusetts so well. Hence, tacoma..
 
You have to pay extra fees if buying from a dealer. Tax, title, license, and destination fees are typical. Every state seems to have their own premixed version of this fee schedule. Here it is for Massachusetts:
http://www.dmv.org/ma-massachusetts/buy-sell/buying-selling-faqs.php

I know 3 people that bought vehicles directly from a Toyota dealership, 2 were new and the other was a "preowned Toyota". In all 3 cases, the price listed was nonnegotiable, which I found somewhat strange. According to what I was told, the sales people stated directly a policy within the dealership that disallowed the negotiation of price due to the offer of giving people $4K on a trade in. In other words at these 2 dealerships they cited being bound by the one discount per transaction clause. Since they always offer something on a trade in regardless of condition, negotiation went out the window. It might be different if you walked in there and paid cash but even then I doubt it. The vehicles are a 2013 Toyota Tacoma 4WD extended cab new, 2012 Toyota Prius, and the used vehicle was a 2010 Toyota Camry Type S.
 
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One of the other troubles you are going to run into regarding the FJ is that they are not hugely popular internationally either (the real cruisers are super common here in australia and still supported) So that means a smaller total pool of parts. That being said, I don't know how much cross-over there is between the tacoma, FJ, and RAV-4, so there may be some stuff that stays easy to get.

One thing I would look into, would be the shop-time listings for various maintenance work. due to the odd body shape, some procedures may be far more complex than usual, and that can make some simple stuff (light bulbs, belts) take hours instead of minutes. I never had the chance to work on one, so I can't say.

On the topic of hummers, the brand has been bought and sold a few times, the big problem is that there are so many variations. So depending on the generation, they might all be chevy 1 ton parts, or they might be odd-balls from other stuff. That said, you should be able to get OEM parts far easier, since to the best of my knowledge hummers had such low production numbers that most of the components are off the shelf to save costs. But I can totally see GM trying to sell the hummer version of a part for 3x the price when the chevy part is sitting there on the shelf gathering dust.
 
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