I have a coworker who’s looking to sell his car, a 1989 Toyota Corolla. I know the basics of looking after a car, but a car that old is almost foreign to me, because I’m from a state where cars rust out.
I figure Toyotas are pretty reliable and so is the 4AG engine, but I don’t want to end up with another money pit. What should I look out for, or should I just avoid it altogether?
This isnt exactly true. Its highly dependant on the M/M.
For example, I can walk into my local O’reilly (AutoZones in my area have consistently got the wrong part every time so I avoid them now) and get pretty much any mechanical part I need for my 1968 Ford Galaxie 500. And if not that day, then by the next day. This is because Ford shared a lot of mechanical parts between many models for many years, so things like drums and shoes, starters, wheel cylinders, engine parts including gaskets, suspension bushings, etc. are all pretty easy to find and buy. They’re also incredibly cheap. I bought a wheel cylinder for $15 USD, and a brand new starter only set me back $45 USD. This is in California, which is pretty notorious for high cost items. For any part that my local stores don’t have, RockAuto is guaranteed to have it. They even happened to have the rare factory style air-conditioning vacuum valve tree for directing coolant into the heater core I need to get heat in my car for just $20 USD (which I promptly bought 2).
For non-mechanical parts like interior trim, mirrors, etc, that stuff is all really hard to find. I have had to custom order some of these parts myself, especially since the 1968 Galaxie was its own model, the 1967 and 1969 models had different designs that use incompatible parts.
By comparison to modern cars, I found myself getting parts actually faster than the modern cars I repair for a living. Seems like every new car part is SOP these days, 1 to 2 weeks out.
I have a 1964 Buick Riviera and for mechanical parts, most things can be had in a few days, but I’m not finding them at the actual store on the same day. Not anythihg but the super generic stuff, at least. I’m not saying they are months out to get - a couple of days to ship - but OP is asking about making this his daily driver. That’s far different than a fun project car. If you’re driving 30+ miles a day and you don’t have a backup way to get around, I would be very hesitant to get this car for that purpose.
In this case it is true. Toyota does not support their cars for very long. I have a 1988 Corolla gt-s, a 1999 Solara V6, and a 2003 MR2 Spyder. Many parts simply are not available. It’s sad because, I love these old cars, but I find myself sometimes making my own parts or retrofitting other parts.
They are also in constant need of attention. Most of it doesn’t keep them off of the road, but still they need maintenance. Consequently, I bought a newer car as my dependable transportation when more than one is broken at a time.