Can you imagine that?
Imagine having a 1995 Tacoma under this Re-purchase and then only have 2 years to find out about it and take it into Toyota.
Oh, sure, Toyota did the same thing back then they did with this brake issue, they made sure the newspapers knew about it. See, all these things can be stated from a legal point of view to have notified the owners so long as they made the newspapers. Public Notice if you will.
But, Toyota never made an effort to notify the CURRENT owner of the vehicle. They state in their Re-purchase they mailed every vehicle owner a notice and they did. The problem though and it was a legal maneuver to mitigate their losses, the original owners had moved on for the most part. The Mid-March 2008 announcement and mailings went to the list of original owners in their records. So, the people now owning these vehicles never knew unless they were lucky enough to find out by chance.
Toyota never bothered to search state registration records for the VIN numbers and the names and addresses of the current owners. Why is that important? Because Toyota was once again clever enough to out maneuver their losses. Toyota put an expiration date on the Re-purchase. The Re-purchase would end 15 years after the "Date of First Use" of the vehicle.
So, the current owners chances of finding out about the Re-purchase in time to be warned at all and then to actually receive the value of it back from Toyota was slim to none. Toyota turned away any and all owners after that 15 year expiration date and their mitigation losses were cleverly handled while the trucks are still on the road being driven and resold.
One thing about Toyota Tacoma's they maintain their value. They get decent mileage and they are four wheel drive. Hunters like them a lot, too.
