I have two old Toyotas, 2005 Sequoia and a 2005 Tundra. I’ve had to replace the back driver’s side wheel bearing twice in the Sequoia over the past 10 years. I replaced the Tundra’s same side, same wheel about 5 years ago. The Tundra just had a timing belt service because the water pump was bad and if you have to replace the water pump you might as well do the timing belt service since it’s timing belt driven. The Sequoia has about 225k miles and is the family vacation car…any place, any time…she’s ready to roll! Even after sitting weeks to months in the driveway, we drive other cars daily, it’s always ready!

So if the vehicle has had regular maintenance I’d say less expensive. Really if you don’t count the regular service I’ve only spent $2800 over 17 years and that was in wheel bearing repairs. I still haven’t learned why that same bearing on both failed, began roaring. I think the first bearing on the Sequoia was not properly installed because it “failed” again about 5 years later. The same shop did the Tundra’s bearing too and it’s been in 5 years exactly. No issues so far. I don’t think Toyota builds cars like they use to!

Picked up the car today. I did get a pre-purchase inspection, thankfully all’s it showed was just normal stuff for 10 year old car with 95k miles. I drove it 2 hours back home and didn’t notice anything unusual. The glovebox is full of maintenance docs that I haven’t had a chance to look at and I just scanned the report looking for a gotcha but there weren’t any. I do worry about the timing chain tho.