The Toyota Tacoma is a small truck that people like because it lasts a long time and can drive on rough roads. But in 1987, Toyota didn’t call their trucks Tacomas yet, so that name wouldn’t be right for that year. People talk about it because it’s a tough and dependable truck.
A VIN number is like a car's fingerprint. It helps people find out important things about the car's past, like if it was in a crash or who owned it before.
Carfax is a report you can get about a car to see if it had any problems before, like accidents or repairs. It helps you know if the car is a good buy.
Used car history means all the important things that happened to a car before you buy it, like who owned it and if it was fixed after a crash. Knowing this helps you pick a good car.
Getting your car fixed or checked at the official dealer means they use the right parts and know your car well. This can help keep the car running better.
The check engine light is a warning light on your car's dashboard that tells you something might be wrong with the engine or other important parts. When it comes on, it's a sign you should get your car checked by a mechanic.
Warning lights are little lights on your car's dashboard that tell you if something might be wrong, like with the engine or other parts. They help you know when your car needs fixing or checking.
A catalytic converter is a part under your car that cleans the exhaust gases to make them less harmful to the environment. If it gets broken or clogged, your car might not run well and fixing it can be costly.
Gio was a car brand made by General Motors in the 1980s to try to sell small cars like the ones from Japan. It didn't last long but was meant to compete with Japanese cars.
The Chevrolet Tracker is a small SUV that Chevrolet sold, but it was actually made by another company called Suzuki. People liked it because it was small but could still drive on rough roads. It’s an example of how car companies share cars with each other.
The Chevrolet Nova talked about isn’t the old American muscle car, but actually a Toyota car with a Chevrolet name on it. Car companies sometimes sell the same car with different names to different people. This shows how car companies work together.
General Motors is a big car company from America that owns brands like Chevrolet. Sometimes they sell cars made by other companies but with their own name on them.
The Geo Prism is a small car that was sold by a company called Geo, which was part of General Motors. But the car was actually made by Toyota, a different company. This shows how car companies sometimes work together to sell cars.
Bondholders are people who lend money to a company by buying bonds. If the company has money problems, these people might lose some or all of their money.
Stock means owning a small part of a company. If the company has big money problems, the value of that ownership can go down a lot or become worthless.
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Hey folks, this is Lenny Lawson, the car guru and also your guide to a better car life.
That is my goal.
I've got a little story to tell.
It's just, it's one of those things I call a God wink.
It's when God says, hey, look at this.
Look what I'm getting ready to do through you.
So let me begin.
I had a former partner who has a car museum here in our small town and he also has a collection of vehicles in an old dealership that his dad built many, many years ago where they sold Hudson's and Packards and Cadillacs, Pontiacs.
Yeah, it was a long time ago, but he still has the building.
This friend of mine holds on to things.
But anyway, this particular building was full of old cars as well.
So I walk into the shop area, what used to be the shop area, and we're just talking about cars and things like that.
And I look over and I see this old Toyota truck.
It's a 1987 Toyota Tacoma.
I don't even know if they call them Tacomas back then, but it just, I think it's just called a Toyota truck back then.
But it was blue.
I could tell it was two wheel drive.
I looked inside had very low miles for an 87 model, 122,000 miles.
And it's an automatic, which is kind of a bummer, but I just thought it was really cool.
And I said, how about selling me that?
He said, no, I can't sell that.
I said, how come?
He says, well, that belonged to a good friend of mine, elderly gentlemen who passed away and his family offered to sell it to me and asked if I would hold on to it.
Just keep it.
And he said, yeah, so I really wouldn't feel comfortable selling it to you, even though I love you and you're my former partner.
And I said, well, that's okay.
No, no problem.
But I'm pretty persistent folks.
So I rang that bell again a couple of weeks later and I said, come on, send me that truck.
I knew him.
I knew the man who owned it.
You know, I love him, love the family.
I'll take care of it.
I don't even know why I wanted it.
But he said, okay, I'll sell it to you under one condition.
What's that?
You got to keep it.
I said, okay, I can do that.
So I paid him for the truck and he felt good about it.
And I'm sure the family would have felt good about it at that point in time.
So I took it to my, well, it's the mechanic that works on all my old stuff because it is an 87 model.
And he gave me a list of things that it needed after his inspection and it was about $2,400 worth.
And I said, go ahead, do it.
So he did all the work and that he just fell in love with that truck.
He said, I'd love to buy this thing.
I said, well, I really can't sell it to you, but you can use it.
We'll keep it at that particular lot.
That's on the other side of town from where my car dealerships are.
And I said, if you need to run any errands or go pick up parts or whatever, just take this truck.
It'll be a company truck.
Fast forward to yesterday.
And I get this text message, very long text message.
And it was from a lady who said that, well, I've known these folks for a long time.
And she said, I have a nephew who was involved in a very terrible car accident several years ago.
And he's had five surgeries to fix his legs so that he could even walk.
And he needs a vehicle, Lenny, and he has no money down.
And all he can pay is about $300 a month and he needs a vehicle.
And I said, well, you know, you should never buy a vehicle based on the monthly payment.
But anyway, I didn't have to preach that sermon to her.
She said, can you help us?
Can you find something?
Can you get it financed?
And I said, let me see what I can do.
And you know what?
God winked at me.
He said, hey, Lenny, what about the Toyota truck?
And then I made the connection.
The lady that called me was the adopted daughter of the man who owned that truck.
It was her family that sold it to my partner to begin with on the condition that he would not sell it to anybody else.
He broke that condition, sold it to me.
I think God was involved in that.
And it just, like I said, it just popped into my head.
So I did some calculations.
I took what I paid him for it, plus what I put in it as far as repairs, brakes, batteries, spark plugs, spark plug wires, tires, you name it.
$2,400 worth added those two together, added sales tax.
And I said, well, he doesn't have any money down and he's on disability.
Nobody's going to finance him because he has no credit.
I'll finance him.
And so I called her back.
I said, you're not going to believe this, but I convinced my ex-partner to sell me your dad's old truck that you sold to him.
And that would be a perfect vehicle for your nephew.
What do you think about that?
And she was absolutely blown away.
And I could finance that for 24 months and his monthly payment would be $306 a month.
It just all worked out.
And that included his taxes and that included the registration and that included no money down.
So that's just an incredible Godwink, I think.
And I had looked at that truck every time I go over to my business on the other end of town.
It's called Green Outdoor where we sell lawnmowers and tractors and stuff like that.
That truck was just sitting out there in a parking spot and it was rarely being used.
And I would go there and say, what am I going to do with that truck?
I don't need that thing.
Had had several people come and try to buy it.
Why?
Because it's a Toyota truck, an older one.
I mean, I could have easily gotten $8,000 to $10,000 out of that old truck.
But no, that's not what God intended.
He intended this to happen.
It just so happens that the father, the guy who owned the truck, was the pastor at the Holston Home for Children for many, many, many years.
And that's how he encountered this little girl that I was dealing with at this point, his adopted daughter.
And that's where he first encountered her and made her a part of his family.
And so it's come back full circle.
And that's a beautiful thing.
I'll be back in just one minute.
Okay, I am back.
Got several good calls for assistance in the last couple of days.
Three, in fact, people actually take me up on my offer to answer history questions for them on their vehicle.
So one gentleman sent me his 17-digit VIN number, said, please pull the car fax on this for me.
And of course, when I pull a car fax, I get the detailed car fax.
If you were to do that, you'd have to pay for it.
So why pay for it when you have me?
423-552-2020, send me your 17-digit VIN number you want the history on.
You got to do that before you buy used car folks.
It's not the end all and be all.
It is just one source of information that is handy.
This particular vehicle had four owners, four prior owners, which is a little bit concerning.
But all of them were in this area, like in Upper East Tennessee.
So that's good.
All of the maintenance had been done early on.
All of the maintenance was done at a Toyota dealership, which is great.
And then they defected, like most people do, after the warranty runs out.
They say, well, I'm going to the Jiffy Lube.
Well, that's what somebody did.
One of several of the owners had their oil changes done at a fast lube place, which is not horrible.
I just don't recommend it because they're not thorough.
That's the reason.
But at least the oil and the filter was getting changed.
May not have been the recommended oil.
And most likely it was not a Toyota brand filter, which to me is the most important thing.
So if you're going to get your oil changed at a Jiffy place, make sure you go ahead to the Toyota dealership
and buy four or five filters.
Just stick them in your trunk area.
Don't have to keep them in your glove box, but just the trunk area.
And make sure that the fast lube place uses the recommended oil viscosity, you know, 10W40, 10W30.
Maybe it's a synthetic blender or full synthetic.
And then air filters and stuff like that.
I just when it comes to filters, I'm sorry, I'm going with what the factory recommends.
And I'm going to buy those from my Toyota dealer or my Ford dealer or whatever brand of vehicle that I'm driving.
So that's good.
What else did I find out?
It was something else.
Oh, yeah, it had an accident.
It had been rear-ended, but it was listed on the car factory report as minor.
So I don't trust those definitions either because it's too vague.
I mean, was there body work involved?
Did they have to replace the rear hatch or did they fix it with Bondo body filler?
Did they put a factory bumper on there or did it come from the like kind and quality people?
Those are the aftermarket bumper providers.
Did it impact the frame?
Do you have a copy of the estimate?
Like I always tell you to do, take pictures of it before you fix it.
Put a copy of the estimate in your glow box and the pictures.
And then when you try to sell your vehicle, you can show them what minor damage actually looks like.
Now, it may look pretty bad in the pictures.
It may have really crushed the rear part of the vehicle, but at least they'll know and they'll see the estimate.
They'll see that it was repaired right at a reputable place and they'll feel better about it.
You may not get top dollar for it, but you might get close.
So that was just a lesson.
Another one was had a lady call me in and she was concerned with, let's see, what was it?
It's a Hyundai that they bought from me several years ago and she wanted to know why her paint was peeling off on her hood.
I said, well, I really don't know why the paint would be peeling off.
It was like a three-year-old vehicle when she bought it from us and she doesn't listen to the radio show or the podcast.
She just knew she bought it from us and vaguely knew me.
And so she called.
Well, I got a message on my desk to call her back and I called her and said, my paint's peeling off my hood.
And tell me about it.
Why would that be happening?
Well, more than likely, it's not Hyundai's fault.
It could be.
I mean, they could have had a bad batch of paint, but you would think it would be peeling off someplace else other than the hood.
More than likely, it was involved in an accident.
I pulled a car fax just for my satisfaction and it didn't show any accidents.
Doesn't mean that there wasn't one, that they maybe hit a deer or a dog or something and the people chose not to report it,
not to file it under their insurance so they went to an independent shop.
And so the hood was either damaged or needed to be replaced and they just didn't prep it right before they put the paint on it.
Or they could have used cheap paint.
I mean, there's all kinds of different reasons for that.
But the only way to fix it is to take all that off, get rid of all that paint on the hood, strip it, and then repaint it, reprim it, then repaint it,
and then put clear coat on top of that and hopefully it will match.
If it's silver or some color with a lot of metallic, it'll get close, but you may not get a perfect match since it's a five-year-old car.
But since it's not a door or a fender, then nobody's going to notice it because the hood is on a totally different plane
and people don't see the hood and the fender at the same time usually unless they're standing right beside it.
It won't be noticeable.
So I solved that problem for her.
What else?
Oh yeah, I had this gentleman who didn't buy this vehicle from us.
It was just an encounter that I had.
And he knew who I was and he said, can you come look at something?
Now, I'm at the grocery store and I've got my Fair Life milk and my Nature Valley bars that my wife let us run out of.
And so, yeah, sure.
I'll come look at it.
Let me put my stuff in my car.
So I put my stuff in my truck.
I'm sorry.
I walked over to his car.
See that light?
And it was a check engine light.
Is that important?
And I said, well, yeah, it's important.
How can you fix it?
Well, you need to get it scanned.
Where do they do that?
I said, well, they do it at my dealership, at Gateway.
How much will that cost?
You know, it's just rapid fire questions.
And I said, well, normally it's an hour of labor.
And it's about $140.
$140!
And I said, yes.
But if you really want to know what it is and you want to get it fixed right, that's what you do.
I mean, you could go if you want to just go get it scanned.
You can go to AutoZone or O'Reilly Auto Parts and they'll come out with a scanner and they'll scan it.
They won't charge anything.
But that won't do any good because they can't fix it.
And their scanners are pretty cheap scanners.
They're not like what we have.
And since it is a brand that we sell, your best place to get it fixed is Gateway.
Will you make me an appointment?
I said, well, yes, I'll call right now.
What's your name?
And he introduced himself and so forth and we shook hands and he seemed to fairly satisfied and I made him an appointment at my four dealership.
So you would think that most people would know what the warning lights on their vehicles mean, but they don't.
Because it doesn't happen very often.
I mean, they're people that get so tired of looking at that light on their dash, they just get some electric tape and cover it up.
And that's a good way to ensure that you're going to have a major expense later on.
Because if a vehicle is not running properly, if the air and fuel mixture is wrong and it activates a check engine light, then you could destroy your catalytic converter.
And then you're talking anywhere from eight hundred to two thousand dollars to replace that.
And if the converter stops up, the car will not go.
That's just the way that works.
So I like these encounters.
I get a lot of them since my hair's turned gray.
I was on TV from nineteen eighty five until presently and I've changed.
I don't have dark brown hair anymore.
It's grayish white, but people still recognize me.
That's going to happen in a small town.
And it doesn't happen so much when I go to bigger towns like the massive city of Johnson City, Tennessee or Kingsport or something like that.
People will kind of look at you funny.
I feel like I've seen that guy before.
You know, I get a little bit of that occasionally.
But yeah, mostly it's in hometown.
I'll be going down the grocery store aisle and I'll hear, Hey, Lenny, you know, that type of thing.
And I love it.
I don't love the recognition as much as the acknowledgement that all of those millions of dollars that we've spent on advertising over the years has worked to some degree.
And the fact that, gosh, you know, I haven't sat down and added up how many cars we've sold through the multiple dealerships that I have owned at one time.
Plus when we started in a little Chevy store on Church Street in Greenville, Tennessee, 55 years ago.
But it would be in the hundreds of thousands because of all the different brands that we've sold.
I mean, I've sold Chevrolet, Osmobile, Mazda, Ford, Lincoln, Mercury, Mitsubishi, Toyota, Nissan and goodness gracious, don't let me forget.
Gio. What was Gio, you ask?
Well, if you are a child of the 80s, you probably remember Gio was Chevrolet's attempt to introduce.
Well, I should say General Motors attempt through Chevrolet to create an import brand to basically compete with the Japanese.
So at the time we were selling the Chevrolet Tracker, the Chevrolet Nova, which was a Toyota, the Tracker was a Suzuki.
Let's see what else.
The Azuzu Storm and the DeWoo Metro, I believe the Metro was made by DeWoo.
So they were all Chevrolet's.
I guess the marketing people at General Motors said, well, these things aren't going to sell.
Let's create a new brand, a Japanese brand and call it Gio.
And so the logo was just like a world globe and it said Gio across it.
And so you know what it was?
It was mass confusion for the public.
So it wasn't like people started just storming the car lot, you know, to buy these things.
No, we had to practically give them away to get people to come in and consider a Gio.
I mean, are you going to buy a Gio or a Honda?
There you go.
Now they were really good cars.
I mean, the Nova, which they had to change the name of because Nova in Spanish means no go.
So they changed the name to the Gio Prism.
I'm brilliant.
And it was made in a factory as a joint venture between General Motors and Toyota called the New United Motor Manufacturing Incorporated, NUMI.
And today that's where Tesla's a lot of Tesla's are made it at the old NUMI plant.
The Gio tracker was a rebadged Suzuki summer eye or sidekick.
It was a really good vehicle.
I mean, it was tough.
We sold a bunch of my love.
My love to have one right now, but I could do without a Gio storm.
That was a joint venture between General Motors and Azuzu.
See Chevrolet or I'm sorry, General Motors owned a piece of Suzuki, a piece of Azuzu, a piece of DeWoo.
They didn't own any of Toyota.
They wanted to, but they didn't.
And so they did a joint venture with Toyota.
And in that same plant, they would build Gio prisms and Toyota Corollas.
And just like most things that General Motors does, it was a failure.
I say most things.
They've had a lot of successes.
There is no doubt about it.
I mean, Chevrolet has been an incredible brand and the other brands for General Motors.
They were incredible up to a point.
President Obama eliminated Pontiac and Hummer and Oldsmobile went by the wayside.
So now all that's left to General Motors is Chevrolet, Buick, and I don't think it'll last very long.
Cadillac and GMC, but they're doing pretty good until the next bankruptcy.
Okay, I'll be back here in just one minute.
Speaking of bankruptcy, it was very funny when the automakers like Chrysler and General Motors had to declare bankruptcy.
I mean, that's not really funny because a lot of people lost gazillions of dollars because of that.
People who own stock in GM, the bondholders, they all got scraped off.
But there for a while, GM going bankrupt and the government bailing them out was great for the Ford business.
It really was.
We had people coming into the dealership, which I owned at that time, owned the Chevy store too.
People come in here and say, I'll never buy another GM product.
How come?
Because the government bailed them out and that's just not right.
And I would say, I appreciate your position and understand why you're saying it.
But personally, I'm glad the government bailed them out because you think about the sheer devastation on the total auto industry.
If General Motors went away because General Motors and Ford and Chrysler and Honda and anybody that manufactures vehicles in the United States,
they all use similar suppliers.
And if GM had gone belly up and not reopened, then the entire auto industry would have locked down and they would have all had to take bankruptcy.
And that's just a fact.
So, you know, what Obama did was a good thing because they saved the auto industry in this country.
And it wasn't his idea.
It was the people around him.
I think that he would have said, well, we don't need domestic automakers.
Let's just keep driving these foreign cars.
They're better anyway.
You know, that's how a lot of liberals think.
But there were sharper people in the room, business people who understood what the impacts would be.
And that's why I'm here today, being able to talk to you.
Well, thanks for listening to this edition of My Car Guru.
Again, if you have any questions, text them to me.
If you can do that, 423-552-2020.
If you can't do that, send me an email.
Lenny Lawson, 2020 at gmail.com.
If you can't do that, call Gateway Ford.
423-639-5151.
Leave a message.
I'll return the call and I'll see you next time.
About this episode
Lenny Lawson shares a heartfelt story about acquiring a 1987 Toyota truck with a special history, which he ultimately finances to help a young man recovering from a severe accident. The truck’s connection to the family and its sentimental value create a touching automotive reunion. Lenny also offers practical advice on vehicle history checks, maintenance tips, and paint issues, illustrating his hands-on approach to helping listeners navigate car ownership challenges.
