2016 TRD OR & TRD Sport Test Drives...My 2 cents worth.

Went by Thompson's Toyota in Placerville and got to play a bit with both a TRD OR & Sport. Both were 4 door Short Beds. So here are my first impressions.

Ride: The Sport seems a bit softer riding than my 15 Pro. The OR seemed to ride about the same as the Pro. Overall, it drives like a Taco with most things seeming about the same as the 15's other than it seems to have a tad more elbow room.

Pro's: It has a temp gauge for outside air! Tires on both seem better than what used to come stock.

Con's: Rear bumper has cheap plastic end caps, not sure how long that bumper will last.

On the Sport it was tough to get at the hood release. I could barley get my skinny fingers in to hit the release. Much harder to get at than the previous Taco.

Tried the Crawl Control in a gravel lot, even on flat ground it drove me nuts! It may work, but it is way noisy even in a pretty tame area. I'd rather drive it myself (may have these backwards) it also had a setting for various terrain which seemed OK.

Still no hood struts. Salesman said the Factory Rep told them that Stuts wear out so the rod is a better long term option....Yeah Right!

Personal: Still not a fan of the Grill, and absolutely hate the scoop on the Sport. From in the cab it just looks strange, sort of a bump stuck in a dent! From the front it looks like they grafted a Subaru WRX scoop on as an after thought. Guess it will be one of those Love / Hate things, but I prefer the stock OR hood to the Sport one.

Tranny seems like 5th is a 1:1 and 6th is a tad taller than 5th on the 2nd Gens (70mph in 5th =2.1k rpm and 4th =3k on 2nd Gen, rough est of rpm) 6th in the new Taco seemed to be sub 2k rpm at 70mph. Would like to see the actual ratios, but it seems they made the first 5 closer together and only did a single OD rather than a double OD like some vehicles have. On a fairly mild rolling freeway it seemed like the tranny kept shifting out of 6th and hunted a lot at 60-70 mph.

All in all, a pretty nice truck. Nothing that I would ditch my Pro for, but not bad. Only drove a combined total of about 20 miles so not a real test. If I was looking for a new truck it would be in the running, though doesn't seem to be a huge difference from the last Gen Taco. Not sure about the new motor and such...time will tell on that one.

 

I had 2005, and upgraded for the beefer tail gate and does have a gas strut and the huge upgrade in electronics. Wifey is liking the heated seats and climate control. Your review is pretty spot on.

 

Tailgate is definitely nice. Feels much more substantial than the 2nd Gen one. Also liked the easy / dampened open feature, and you can finally lock it!

 

I lost you at it drives like a 2nd gen Tacoma... There is a massive difference man come on..

 

What he said

 

Every single car out there has a plastic bumper cover. Do you see their bumpers falling apart? Why do people equate plastic with garbage? I'll tell you this: it'll be nice when you back into a post and mess up the corner bumper and you only have to pay for 1/3 of the bumper instead of buying a whole new one.

 

Actually, it isn't a "plastic bumper cover", it is actually plastic without any metal support behind it. Was more a question of should one hit the rear corner would you risk taking out the quarter panel. You are the only one who equated plastic to garbage....

 

There's a pretty solid piece of composite behind that plastic cover.

 

So been reading back and forth on ride quality.
Some say Sport should ride stiffer than Off-road, others saying the opposite so which is it?

 

Ratios are 3.6, 2.08, 1.49, 1.0, 0.69, 0.58. Kinda goofy to me as that's a large gap between 4th and 5th and hardly any at all between 5th and 6th. Standard final drives are 3.91 for V6 trucks.