Clean, Purpose-Built 3rd Gen SR5

Love the thread, definitely gained inspiration from it especially since I'm blacked out too and have common goals with what I use the truck for. Such a fine looking truck with the heritage grill! Would love to that myself but I'm stuck between getting an OEM one or an aftermarket one for a fraction of the price. I think I'll be taking off my air dam sooner rather than later because you have me intrigued with your mileage! I had my frame coated too and it stopped my leaf springs from squeaking as they had surface rust on them. Such an underrated investment. What brand of coating did that shop you went to use? Is it oil based? I went to line-x and opted for fluid flim.

 

Thanks so much for the kind words!! The shop I went to for the undercoating uses a proprietary blend from Noxudol. I don’t know much about the company myself other than they are based in Sweden. I was happily surprised to see they did my leaf springs as well and they look brand new! Extra bonus since I have the icon AAL so hopefully that will extend the life of it at least a little bit.

About the air dam, yeah I don’t think it really does anything noticeable. I’m on another road trip at the moment and the average for the tank I’m on now is about 21.5mpg. Granted, I’ve been driving mostly flat roads without much braking or accelerating for the last few days. I do keep in mind that my 265 tires are slightly bigger than the 245 tires that my speedometer is calibrated for, but I can’t imagine that difference is very big.

 

When I read you said 245 which it's calibrated for.. I was like wait a min.. Mine came with 265. I had to look up Tacoma SR5.. And you are right. it came with 245. I didn't realize that.

I was close to correct you but you are right. lol... I don't know why Toyota use different sizes between the trims.

@KillBill216 .. I removed air dam before I went to off road park... I haven't put it back on yet. I think it keep it off for now unless I plan to sell. Not much difference in MPG. It doesn't bother me since I am turning it into an offroad/camping vehicle.

 

lol yeah the stock Toyo’s that come on the SR5’s are tiny and pretty much useless offroad so I switched them out pretty quickly.

I actually asked the dealership if they would switch them for me but they refused so I just wound up selling them to a TW member who put them to use.

 

I had an interesting occurrence yesterday in the truck that I figured would be worth documenting.

I drove it through a car wash, which also did the undercarriage. I had the AC running earlier in the day and it was working fine. After I exited the car wash, there was no air coming through the vents even with the AC set to full blast, and water started to collect on the passenger side floorboard.

A search of the internet seemed to indicate that this can happen after undercarriage washes, when the cabin air filter becomes wet and the AC blower can’t get air flow through the filter into the cabin.

That seems accurate because after about an hour everything was working again as usual. When I got to my destination I pulled the cabin air filter and it was dry. I’m guessing it probably dried while I was driving. I’ll post if it happens again but hopefully it was a one time thing. I never have water in the passenger area when it rains so I assume it was the undercarriage wash that caused the problem. I get the undercarriage washed pretty frequently but I’m on a trip so this was a different car wash than my normal spot; I suspect they have a higher intensity wash.

 

that’s weird. I don’t have that problem with mine when going through the car wash places that have higher intensity wash or not.


next time you go through that wash place, turn off AC.

 

I’ll definitely make sure it’s off next time

 

I know the onboard MPG computer isn’t 100% accurate but this is still definitely a record for my truck, even if you figure there’s probably a 1-2mpg error in there somewhere.

Pic of the time/distance included so you guys know I didn’t just drive around the block lol

 

Years ago, I took my ex to work, I noticed 33MPG on the screen. I told her "look, 33!" She seemed jealous. Heh.

 

I know some people don’t love this guy but I really enjoy his videos. I found that this one pretty much exactly explained why I bought a Tacoma, saw it here on another part of TW and figured I’d share again...

https://youtu.be/eqJe5OCdjZc

 

Another good trip in the books.




At the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse in NC:



Some sandy driving along the way:


I’m bummed that some footage of some pretty sketchy beach driving was overwritten on my dash cam before I remembered to download it. Oh well. I still have sand caked onto my UCAs

 

I guess I forgot to upload these. A few pics from a road trip north of the US border last fall. The pictures of the views in upstate New York just didn’t do the real views justice.

 

Hey Road Warrior! Great looking truck!! Quick question... Do you like the Grabber ATX's? How is the pavement ride?

 

I do like them a lot! They’ve been really great tires. They have started to get a little noisy in the last few thousand miles but I still really like them. On pavement they are fantastic, both wet and dry pavement.

I’m thinking about getting the Mickey Thompson Baja Boss AT tires when these wear out but I’m not positive about that yet. I wouldn’t mind another set of these. They’re great in all conditions and are really good for a daily driver.

 

Linking this thread here in case anyone hasn’t seen it…I think it’s one of the best threads on TW. The amount of work the OP put into the chart is really unreal.

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/3rd-gen-maintenance-maps-get-300k-miles.789809/

 

I love the way your truck looks in this picture. What suspension set up are you running in that picture?

 

Thanks man!!

It’s actually just the Rough Country level up front and the Icon AAL in the rear.

That was when I had the 33” Yokohama Geolandar g003’s on the truck.

 

the 1” rough country spacer or the 1.5” spacer?

 

It’s actually a 2” level. This one:

https://www.roughcountry.com/toyota-leveling-lift-kit-744c.html

I won’t have it on for much longer, it’s just what I’ve been running while I decide what suspension I’m going to buy and I have an order of the bilstein 5100’s in the works. Just trying to decide exactly when I’m going to place the order.

 

have you looked into the westcott lift kit for the 5100’s?