New to site - advice on newly acquired 95 Series Prado V6 Petrol

[Pradomonkey72 Lurker Find all posts View Profile Close Pradomonkey72]

G'day all, I have just purchased my first 4x4, a 1997 Prado GXL V6 Auto. It is a one owner car with 170,000km and is like new, it has had a very pampered life with all services up to 160,000km completed at Motorama Toyota here in Brisbane. The last service was at Future Auto, all items that should have been replaced like timing belt, water pump and rocker cover gaskets have been done. The owner said it could probably do with some new shocks but the current ones are not leaking and I didn't notice anything rough or noisy on the test drive or upon inspection. It is bone stock with zero aftermarket fittings or accessories at all, no tow bar, no roof racks, no bulbar, only genuine Toyota bonnet and headlight protectors that are still clear and unmarked, he took it off road once to Fraser Island about 20 years ago, otherwise its a city car that has lived in a garage and has not been polluted by children, pets or smokers. The previous owner is a Malaysian architect who is selling it because he just doesn't drive it anymore. He has purchased a new Mercedes GLC. Ironically I just lost 2 Mercedes in the floods when our unit complex was inundated quicker than I could make a decision to move vehicles to higher ground, we lost a 2000 E240 and a 1989 300SEL - both were 1 owner cars before me and both were in close to concourse condition with just over 100,000km. Luckily they were insured for agreed value, both were write offs and unsalvageable in anyway, the 89 300SEL will be impossible to replace. Life goes on. Might buy another classic car one day but for now we have this lovely mint classic Prado that will be mostly a city car for us but we will try some adventures to places like Fraser and Rainbow Beach etc. I'll probably do an off road driving course too so I understand both my limitations and those of the vehicle. I'm more interested in beach stuff than bush stuff at this early stage.

Some questions for you guys, are there any essential upgrades that I should investigate? I have thought of underbody protection of some sort, rust proofing, maybe roof racks but they're not essential for now. I'd like to leave the car as stock as possible if I can, interior wise I'd like to look at whether the original head unit can be modified to bluetooth, some companies make aftermarket bluetooth receivers but they usually rely on RCA inputs which I doubt this vehicle has? I guess a FM bluetooth transmitter will do the job for now unless I upgrade the head unit to an Apple Carplay type unit, but that kind of ruins the originality of the car.

Anyway love to hear you thoughts and recommendations.

Thanks

Jason

[carco Advanced Member Find all posts View Profile Close carco]

Before you do anything check the front lower ball joints, properly.
As a very minimum, Google 90 series LBJ collapse.
Then give this site a miss, you can see how infrequently anyone contributes to the 90 section.
Go to Mighty90’s Facebook Page.
You’ll get any info you need plus they’re a great group of dedicated 90 owners.

[Pradomonkey72 Lurker Find all posts View Profile Close Pradomonkey72]

Thanks for that. I'll jump onto FB now.
After picking up the car today i noticed a couple of tiny things which is me being neurotic which i am about little details:
D on the instrument cluster gear selector display not working but all other do - probably just a bulb - shouldn't be hard to replace
Backing lights behind the LCD display on the head units are a little dull
A/C button is worn - looks like I might need to get a second hand unit from the wreckers rather than try to replace the little button.

My mechanic will go over all the suspension and shocks etc and make a list of what needs replacing in due course.