I looked at Sequoias which felt "funny". I considered Suburbans, Yukon XLs, Ford Expedition ELs, Expeditions, Tahoes, Yukons, Armadas, and so on.
Then I noticed a 4Runner in the lot at work and read up on those. I wanted an '05 or '06 V8 with the sport pack that includes a torque-sensing center diff and bigger brakes, and without the bulky (and for me, useless) rear cargo slide-out shelf. Silver or grey w/ the silver/grey interior and the tow package. Around 100k miles would be nice.
There were no private party cars like that nearby, but a dealer had one. The price was dropped from $14k to $13.5 a couple days ago to try to move it by the end of the month. We went today, crawled around it on the lot before being accosted by a salesman, and it looked good. We got the sales dude who'd instantly responded to my online inquiry as to whether it was in stock, and he got the keys.
The question was whether all the race car crap would fit in the back, so we folded everything flat and were scrutinizing the space. Sales dude asked where we lived, we told him, and he said "I'm here 'til late - take it home and see if it fits".
So we did, and it does. I had time to look it over very closely and it's clean and consistent all over. It spent it's first year leased in Georgia then was sold as a CPO car to someone in northern Virginia who kept it for 4 years. The last owner kept it for a little less than a year and traded it in at a Toyota dealer. I downloaded all the service records from the Toyota website, and read the carfax twice. It had a CEL for 4 P0456 codes - all evap system leaks. So it needs a gas cap. And the timing belt service is due.
So we went back, discussed things w/ sales dude, he "took it to his manager" and came back to see what I was looking for. I crossed everything out, wrote in $13,000 for price and "tax" and "tags" under that. he said for MD he had to leave a $200 processing fee, but would back it out of the price.
I ended up at $14.3 out the door w/ tax and tags. I'm on the hook for a MD inspection, and got then to sign a "we're responsible for parts and labor for anything needed to make this sled pass MD inspection" document.
So I can stop shopping for cars now that I have a SUV.
