I BOUGHT A CHEAP TOYOTA HILUX

All right guys, how's it going? Welcome back. Well today you join me as I go to collect a Toyota Hilux that I've just bought for £10,000. Actually, I say £10,000, it's actually £10,000 plus VAT, so it's £12,000. But I still think it's cheap. I think with fairly minimal work, this should be worth about £13,000 plus VAT, so there should be a decent chunk of profit in it for me. I've said this before in previous videos, but I'm not a huge fan of the pickup truck. But, that said, the Hilux is one of the better ones. That's why I'm hoping it doesn't absolutely kill me in prep costs. It shouldn't do. It should just need standard stuff, service, MOT, might need a gearbox service, that sort of thing. I'm hoping to spend no more than £500 on it, and it should leave me with a good £2,000 or £2,500 profit. The good thing about buying a VATable product like this pickup truck is that I can claim the VAT back against my expenditure, but I don't have to pay the VAT on the margin. You know, if I buy a car for £10,000 and sell it for £12,000, then I have to pay a VAT on the margin, and I can't charge that VAT out, because that's not how it works. But on a commercial vehicle you don't, because you charge that on the final price. I haven't actually seen this pickup truck yet, only photographed, so I thought I'd bring you guys along for a quick tour. I know a few things about it. I know that it's a 2015, it's diesel, automatic, and it's an Invincible spec. So this should have things like a leather upholstery and a reverse camera, that sort of thing. I know that it's done around 115,000 miles, and unfortunately it's finished in Zanussi White, which isn't the best colour. Saying that, I've just remembered I'm in a bright white Range Rover, so forget that comment. I like white cars, despite what I said earlier. Now, as reliable as the Hilux is, there are a few common issues with this era of truck. The first one is that they can occasionally have a dodgy fuel sender unit. I had this happen to me once, and it actually broke down. When I got it towed to the garage, they discovered that my fuel tank was completely dry, despite my fuel gauge showing a quarter of a tank. The other issue is a faulty gauge cluster. Now, that's actually happened to this particular truck that I've bought. It was changed by Toyota themselves, and I'm told there's documentation to back it up, so that should tell me when exactly it was changed so I can work out the true mileage. Apart from that, though, they are good trucks, provided you can find a nice clean example which hasn't been used and abused by a local builder. I love how durable they are, and I love how easy they are to work on. For example, replacing a cam belt on this era of Hilux is about half the cost of anything else. Toyota purposely made it as easy and accessible as possible, and you rarely see that these days. As always, before I agreed to buy this car, I did a vehicle history check using CarVertical. Now, it's really easy to use. All you do is go to carvertical.com, type in the reg, and away you go. This will tell you whether it's ever been stolen, involved in an accident, had a mileage rollback, or has outstanding finance. Now, interestingly, this report pinpoints where the mileage went awry, so at some point between 21 and 23, it had its new gauge cluster. It's vital that you do one of these checks before you hand over any cash, because you really don't know what you're buying these days. You can save yourself 10% if you use my promo code HYPEEK, or click the link below in the video description. Now, having this information is one thing, but knowing how to interpret it is another. There are some people out there who might be put off by this gauge cluster change, worrying that it might have been clocked, but I'm hoping – well, we'll soon see, won't we – I'm hoping that all the documentation's there, so we can see exactly when it was done, and that should put any future customers' worries to rest. Right, let's go and have a look, shall we? Well, that looks… I think I've got some profit here, ladies and gents. That looks immaculate. I'm going to look like a road worker in this, though, aren't I? Sorry, love, you can't drive down here yet. We're digging it up. Why am I beeping? Knock it off. That looks really clean. This looks as though it's actually been looked after by somebody. He's actually shown a bit of pride. He's parked at bay 13, though, which is never a good sign, is it? Unlucky for some. Let's go and have a look around it, then, shall we? Okay, then. Sun's out now as well. I'm having all the luck today, aren't I? Well, feast your eyes on that. Granted, I would have liked it a little better if it were black or grey or something, as opposed to white, but it looks pretty good, doesn't it? I spotted straight away we're on Falken tyres with, oh, look at that, about six mil of tread. The brake discs, they look okay. They're used, but they look okay. We've got the chrome running bars. It is invincible spec, so I can see we've got leather interior. The other good thing, straight away, to tell you is that we've got cuatro llaves. We've got two for the car and two for the truckman back. Apart from, I mean, it looks quite clean, but apart from giving it a thorough detail, you know, to get rid of these little rust marks here on the glass where the bolts have bled into the glass, that's about it. What I tend to do with these pickup trucks as well is wax oil them, thoroughly under seal them with either wax oil, Schultz, Lanegard, that sort of stuff, and just neaten up these wheel arches with some black spray. It just looks far tidier. So, again, we've got another Falken there with probably five or six mil. Well, so far, so good. It looks very straight down the panels. The headlamps aren't cloudy. I'm afraid to say, guys, I can't even give this one a good old buff. No buff required. We've got the original RRG Dent and Sorter plates. The headlamps aren't cloudy. We've got front fogs. This one's the three litre. They did do a 2.4 and also a three litre, and this one's the three litre, which is a bit more powerful. Over this side, we've got another Falken. Someone's looked after this. It's probably, I don't know this for sure, but it's probably company-owned, so money's not really an object. And we've got four Falkens. So, again, I think give this a thorough detail and paint the underside, protect the underside, paint these wheel arches, and it would look tons better. What about around the back? Is that all dented like it usually is? There's a little dent there and there, but it's not too bad. I think this little bumper bar needs a bit of good paint though. It's starting to rust, so we could get that sanded down and give it a lick of paint. That'd look better, wouldn't it? There's a job. Okay, then. What have we got inside? Spotted a couple of little touch-ins there. Pretty clean though, isn't it? Leather seats, only slightly worn for a car that's 100,000 miles. We've got some aftermarket mats, which I don't like. I might order some Genuines from Toyota. What else can I show you? Under the bonnet then. Oh, we've got cruise control. That steering wheel's a bit worn. It's a bit manky, isn't it? I wonder if that would polish back. Bit of leather dye. That could work, couldn't it? But we've got powerful mirrors, cup holders. Look at this. Snazzy. It's all very clean, this. A little bit of wear on the shiny plastics, but for an eight-year-old work truck, not bad at all, is it? Smells a little doggy, I must admit. And it does want a good valet. You see the hair and straw and whatever it is behind those seats, but perfectly presentable. Also, there's still areas a bit scuffed, but not a problem, is it? Let's have a look under here, see if we can see a cam belt sticker. Ah, look at that. Timing belt replaced, eh, last year at 98,000 miles. This is what you want to see, isn't it? All nice and clean. No rust, no obvious leaks. All the fluids look okay. Got the original Toyota battery there. Look at the two batteries, by the way. One and two. All right. Well, that was going to be my first question, whether the cam belt's been done, and it has. That's 250 pounds saved straight away. More cup holders. See, it does want a thorough detail. It's had a clean, but it wants a thorough going over. Auxiliary points there, USB points. You've got the locking wheel nuts. So in here, we've got... Turn this away in case I show you somebody's blood type. Right, Toyota Salford Keys. Another one, Toyota Salford Keys. And then two more there from Salford Keys without a stamp, but it's been written in, so I'm sure there's a record of that. Then it moved to ROG Denton at 55, 66, 79, and 20. It's got to have more than that. The cam belt was done at 22. Strange. What have we got in here? Difficult to do this with one hand. What's that? It looks like a print off. There we go. Look at this. Excuse the wind noise here. Right. We have got full service history then. So when did it stop? It stopped at 20 in the book, didn't it? 20. Then it had a 90k service in 21, 100k service in 22. Oh wow. And 110k service in last month or two months ago. That's a result, isn't it? If only everybody looked after their cars like this. Well, this just gets better and better and better, doesn't it? I've got minimal work to do on this. Straight away, I'm thinking it doesn't need a service. I'll give it an MOT because I think that runs out in June, I think. Make sure there are no advisory items. I'll get the gearbox serviced. I'll order some genuine mats. Give it a thorough detail. Under seal it. Tighten up the back bumper. There's a little bit to do, but nothing major. Let's see if we can get in here, shall we? I was pulling it the wrong way. We've got a heavy duty... I don't even know what that is. Is it a sleeping bag for a midget? I don't know. No idea. Is it a... No, it's not big enough. I was going to say, is it a golf bag protector? The back's slightly damaged there where they've had some stuff in, but it's a work truck, isn't it? And we've got a foam pad. I might get that painted just to neaten it up a bit. Won't be much, will it? Well, I'm in new territory here. Watch it not start now after all this singing its praises. What's the headlining like? Do you know what I think? Because I'm a detective. I've just spotted this. AutoSmart air freshener. I think this was someone's work truck and then the company boss has said, you know what, before we get rid of that truck, send it for a good valet. That's what I think. And somebody's spent £80 getting it cleaned up. So the odometer currently reads 13,000 miles. Now, according to the service history digital print off, the last one was done at 90, or there was one done at 98 and then the next one was done at 4. So I'm guessing around about 100,000 miles it changed. So this is what I was talking about with the faulty gauge. I don't know whether this is faulty or not, but the faulty sender unit in the fuel tank, this can be an issue. So I'm showing a quarter of a tank of fuel, but what you've got to do is go into here and see what the actual distance to empty is. 60. So that is, that would seem like it's working. My sat-nav works. Sometimes that's an optional extra on these and you've got to take it back to Toyota and pay them lots of money to make maps appear on your sat-nav media. There's been a local car by the looks of it. Well, obviously the service history is denting. What a dumb comment. Bit of smooth. Well, it's a little bit lumpy, but that is cold. I say lumpy, it's just fluctuating slightly. Oh, wow. Look at that. AMG GT, but with a fixed wing. Is that a GTR? I think that's an R. That's cool. Very cool. Very snazzy. Right. I'll give the gearbox a service as well. In the winter as well, you can press this little button and it idles a little bit higher. There you go. Can you hear that? Knock that off. I bet it's been smoked in. Once or twice. Oh, we've got some gems, haven't we, in here? That was me thinking I didn't have any footage for this video. We've got some flu tablets there. First aid kit that looks like something from the made by Manchester Bee. And then other bits of dirty tat. Oh, an old mask. Look at the state of that. And what it looks like, I don't know. Is that an old kit? Is that an old monkey kit cap? Okay. I need to shut this before I get hepatitis. Oh, is that the owner then? I don't know. I probably shouldn't show that, should I? What's this all about? Right. Lovely. Shall we take this for a quick drive then and see how it performs? Make sure the box changes smoothly. Make sure I've got some brakes. I think we shall. And the handbrake wants adjusting. And yeah, that steering wheel needs a good old clean. Needs a good old buff. I'm melting here, so let's get the air conditioning on, see if that works. Trying to find something that's broken here so I can spend some money. What's going on? This is uncharted territory for me, this aircon. The aircon works. I think I said this in my Great Wall video, that if I were buying a pickup truck for my staff, then I'd just buy the cheapest one possible, like a Great Wall or a SsangYong Corando Sport. Remember that video? But if I were to buy a pickup truck for myself, for my son, then it would definitely be a Toyota Hilux. They're just the best, aren't they? Is somebody going to let me out of this junction? There's one there, look. Didn't get the defender finger, did we? They're quite a crude old thing, as all pickup trucks are. I think we've got a four-speed auto box and the ride is very jittery because we've got a very basic chassis setup. You feel all the bumps, all that sort of thing. They're all quite unpleasant, are they, these pickup trucks? But then as a work truck, it doesn't really matter, does it? You just want something that's going to start on the key and never let you down. Well, so far, I'm quite pleased with this. I think what I'll do then is run it down to my mechanics first, get it through its MOT with no advisor items, then I'll take it to the paint shop and get them to paint the wheel arches. I think while it's at my mechanics, I'll get them to wax oil it, underseal it thoroughly, and we've got a truck here. I'm convinced this is a £13,000 truck all day long. £13,000 plus VATS, what does that take you to? £2,600 on top of that. £15,500, £15,600 including the VAT. This could well end up being exported, you know. I've lost count of the amount of trucks that we've sent to Kenya and places like that in Africa, and I can see why, because they just don't go wrong and they're easy to work on. Right, I think I shall take my rose-tinted spectacles off and I'll catch up with you in a week or two. Cheers, guys. Right, well, we're back in the Toyota Hilux. I've got good news for you. I've actually sold it with profit. That's very out of character for me, I know, but bear with me because it is true. I've sold this to a friend of mine so he can use it as his dog carrier. He's got a Black German Shepherd. He's actually, I don't know what you call it, I guess it's a, like, a tactical security dog. All the Manchester City and England players that I follow on Instagram all have one of these Black German Shepherds from the same breeder. They're really clever dogs. Anyway, he did have a Discovery 4, an early Discovery 4, in white. In fact, I did a video with that last year, and for weeks now he's been badgering me to find him a late Discovery 4, like a 2016, top spec, something like a Landmark, something like that, and I thought I had one coming in. I found one, bid at it, well, underwrote it, and it was due to come in last week, but it never showed up. I'm guessing the previous owner got more for it on motorway or something, that's often the case these days, so he's left with no dog car. I mentioned that I had this Hilux Invincible in and he said, well, yeah, that'd probably do as a stopgap. Now, I know he's got a bit of a, what's the word, a penchant, a penchant for Hiluxes, so I knew it'd be quite an easy sell, and thinking about it, this actually makes more sense than a Disco 4. It's got a separate cargo cabin for the dog, so you don't get any of that whiff of dog in the cabin. Makes perfect sense. The cargo area on this has got that load liner in, so it doesn't matter if she climbs into this full of mud, really doesn't matter, you can just hose it out. So that's what's happened. He bought it, paid me for it, I put his plate on, and he's picking it up later, so I thought I'd better finish this video off first and tell you what's happened. It should come as no surprise to you now, because this is familiar territory for me, but I have overspent. It's funny, isn't it, because this was a nice car to begin with, but I've still spent nearly £1,000 on it. Let me talk you through exactly what I did. In fact, let me park up somewhere and I'll go through all my costs. That would make more sense, rather than trying to do it whilst driving. Right, here we'll do. I'll lock the engine off so you can hear me. So, you might think I've wasted some money here, but I ordered some genuine mats from Toyota, they were £70. I took it for his MOT, because it didn't need a service, because it was done recently, so it just needed an MOT, but I asked them to do a general check over and check the levels and all that sort of stuff. It sailed through its MOT with not a single advisor item, and that was just £40. There was also, I don't know whether I picked up on it on the previous video or not, or the previous part of this video, but there was an annoying little rattle with it. So while it was down there, they tightened up something that was loose under the bonnet, and the rattle's gone. Although it had a recent engine service, it had never had a gearbox service, so I took it to my auto gearbox place and they did a transmission service, replacing the filter. They also said that it needed a good flush, so it's had a mega flush or a super flush, whatever you call it, and 16 litres of new fluid. Now that cost me £326.40. Sometimes I'll get a call from the gearbox place and they'll say, oh I changed it for you, but it was like honey, it was alright. Other times they'll say, oh it was black as ink, so it needed a flush. In this case, it needed a flush. Presumably it's been towing, so it would have needed more work than a standard oil change. The next job I did, if you remember, the truckman canopy top had a dodgy rear lock, it was broken. So I ordered a genuine one from truckman, that was £100, and then had that fitted. Then I took it to the paint shop. Now Jimmy's done a really good job, he's buffed the whole car, painted around the wheels, blackened everything up, and I think you'll agree it now looks like a car half its age. That was £315. He also fitted the rear lock for me. Then, my final expense were the number plates. So I've gone with proper Hypecorto's plates, they were £15 for the pair. And that is about it. So let me work out this total. If you remember, I was thinking about replacing this steering wheel because it's a bit worn around the tops. So I called Toyota thinking maybe a new one's £300, £400 maybe. If that's the case, I'll just order a new one because it'll be nice to have a brand new steering wheel. Anyway, do you want to know how much a genuine Toyota steering wheel is? £1,600. So even I'm not that stupid, I declined that. My total spend on this car, that was already nice to begin with, was £936.40. Soon gets up there, doesn't it? This is the problem. I mean, bear in mind I've got, I've sometimes got 30 or 40 cars. You spend a few hundred pounds on each one, you've soon got an empty bank account. Now if you remember, I paid £10,000 plus VAT for this car, so £12,000, plus the £930 I've spent on it, takes my total to £13,000. In case you're wondering what I've sold it for, I thought a fair price, because this is really worth about £13,000 plus retail, but because I sold it to a friend of mine, I thought a fair price was £11,700. I like £11,700, it's my birthday. So £11,700 plus VAT, which is just a bit over £13,000. So I've got a net-ish profit there of about £700, which I'm quite happy with. It spins it round, gets my money back in, and everyone wins. Well, I think that's about it. So thank you once again for watching, make sure you give the video a thumbs up if you enjoyed it, make sure you subscribe if you haven't done already, you can follow me on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, I'll leave a link below. If you're interested in getting into the used car business, then check out my online course. I've created an online portal with nearly 100 videos which explain every single aspect of the used motor trade. From funding, branding, sourcing cars, preparing cars for sale, it's all there, so do check it out. 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