1987 Toyota Tercel Reviews

Just put new muffler on for 200 bucks.

Put a new seal in hydraulic clutch reserve tank.

New air filter.

New plugs, wires, and oil.

Other that this, the car is just about to hit a 1/4 million miles and purrs like a kitten.

Now for the interior. Sat for 3 years in my back yard. I put a new battery in it and it started right up; amazing. Sitting for three years though has really been hard on the interior. The Oklahoma sun has actually burned the seat to black and revealed the inside cushions.

Other than that, this car is a gold mine. I paid 300 bones for it in 2005; the best darn investment I ever made.

Wonderful to drive.

No A/C, no problem. It has 275-ac, which is short for 2 windows down and 75mph up and down the road.

Best car.

Brake rotors tend to warp after a while, then need replacement.

Other problems are usual as with any car, age and rust.

When I bought it, I reviewed comments on a website very much like this one (perhaps this one), and the comments are generally apt to the car. "Boringly reliable" is the one I liked best. This has been a fairly reliable workhorse, efficient (better than some new car mpg), but it is simply rusting out (I live in a salt area). I wish that Toyota still made such a station wagon, but I have heard that they don't, and I am looking for another reliable workhorse that has a nice wide rear hatch (slide in a bureau, not just a trunk as most cars) with a full-sized spare tire well, manual transmission, and an engine that keeps on going with routine maintenance, and its area that I can actually get at, and do work on if needed. Anybody have some suggestions?

I'm going to separate this into two sections. Engine and interior/body.

Engine,

-The key would sometimes get stuck in the start position, this caused the starter to get overworked and eventually gave out.

-the steering wheel became loose, which made it hard to keep the car strait.

-Carburetor Problems! ha that is the only thing that actually went wrong with the car, ever since I got it it seemed impossible to set the carburetor correctly. She either didn't start on the first few turns or she didn't stop when you turned the key off. It also needed adjusting in the winter months.

Interior/Body.

-the door handles are a bit weak and seem to break easily, don't try to open the door when its locked

-the manual roll windows fall of their tracks and start to not roll up strait.

I have owned many vehicles and I have been under the hood of all of them. But I couldn't even tell you what the transmission looks like under the Tercel.

This car took a beating like I have never been able to give before, it was my fishing/hunting/mud-bogging car, there is simply no easy way to damage the car by hitting rocks or bottoming out, it has a perfectly placed front support beam that covers most of the engine and all of the oil pan.

In general its the biggest beater I have ever owned, its rusted and looks like it should be crushed, but even now that I have taken the insurance off to insure my truck I still don't have what it take to sell it.

I paid $300 for it and spent about $200 in repairs/oil/filter over its life with me.