Toyota 4wd alternative?

It's time to replace my faithful old '94 Toyota 4wd pickup.
I want to get a regular cab 4wd Tacoma with no options (to
keep the price down, being unemployed for the last couple
years) but I have not been able to find one here in the Denver
area. There are a few regular cabs with the $1K A/C package
but most all the available trucks are bigger cab / bigger bed /
option loaded models that are many $K more that I want to
spend. And even on the few low end models, every dealer I
talked to (well, emailed/phoned) has insisted on $1500+ over
the invoice cost.

So to my regret I am considering not buying a Toyota for the
first time in 15 years :-(

If it is not heresy to ask here, what is the next best choice
(non-toyota, ~16-18K total price) considering that reliability,
and good off-road capability, are my main concerns (in that
order)?

If you like Toyotas so much, why not look for a used Tacoma with low miles?

"Stuart McGraw" <smcg4191zz@friizz.RimoovAllZZs.com> wrote in message
news:117ijdi5jfjsm8e@corp.supernews.com...[color=blue]
> It's time to replace my faithful old '94 Toyota 4wd pickup.
> I want to get a regular cab 4wd Tacoma with no options (to
> keep the price down, being unemployed for the last couple
> years) but I have not been able to find one here in the Denver
> area. There are a few regular cabs with the $1K A/C package
> but most all the available trucks are bigger cab / bigger bed /
> option loaded models that are many $K more that I want to
> spend. And even on the few low end models, every dealer I
> talked to (well, emailed/phoned) has insisted on $1500+ over
> the invoice cost.
>
> So to my regret I am considering not buying a Toyota for the
> first time in 15 years :-(
>
> If it is not heresy to ask here, what is the next best choice
> (non-toyota, ~16-18K total price) considering that reliability,
> and good off-road capability, are my main concerns (in that
> order)?
>[/color]

You may want to travel further south or east to get a better deal. Here in
Chicago lan area, new Tacomas are sold for $100 over invoice at most. Start
calling dealers outside your area to get a feel for what others charge.

i'm looking into that too, but they are also pretty expensive (availble
models are skewed towards the high end) and i wanted to have some
other options.

"desert_taco" <tumamoc@nospam> wrote in message news:cf51278c818aceb5746c32397159e639@localhost.talkaboutautos.com...[color=blue]
> If you like Toyotas so much, why not look for a used Tacoma with low miles?[/color]