Modding addiction...I think

This is me, although I am not an engineer. I do replace the tires.......when the OEMs wear out, that is! My '17 Tacoma has a bed-mat, a tonneau cover, and Predator steps. That's it, nothing that would affect how the truck runs. I smile every time I get in and start it up, though, and even though it has the much maligned automatic, it scoots when I give it some gas. I bought it to use as a daily driver, but also as a light truck, and I am pretty sure that leaving it stock is the best way to accomplish both goals.

 

Real world solution: Buy a raptor. It has so many things done stock wise that besides cosmetics, it is practically done.

 

Funny to come across this post. I was telling myself last night that my wife is going to kill me after she finds out how much money I have spent in the last 24hrs ($2K). I told her I just wanted a Taco to get to work and do some outdoor stuff. Nothing crazy and then I came across this forum and it changed everything. I haven't had my Taco for 2 weeks and even bought it while I am overseas without having even physically look at or touch the vehicle. I know it'll need some work and won't be perfect, but is anything ever? I think its the fact that I am a car enthusiast and I see modified/performance vehicles as art in motion. I don't want to look at another vehicle and have it look the same as mine. I want it to be different and to my tastes. BTW- all my parts have been getting shipped to my friends house and its just waiting for me until I am home, which is 30 days. We also have our own checking account-so she has no idea. I still have a couple more items I plan on purchasing and I am hoping that will be the end of it . But we'll see how long that lasts.

 

Pretty much where I am, use the truck to get the mountain/dirt bikes to the trail head. Even the most heavily modded Tacoma can't even dream where those can go.

I just want reliability and longevity as I have gotten older. The more you mod, the more likely you are going to take it out and beat on it, the more chances there are you are going to break something. Used to wheel my '85 4Runner pretty hard, and it was built up fairly well...got real sick of breaking stuff on the weekend, and have to burn to the midnight oil fixing it to get to work the next day. Often times I would have to find a ride or use my bicycle. With the dirt bike if you break something you just stick back in the garage and wait on parts.

Yeah you could buy an extra vehicle as a commuter, but that just uses up more money. Buy a Hell of a lot of offroad/back country toys, for the price of one heavily modded Tacoma.

 

You also have to remember the platform, basic design achievement, etc. that Toyota put into it. Since you are a fellow engineer, you are likely familiar with this as I am. There is a certain budget threshold they design these trucks for to meet certain profit margins to the marketability to stay relevant and such with its competitors, but to also retain the reliability as you state as well.

Now, if you take the creation of the Raptor, I have a few buddies who were on the design team. They created the frame to withstand off roading up to 50 MPH within reasonable thresholds that you don't hit anything without some sort of launch ramp and obviously certain sized jumps will not be considered within the design scope. Because of this, they were warrantying issues up to 50 mph incidents. To some degree it can get challenging doing a stress analysis of deformation on these items, but normally they could trace videos of the impacts of the guys doing this stuff as they were recording like crazy with their buddies which answered their questions 75% of the time of whether or not they needed to test for warranty purposes.

Going back to the taco, it is a soda can frame and is NOT designed to handle anything beyond mild offroad for longevity purposes. Hence why the LT guys have to pretty much gusset and weld most critical points of the C channel frame in order to prevent a shear crack down the road. Not to say the taco cant be upgraded, but when you start to beef up something, the weaker neighboring part will now be the next failure point. With that said, it is def true that if you operate a Tacoma in its stock fashion without any upgrades that it will perform fairly reliable and likely well within the expected time frame assuming you keep it for its intended environment.

Its not that the taco isn't capable, but you will find outside of the power train that structurally wise, it just isn't that beefy. Lastly, remember auto makers make things have a fatigue shelf life as well which isn't always due to keep up maintenance cycles. If the tire industry wanted tires to last 3 times longer on certain compounds...then they would, but that would tank their business sales as then people would be buying inventory 1/3 the normal amount.

 

I have my own goals for my ride, but honestly man having that perfect combination of exlcusive parts that screams it is "my vehicle" does hold some weight. Considering my build and being on the east coast, def feels good to know Im the one of one taco out there in terms of my exact arrangement.

 

??????? Ok if you say so

 

Although I can see the reasoning behind this, I like the idea of being able to bring up all my things (shelter, cooler, food, supplies, etc.) to whichever remote location I'm exploring. Sounds like taking a bike may restrict how much I can bring. (with that said, I wouldn't mind doing something like this on a day exploration trip).

Having driven on enough Forest roads, I will say that people for the most part (unless rock crawling, high speed desert driving, etc.) should be good with a tire upgrade, underbody armor, and a lighting upgrade (I drive around the mountains at night a lot as well).

And then, there are the upgrades that just make driving the taco even more fun than it already is. For me, that's the intake and exhaust; ever since the first day I picked up the truck, I woke up in the morning excited and looking forward to driving it; and certain upgrades just make the excitement even more intense.

A lot of us are really spoiled with this luxury of being able to afford this truck stock in the first place, so I'm grateful with or without mods... but damn, it sure makes life just that much more awesome knowing we can.

 

I think @hiPSI was trying to state that a "mod" is any item that replaces a stock (standard specification) part due to personal/subjective interests. To replace a "failed design" part is more along the lines of remedying the situation as the item NEEDS a solution.

As far as the Taco itself, as shows like Top Gear and such have done, Toyota has been pretty good at keeping a stock vehicle alive in its naturally designed environment. Many might give the taco too much credit into thinking it can handle slamming aggressive trails in excess of 15+ mph without any reprocussions in the time frame of a few years compared to the guy who just daily commutes his ride with occasional fire road activities. The taco unfortunately is not a "niche" platform and thus is created to serve the general populace and their lifestyles which many of us are likely not in that populace with our truck goals.

I think Toyota has proven through the first and second gens (third gens havnt been around long enough yet) that many 2000, 2005 tacos as long as they have had some sort of maintenance agenda are still street worthy and quite valuable for their age unless frame rust. You cant say this about most of the domestics, as in their stock form they tend to die out in some capacities which obviously lead to an increased degradation in their used sales figures.

I think the point that hiPSI was trying to make is the major incentive why many of us chose the taco to be the platform to invest in from the get go is from a basic standpoint, the Tacoma is a quality built truck.

 

I agree with @hiPSI ..I think anytime you are "subjectively " fixing something on any rig to make it better you just modified it . Thus the mod's begin.
I really tried hard not to go into $$$$$ mode on my 3rd gen. But it's just hard sometimes to do just what you need.
These tacos are kinda like the (crack) of the offroad world. Do one mod one time and your addicted !! .

 

Got to remember too, this forum is all about the informed enthusiast. The more you understand the componentry, the more you might nod your head and go "Gee I wonder if anyone made something to make this better?" Odds are you will find what is available on here, then that mentality grows depending on your activities, budget, general curiousity, or just damn looks. Nothing wrong with any of these interests, but as you can tell...its hard to avoid the bug.

Hell I was successful for about 4 years with getting a "Baja" in the hopes that I could tell myself it was perfect as long as I didn't get involved in a forum. Well one day I dinged a light pole as it was in my perfect blind spot at reverse speed without gas. Just enough to crack my rear driver taillight. No biggie, but dammit once I say the plethora of options it was close to wanting to scratch the itch that my first gen had all over me. I then was scrapping for cash and looked into a platform to sell some old king bypasses that never made it to my first gen and signed up on TW with the hopes to get the word out as TTORA was a dying forum.

After a week on here...all my plans went to shit. Been saving/modding ever since.

 

Sometimes the Manufacturers watch what we do to our vehicles and add those to new ones because it was an improvement over stock.

 

I don't know many of the specifics myself, but I hear the third gen headlights are generally harder to open up from the oven as they have a stronger sealant. Toyota now offers a stock black headlight upgrade that the Pro's come on for a nice hefty price...I wonder if mods encouraged this or if there is some new state of the art anti-fog material they use now in the sealant?

 

Absolutely. They would be silly not to look at 200K owners and see what, how, when, where and how long with respect to their vehicles.

Everyone has to remember that the Tacoma and many vehicles out there got to where they are today by listening to the customer. There has to be a demand before there can be a supply! Well, with the exception of the Ipod but I digress. What we have now is an evolution of the original Toyota truck and it got here by listening to the customer.

And modding vehicles is a great fun hobby too and a learning experience! Just wanted to give people a different look on modding is all. A lot of people think they are improving the reliability and durability aspect of their trucks but in reality, they are reducing those aspects and improving performance.

Metaphor time:
I like to compare machines to a simple bearing. As long as you use it as it was intended and the loads and speeds are within spec, it will basically last a long time with just a bit of maintenance. But, if you use it above rated speed or loading or harsh environment it will reduce it's life proportionally. If you go too far, you will have catastrophic failure. Also a bearing is what it is. You cannot mod that specific bearing to improve it's reliability and durability. You can't grease it more often than needed and expect it to operate outside of spec. You can only adjust the working conditions and environment. If you want a more reliable and durable bearing, you have to buy a different bearing. A better, tougher, more expensive bearing.

 

To also add to that, when adding these "performance parts" whether that is suspension, motor enhancement, etc. they are obviously ideal for their added function and increased capabilities. At the same time, you can only be as strong as your weakest component.

This was a great example of showing that either you accept the system for what it is, or upgrade the essentials all at once. If you do it in pieces and push the truck to new heights, understand that until all the stock parts that experience the increased load are subject to fail until they are modified with the next stage in componentry. Many who shoot for the looks side of this will likely never be in this predicament vs the guy who is wheeling.

You can never have enough spare parts for the later.

 

I agree. I had an '08 Sport that was completely stock and blew the engine, so I fixed it and traded it in on a new '12... then came across TW while looking for tow mirrors. One thing led to another and about $10k later I had one bad ass Taco. It was so bad ass that someone stole it.

I was pretty devastated, had to fight the insurance company for 6 weeks, and in that time I decided that I wasn't going to go through that ordeal again. I figured that no Taco in the driveway = no mods = more $$.

I bought a RAM Rebel and was right. There is not much one can do to this truck, since it comes fully equipped/optioned and is a money saver in the long run. I push a button and up she goes 3", just enough to get me down logging trails to the small lakes and areas where I fish and hunt. It gets 10 litres/100 kms ( 2.64 gallons/62 miles) on the highway in ECO mode, and overall better mileage than the 33" shoed Taco. It tows my trailers nicely, and the air ride levels automatically. I have a bumper to bumper 6 year warranty. I've slapped a cap on it, bedside decals, mud flaps, and a bug deflector. Done!

I do miss my Taco, but my bank account doesn't and wifey is happy. She is so happy that she now wants a 4Runner next year.

 

I strongly agree with the things you are posting but i also think of Mods that address Factory weak links that can improve upon reliability and or durability. You Engineers have your hands tied to do things within a budget, even if it may not be the best.

 

While its a bummer when this came to light, glad to see you being content again Tac!

 

Everything has a threshold of profit and appeal to the average consumer. No need to standardize a component configuration if the standard joe isn't going to invest in it. As much as I love my Baja, it went away for a reason. Cool concept, just didn't appeal to the masses.

 

I love that truck!! Maybe someday I'll find one. Very hard to find now, so I guess there niche customers are keeping them .