Ease of maintenance?

I had my dipstick sandblasted just enough to knock the shine off but it felt rough when I pulled/pushed it especially in the bend of the tube. I worried I would rub a hole in the tube so I ordered a new dipstick and threw the sandblasted one away.

 

LOL, right?

I just had some bad flashbacks to a certain GM V6.. the rear plugs. CHRIST

 

I haven't even looked but I wonder if u can remove the coil bolts and rotate the pack to a better spot to clear the tank.

 

I agree that the cartridge filter is a PITA.

To me, they designed this truck to be nearly un-serviceable by regular folks in a regular garage. I mean, the transmission is sealed so you can't even check the fluid level. For you guys who are more inclined, I guess it's not terrible, but I hate not being able to check all the fluids on a regular basis. It just seems like they are trying to make it so that you have to take it in and have them plug into the OBD to see what is wrong. Just frustrating to me really.

 

Not worked up or anything, it might be more entailed than your pic looks but if all you gotta do is remove an air tank (picturing kinda like the upper part of a two piece intake manifold) it really doesn't sound that bad. It might be worse than I have pictured (and it probably is).

There is a new car show thing in a few weeks in Omaha, I intend on giving the taco a good going over. The huge hunk of plastic they stick on top the engine covers everything up on an image search.

At the other end of the performance spectrum Ford's dual plug 2.3 required removal of the intake manifold to change four of the spark plugs.

 

Pretty common really. Most trucks are like that anymore.

I am hoping for a manual trans anyway though. They typically don't have a dipstick anyway.

 

At least checking the manual gearbox oil is as simple as it's always been.. M/T or nothin!

 

I know... just venting I guess. It's not terrible, but I wish there were better ways to make sure your stealership wasn't screwing you over and just telling you everything was A-Ok.

 

I'll take a pic or two tomorrow, as I'm going on a long(ish) trip and will be under there checking all the vitals anyway. Cheers.

 

@AllisFan , here's a top down view of what you see with that top cover off. The driver's side is where things get a bit dicked.

 

That isn't bad at all. Reminds me a lot of the upper intake on an old Ford 5.0. 8 bolts +/-, probably some kind of clamp that ties the air filter pipe to the TB, maybe a couple vacuum lines.

 

Yeah there's a coolant connection to the throttle body and such, but maybe a fella could shift the whole thing around once it's loose without removing all that stuff.. dunno. More work than I want to do for... plugs lol.

Edit: I think we can agree that the tech who told that guy about raising the engine or some shit was full of it lol.

 

I’ve already got a plan for when it comes time to change the plugs:

 

Dude, I love that scene!

WW FTMFW

 

Its not much harder than the 2nd Gen Tacoma and even seems to have a little more room in some areas.

The Tacoma's are the easiest vehicle's to work on I've owned other than my old MKIII Supra and E36 BMWs (straight 6 + RWD combo is a Godsend to mechanics, so much room to work!). Well the Wrangler is pretty easy to work on too but I now fucking hate wranglers so I refuse to give it credit for anything, yeah I'm salty I know.

 

Process doesn't look that bad. the pain in the ass i taking the coolant connection off the throttle body. I just did that in the fall to clean the throttle body. Only had 15 k on it, but I was just pissing around trying to get a lay of the land and started taking stuff off. Figured while I was there, might as clean the MAF and the throttle body, although the TB didn't need it. I like taking the throttle body off before cleaning it on vehicles that have a throttle body alignment adjuster thingy. Anyway, the coolant connection for some reason was not easy to take off the TB and the baffle underneath it. But overall, the whole process was pretty easy.

 

PITA is relative...
If you have the proper tools and service manual, there isn't much you can't do yourself.
Here's the service manual; last updated 11/13/15. Open in Adobe and use the bookmarks(index) and search function.
https://onedrive.live.com/redir?resid=E4201B2041C373EC!151&authkey=!AHx1iTrEjYnqJHA&ithint=folder,pdf

Oil change can be made easier with; a Fumoto valve for the drain and a Fumoto valve or threaded drain(e.g.Motivx) for the filter plug.

Transmission fluid check is similar to 2nd gen; takes me about 20 minutes. Just takes a little planning...

Air surge tank removal for spark plug access starts on page 4,465.

 

Any way to download that in mobile?

 

Click "..." and download.

You'll have to open it in an appropriate app to use the Bookmarks(Index), otherwise only the search function is available. It would make navigating a 11,000+ page document difficult.

I'm on Samsung S5 and Hancom Office 2014 works for me.

 

Bit of a runaround on Apple but I got it open in ibooks. Thanks