[andrewtwice]

Now that I've crossed over to the dark side, I hope there's cookies. They were in the brochure.
Excited to be part of another enthusiast community, forums rock. I still get birthday emails from the saturnfans forum from when I was a saturn owner some 15 years ago :mrgreen:

SO: Hi Everyone!! I'm Andrew, and I hail from the current hot death hell of Northern California.

Just took delivery today of a 2000 Rodeo LS. 197k miles. Runs great, starts up super fast, generally seems strong and has a lot of life left.
I'm not new to cars but I am new to 4x4. Price barrier to entry has always been my sticking point. Was lucky enough to find this old gal for $3k and I couldn't be happier. I've already done a pretty decent once-over on the interior and exterior, as well as checking fluids etc under the hood. Anything right off the bat that I should be looking at? Common issues?
I just signed up to the forum so before you yell at me to search first, just thought I'd ask. I'll be drilling thru the forum for sure over the next few days. (Also I dunno if this is the yelling kind of forum or not, each is different IMHO)

Quirks observed thus far:
• ABS Light (of course)
• "D" Light in PRND32L doesn't light up, all others do
• Odometer/trip stick-type button does nothing, I'm assuming a single press should toggle through trip and overall odo
• Door hinge detents crack loudly
• Plastic coating on visor bracket crumbled to dust
• Rear gate (the sideways one, not the glass) is hard to open (can this be greased/lubed?)
• Ye Olde black tar **** (can we cuss here?) dripping from vapor barrier onto doorsills
• Black roof plastic strips have been duct taped down, apparently original adhesive has given up the ghost?
• Seems to be some kind of blurry-*** window coating on rear passenger windows and rear hatch glass, suspect aftermarket tinting film.

Anyway here she is. Any thoughts or suggestions are welcomed! Looking forward to checking out everybody's setups :headbang: ccasion5:

 

[Tentin]

Clean! Welcome to the forums. I joined the dark side a little under a year ago and now I've got two.

Common issues are the 3.2 can burn a lot of oil. Get in the habit of checking it every gas station fill up just to be safe until you know exactly how much yours burns. Other than that they're pretty darn reliable, just keep it topped off.

The automatic transmission (4L30E) is the real thing you need to worry about. I don't have any experience with them, but from my understanding they threw in a GM transmission that is underbuilt for the amount of weight and torque these Isuzus have.

 

[andrewtwice]

Thanks for the tips! Will definitely be checking the oil every fill-up and also looking at another transmission cooler.
I got to take her out over the weekend for some light wheeling and MAN do I love this truck.

 

[Enemigo]

Welcome aboard.

First, with 4wd you need to add the fluids for the tranny, transfer case, and front and rear diffs to your routine maintenance. Not nearly as often of course, but you should familiarize yourself with those since you just purchased the truck. Does it have the factory limited slip in the rear diff? Can you kick the rear end out with gratuitous throttle during a turn in the rain? The real way to check is to lift your hood and check the info plate on the fire wall. If you see the code G80, then you have the limited slip in the rear.

The transmission light not syncing up is a known issue and you can look on here to get into that, but it generally is related to your neutral safety switch being dirty and likely the seal behind it leaking.

The ABS light is a known issue with these trucks, as well as the oil burning issue. Read enough threads and you'll run into the info. The search isn't that great on this site, and IMO, the subforums could be broken up a little better. However, the forums that are often overlooked by people (I'm guilty) is the Hall of Fame forum. That's basically a bunch of stickies of common issues that have been addressed. Also the Member's Rides. There are lots of build threads in there where people start with a stock vehicle and build it from there. First off, those are just plain fun to read, but also many people tackle the general maintenance or repair issues that we all face along the way, so great resource. Finally, each subforum has stickies at the top of each one, but they aren't labeled as stickies so they don't stand out as much as they could. Those are worth browsing through in each subforum when you have the time.