Also I want to be perfectly clear about how this deal has been going down. The owner didn't advertise the truck, I reached out to him with an initial offer based on a few pics he posted and an assumption that the truck was sound mechanically and body-wise. In those initial pics the truck looks super clean and nice though he mentioned that the pics make the paint look nicer than it is and that it would need a paint job. Once he agreed to my offer he then went full disclosure and sent me like 50 pictures and descriptions of every issue he can think of. That's when I found out about the brakes, clutch, this rust, and the interior plastic behind the passenger door is crumbling. For a truck in great shape with no issues and the low mileage my offer would have been a reasonably good score. I didn't try to lowball him but I didn't want to pay the inflated prices people often ask for these trucks. I had no idea whether he'd accept the offer, just figured if he did and the truck was as nice as it looked then we'd both be happy.
Clutch and brakes aren't a huge deal for me. I can do both in a couple weekends for not a lot of $ so while the deal wouldn't be quite as good at the original offer, it still would be very fair. BUT, the crumbling interior plastic is a disappointment though again not a deal breaker, and the rust in the A-pillars (it's happening in both sides) is the big issue for me as that's going to be expensive and really time consuming. The owner is a little sentimental about this truck since he's the original owner and has all the service records for it and he knows it's worth decent money in today's market with so many junky or chopped up trucks out there and so few being mostly original like his. He's been totally open and honest with me about everything but given what folks are saying about this rust (which confirms what I'd feared when I saw it) I don't think I can pull the trigger.
