[ADAMAR2011]

I traded in a 2002 SR5 Sequoia for this Armada. After about a week of ownership I can make this preliminary comparison.

Off road - Hands down Sequoia. More simplistic vehicle, solid rear axle and (in my case) AT tires made it a beast off road.

On Road - Armada hands down. Much more powerful, MUCH better handling and ride.

Creature comforts - Hands down the Armada, I had a lower trim Sequoia but still...

"Reliability" - I put this in quotes because it's really too early to say BUT.... I'm going with Sequoia on this one. I owned it for about four years and NEVER had a mechanical issue. I preemptively spent quite a bit on things like TIming belt change, etc...but nothing really broke. My Armada is eight years old and I don't know how well it was maintained but there are already a number of glitchy little things I never dealt with with the Toyota.

Rust resistance - Going with Armada so far, the Sequoia had it bad which is why it had to go. I am going to coat the inside of the Armada frame with Eastman Interior frame coating as well as treat the outside of the frame. I don't want rust to be the thing that kills this truck.

Overall I am really enjoying the Armada thus far, I just ordered the clock spring ($250?????) and will be fixing that soon.

 

[Firefighter1406]

I would be very interested to continue hearing your feed back. We wanted a Sequoia originally when looking but couldn’t find one that was in good shape without tons of miles on it. We drove the Armada and fell in love with it right away. We love it so far. We have friends that have a Sequoia that they have never done anything to it either. I hope the Armada turns out to be the same.

 

[ADAMAR2011]

So far

I would be very interested to continue hearing your feed back. We wanted a Sequoia originally when looking but couldn’t find one that was in good shape without tons of miles on it. We drove the Armada and fell in love with it right away. We love it so far. We have friends that have a Sequoia that they have never done anything to it either. I hope the Armada turns out to be the same.

Well, I took it on my first road trip to NYC and back and it was great. The power, comfort and size make it an awesome road trip mobile. Having said that, I am a bit disappointed in the number of things wrong with this low-mileage truck. So far I have discovered the following things not working properly:

*broken clock spring
*Seat slide motor working intermittently
*windows not working correctly
*blend door actuator is broken on driver's side. (found t his out when the ac was hot on my side of the car only).
*clunking in the suspension that I can't trace down

I expect things to wear out and break over time, but these are all things that never went bad on the Sequoia and it was 17 years old with 188K miles.

 

[1lowcab]

Aren't the 1st gen Sequoia timing belt engines? I imagine thats a huge, expensive, pita job.

I looked at a few second gen Sequoias but everybody wanted outrageous prices for high mileage, wore out rigs.

 

[Firefighter1406]

Aren't the 1st gen Sequoia timing belt engines? I imagine thats a huge, expensive, pita job.

I looked at a few second gen Sequoias but everybody wanted outrageous prices for high mileage, wore out rigs.

Your right they are timing belt engines. About $1,000 job from what our friends say that have one.

I do notice that the Armadas were quite loaded from early on. And quite a few of them we looked at were broken down and trashed. My hope is that is I keep up with maintenance this can prove to be just as reliable as the sequoias have.

I know I have read the high mileage thread on here and there are quite a few with lots of mileage and still running down the road.

 

[ADAMAR2011]

Aren't the 1st gen Sequoia timing belt engines? I imagine thats a huge, expensive, pita job.

I looked at a few second gen Sequoias but everybody wanted outrageous prices for high mileage, wore out rigs.

That's exactly why I got this. Sequoias are great trucks, but they aren't $10K better than an Armada. The average price for second gen sequoias were about that much more then an Armada with less mileage! The timing belt is expensive, it was about $1,000 but you only do it every 100K or so. If I took 10K and put it into this truck, it would be a pretty sweet ride. I do a lot of my own work, so I should be able to fix most of my Armada's current problems without taking it to a mechanic. This forum has some great write ups on the most common fixes and that's very helpful.

 

[chromedomer]

In my opinion older and/or high mileage Armadas are good values only if you are able to do repairs yourself. I have a long list of repairs that I have done on my 06. It would have been a killer if I had to pay a mechanic. In comparison our Toyota Sienna has made it the 190K with the only non-routine maintenance being a $50 part. The premium we paid for the Toyota when we bought it has paid for itself many times over.

 

[ADAMAR2011]

In my opinion older and/or high mileage Armadas are good values only if you are able to do repairs yourself. I have a long list of repairs that I have done on my 06. It would have been a killer if I had to pay a mechanic. In comparison our Toyota Sienna has made it the 190K with the only non-routine maintenance being a $50 part. The premium we paid for the Toyota when we bought it has paid for itself many times over.

Probably true for a lot of older, highmileage cars. One thing I like about the Armada is how well it drives and handles, it's actually much more fun to drive than the gen 1 sequoia was.

 

[1lowcab]

Probably true for a lot of older, high mileage cars.

Exactly, any used car is going to need some love and if you can't do it yourself be prepared to pay the man with the wrench!

I do all mine own repair work and really the things I've done to mine haven't been that bad or expensive.