Looking at used Gen 3 tacomas

First off hello!


I had to retire my good old land rover Mountain Goat a month or so ago. And yes I poured one out for her. I am looking at gen 3 taco's. As much as I liked the landy it was just too unreliable. Thatis why I am interested in the Taco. I live in Ouray CO so we do have quite a few trails. But I am not sure I want to go the route I went with the landy. It was pretty aggressive and just seemed overkill. Anyway, I am looking at some used TRD offroad trucks. I was interested in one but when I asked the dealership what lift it had because it did not look stock they said it was a 2inch strut-only lift. Is that a thing? I had never heard of anything like that over in the landy world. We had to do all kinds of shit to the front end once we started lifting it. But I hung out in a pretty small group so maybe they have that as well. What does a strut-only lift mean for the front end? Does it cause extra wear? What would I need to look at if I wanted to move forward with it? I tried a search in this forum for strut only but did not come up with a solid understanding of this.

 

Oh, and they have 33's on it.

 

The term "strut lift" is quite confusing.
Perhaps they are referring to a suspension lift? It's probably worth following up with them on what they mean.

In the mean time, take a look at https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/tacoma-lift-faq-guide-read-this.11282/ to get you started with Tacoma lifts.

 

I’ll take a stab at this. Remember what opinions are like and what you paid for this.

The “strut” lift probably means the addition of aftermarket front shocks with adjustable spring preload. This will lift the front 2” easily. It doesn’t, however, tell you anything about the rear.

Personally, I prefer a small lift of this type for enhanced off-road ability while still maintaining reliability. Others will differ.

Your main concern, IMO, is with the 33s. That size tire, done properly, requires additional work to the truck that, IMO, may compromise some level of reliability.

Good luck.

 

Yeah on my landy I ran 33's and had to do a lot of work on the front end and drive shafts to get it right and dependable. I really was not looking for 33's at this time but this truck just happened to have them. I used to do more technical stuff and really do not do that much now. I live in Ouray CO so I will for sure get on them at some point. But would rather get stock and work toward a lift then buy once with a bad lift. I was really just unfamiliar with that term. I have asked them to get me a picture under the wheel wells and the front end underneath.

 

Thank you for the link. Most of the terms are the same. Not the leaf stuff though. I was just stumped with the strut-only lift description they gave. Worried me.

With my old rig, I bought the lift kit and it came with springs and shocks. I then had a shop put in HD drive shafts and some after-market stuff for the front end to help with the new angles.

 

33s will be just fine on a Tacoma if done well.

 

You can easily fit 33x10 on stock suspension without any modifications.

 

I have asked them for some pictures of the wheel wells and underneath the front. See if I can get a feel for what is up. Normally I would start stock and work my way up. I would not mind of some of the work has already been done though. But like you said if it was done right.

 

Ya, I'd go with Serge's advice about the 33" 255 pizza cutters, and get a 2" lift. Bilstein seems to me the most used here (but don't quote me).

Great budget set of Bilstein 5100s are the best bang for the buck, followed by the 6112s, up to the 8112's. Of course King & Fox makes a great sets too, if you can afford them.

P.S. @vishrb, you can take the Taco anywhere, as it is the recovery vehicle of choice.

 

Yep, get the clearance of 33s without extra weight and rolling resistance. Love my pizza cutters. Even running stock mudflaps with no rubbing whatsoever.

Im running 2” lift, OME 2887 coils with soft valved nitro charger shocks and medium dobinsons leafs. Rides great.

 

I ran 33 pizza cutters on my landy and really liked how they worked here in the San Juans. Plenty of snow, rocks, rivers etc... Not much mud. Most of the Tacoma's I look at have swapped out their rims to 17 or 18. I always ran 16-inch rims previously so I could air down when needed. Is the 16-inch rim just not as popular with Tacoma owners? Or have I just seen too small of a sampling? I am mostly looking at the TRD Off-road.

 

The “problem” with 16” wheels is that if you want pizza cutters, they come in mud terrains.

With 17s you got a lot more AT options.

FWIW I usually air down my pizza cutters to 18 and they do just fine, can air down more if needed no problem.

 

You can air down 17s with no issues.

The tire selection is more limited with 16s these days. 17s give a lot more options.



The lift could be a puck / spacer lift where a bit of metal was inserted above the front coilover. Likely a block would have been tossed between the leafs and axle, unless the previous owner went for the 'leveled' look, which is kinda useless if you load the bed up.

A proper lift uses different front coilovers to control the spring preload. There is only so much that the Taco can tolerate due to the CV angles. There is only so much up and down travel that they will allow. So, any lift on a Taco will not add any total suspension travel unless you go wider (long travel) which has its own can of worms.

New leafs out back would be the proper route to lift there.

The Landy with solid axles and killer 4links was a very different beast.

 

The Pro, Off Road and SRs come with the 16", but ya as Serge & Tony mentioned, they are limited to a M/T in a 33". I'm guessing you had M/Ts on your Rover.

 

I believe my last set where cooper discover s/t max. But my brain tosses information once it is no longer needed and it had been a while since I bought the last set.

 

Could be spacer or shocks stick your head in there and take a look or have the salesman take a pic. Around the same price range you are also talking used colorado zr2, 4runner, FJ, gx460, gen1 raptors have gotten expensive lately but you might find one of those too, all of them are good offroad trucks in their own right. Personally if you want a tacoma I'd say get an offroad that is stock and just drive it. The only real weak point is the shocks they don't handle long washboard roads very well but other than that it has good tires, ground clearance, rear locker plus it is easy around town and gas mileage isn't too bad.

 

You can get better pricing on some of the 255 AT tires on 17s as well.

 

I am pretty set on a Tacoma and have been mostly looking at the trd offroad. Interesting about the handling of washboard roads. I live at 8800 feet at the end of a 10-mile gravel county road. It can be pretty crappy parts of the season. Has like 2000 ft of elevation as well.

 

a couple of the Tacoma's I am looking at are at around 100k miles. If they have a good service history should that bother me? Coming from the landy world we had issues well before that. My understanding is that the Tacoma engine is usually good for around 300k miles when well maintained?