What's the chatter on the 2018's?

Oh no doubt it, I'm not counting on it, though.

 

me too. im waiting on an 18 and that is my number 1 complaint

 

I don't see Power Seats or Rear Discs coming out until after the Ranger hits the market.

 

Maybe we'll get the power seat, rear disc, 4 door touch open/lock, etc along with a mild exterior update in the early 2020's... that would be my guess, who knows. Depends on how threatened Toyota feels with the competition. We all gotta admit, the competition is better now more than ever, including the upcoming Ford Ranger.
The competition still doesn't compare, IMO, but it's closer than it has ever been since 2005. If Ford/Chevy/Nissan can push the design/feature envelope a little, which I hope they do, it should force Toyota to step it up with the Tacoma.

 

You can change the settings so all the doors open when you touch the door handle already.

 

Yes, I mean that all 4 door handles will function like our driver's door handle, which we don't have.

 

Ok, sorry. I thought you meant when you want to unlock when you touched the drivers door handle. Some people don't know that you can change it from drivers door to all doors. I can them putting on the passenger door, like they should have from the start. But I don't think you will see it on all 4 doors.

 

I wonder why all the windows can't be one tough down and up,

I mean the Land Cruiser got em in 2001! Hahahaha

Come on Toyota!

 

It was a reference to the previous rants regarding a lack of power seats and disc brakes on the Taco. I'm not in that camp. I'm good with the seats as they are, and my Taco seems to brake just fine. But for what it's worth, I had seen a YouTube video (I think it was on YouTube) by a Toyota engineer who was asked why the Taco doesn't have disc brakes on the rear, and he said it was so mud, dirt and grit wont dick up the discs while off roading.

 

But no one wants to hear that as it is "common knowledge" that disc brakes are superior (for SUVs).

I think a big piece of the "Tacoma problem" is that its image as a rugged, fun, reasonably sized truck (mostly true) promoted it to being an iconic/symbolic vehicle to own and drive. This caused a whole bunch of people who didn't need or actually want a truck to buy them. These buyers then squawked loudly enough about the Tacoma truck's perceived (by them) shortcomings to catch Toyota's (and other makers¹) attention. Toyota responded by making the more refined 2nd gen vehicles, which while still a whole lot truck, were much more sedan/SUV like--my '09 DCSB was described by my 92-year-old father as a "wobbly luxury sedan with a big open trunk"

Being that he is my father, the ME that got me started in that direction, and arguably pretty much on point with his assessment, I did not have a lot to say in response.

The 3rd gen has carried this to another level with undeniably SUV pretensions, an SUV engine and transmission and a pre-occupation with MPG--on top of what is still a cab-on-frame truck down under. This is why the many pansies at Consumer Reports, and other populist "review" sites have panned it the way they have; the final product is neither truck in the full Tacoma tradition, or SUV².

People that buy trucks do not give a crap about fuel economy--they assume right-up-front that mpg will be less than with many other vehicles--and at the risk of being redundant do not give a crap about that.

Toyota needs to decide what they want the Tacoma to be. Truck or truck-like plaything...


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¹ - The original and current Honda Ridgeline are specifically targeted at the mid-size pickup "truck" buyer, who does not really want a mid-sized pickup truck.

² - When I was a pup my father had one of those silly "Shop Smith" things. At that time there was no way we could afford a full complement of wood-working power tools, and its promises of being a "table saw", "drill press", "lathe", "sander", etc. were quite alluring. Problem was that while it was capable of doing all those things, it did none of them especially well--in fact it was at best middlin' to mediocre at doing any of them.

 

I call BS on that "engineer" disk brakes are vastly superior off road. Go through the mud with drum brakes and you will be spending some time cleaning the grit out. My jeep had drums and part of the after 4wheeling ritual was pulling the drums off to clean the schmoo out. Disks are self cleaning. Beyond that one advantage, for a small truck, disk vs drum is a pointless conversation as both will do the job that needs doing.

 

how soon will 2018 be out?

 

Exactly! Plus Toyota sells other Off Road Vehicles that all have Rear Discs, why would they do that if they thought Drums were superior.

 

December is what was mentioned earlier in this thread

 

Exactly. And most of these trucks won't be going OffRoad anyway, I don't think they would force that on 99% of the people that will never go OffRoad

 

I want to know how still using drum brakes even came up as an idea, much less made it into production, on a 2016+ vehicle. Especially one this expensive.

I mean, at least make rear discs an option!

 

Something else that baffled me was when I saw the re-designed Highlander and saw it had a CDL switch!

I thought "Well there's the comfy SUV crowd getting a little to down and dirty hugh" I mean a center diff lock in a Highlander!?

I said to myself does a Highlande owner really need to have it in a situation to lock the center diff?

Then I thought it was to chase down Subaru in the snow or something, I don't know.

 

I think December... that's what your mom told me anyway.

 

spoke to 3 dealers, all told me the same

 

I used to have a full size Dodge. Didn't need that much capacity or utility anymore. I have a heavy foot and got 12 mpg with the dodge. Never again unless I actualy need to tow or haul that much on a regular nasis. MPG does matter. My gen 2 with heavy foot gets about 19. Hey if I get 1 or 2 more in the gen 3 so much the better. GTS Bruce