Four years in a Tacoma, a frustrating experience

I bought my 3rd gen partly based on my near 20 year experience my 2000 T4R. That was an excellent vehicle.
Compared to the 2000 T4R, the Tacoma is bigger, has more payload (it's a truck), gets better gas mileage, better tech, etc, etc.
Sure, it could have a little more pep or more payload. But this is just a personal vehicle for me. It fits in my garage and it's much easier to live with than an SUV.
Overall, I'm happy with it.

 

You owned a truck with arguably the best resale value.

You put up with those significant non trivial issues for 4 years of your life that you will never get back when you could have moved on to something else with little to no financial hit?

 

Its me and not the truck sadly... few weeks ago I got backed into at Costco. Not my truck. Me.

I need massive bales of sage to burn around my truck, me, everything.

 

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It’s a small v6 engine. I wouldn’t expect too much out of it. Those tow ratings are bogus IRL also.

 

OP..... This post.....

 

Main issue toyota has to have for the next generation of tacoma's is to build them idiot proof for all during the break in process.

 

Yeah, I've never driven one so I wouldn't actually know lol
It is funny how that used to be considered a full size and now the tacoma is the same size as the old tundy's

 

Tow Ratings are accurate.

 

Well if I were you I would sell that truck right away if you feel that way. However I would be interested to see what you think is actually good .
Ford Ecoboom ? Oh sorry Ecoboost
How about a collapsed lifter on a GM v8
Or a Fiat Truck oh I men Dodge Ram .

 

While I respect your opinions of the newer generations of Tacoma's, I have a much different one.
I have no issues with the seating position, I feel it's mostly the same as my 1st gen but more comfortable IMO, especially with the power & heated seats and the leather/pleather. My 3rd gen is considerably more powerful as well.
I have never babied anything I have owned that has an engine especially my 1st gen. I drove that thing for 17 years and maintained it like it was my baby but did not drive it that way!
A long time friend of mine had almost the same truck as mine except his was an off-road and mine was an SR5, even the same color. He babied the shit out of his and had a lot more issues than mine ever did over the years. We would race all the time up and down I-70 to ski resorts and trips to Utah and Moab. I'd smoke him everytime!
I drive my 3rd gen the same way. I hear some guys state that they never get their truck above 4k RPM's and I heard another fairly recently say they never get theirs above 2500 RPM's.This is mind blowingly crazy to me! I'm from the camp of "if you drive it like a dog, it will always act like a dog" and those words were never more true with me and my buds 1st gens. I drove his truck often when we would share drive time on long road trips and vice versa. He always told me that I was going to blow my truck up but I got 240k out of it and it's still on the road today. His is not. He also could never understand why mine was faster and would hold 70-75 up the steepest parts of I-70 and his would barely hold 65. Yeah it's all anecdotal experience's but nonetheless, experience
I'm also in the camp of- Japanese developed engines are meant to rev high, this may come from my motorcross background because you definitely don't baby those suckers!
I guess my point is, Tacoma's are far from the junk that you think they are. I'm 40k into my 3rd gen and I love it!
I'm not saying "race it everywhere you go" I'm just saying that getting to redline every now and then is a good thing
I do have the Kdmaxx tune and it made the pedal response much more similar to the 1st Gen, maybe even a little more responsive than the old truck. Though before the tune I just trained my right foot to be much heavier to get the same response. After the tune, I had to re-train my foot to lighten up a little!
Now, everyone is justified to have their own opinions of their experiences. But for me I just don't feel the need to complain about every single little thing that doesn't fit my wants to the exact T! Nothing's perfect and never will be. Yeah the sheet metal is thinner and the plastic sucks, but whatever, it's still better than my 1st gen in most every other way and I loved that truck too
Who knows? Maybe my opinion will be different in another 100k miles

 

I'm 6'1", 185 lbs., 51 yrs old, have a '10 and a '22. The '10 has never been comfortable, '22 is very comfortable. My only complaint with the '22 is the shift patterns. To each his own!

 

Masterbaiter* fixed that for you.

There is literally nothing on the current market offerings that is good. Wrenching on every make and model over the last I don't know how many years has caused me to find the adequacies and deficiencies in every model for every make enough to the point where I've convinced myself that nothing out there will ever live up to my unrealistic high standard of quality that I demand in my mind. I'm sticking to my 2nd gen despite my reservations about it and how budgetly (I know, not a word) built it was while being charged the premier price I paid for it. I have my truck exactly how I want it now. It does exactly what I need it to do when I do it and it cost a lot of money to get it this way. At what point in my statement of that did I not articulate that effectively enough for you to understand that?

You're right though. It's going for the part out soon. Get more money back that way from it.

I've got more redlines on this truck over the last 165,000 miles than most will ever have on their truck. Boosting it makes you want to smash that go pedal a lot more frequently. I've never been a proponent of babying any vehicle as well. They hold up a lot better when you give them the good ol' Italian tune up at least once every time you drive it.

I've had back issues since about 2014 and so it doesn't really matter what the level of comfort is on any seat for me, at some point they all feel uncomfortable if I'm on them past a certain period of time. A lot of blue collar Americans deal with spinal issues though (some more so than others, but that still doesn't detract from what they experience) so my comment comes out of that generalization. Realizing that that statement doesn't apply to the mass norms I'm positive in saying that it doesn't apply to everyone driving one, but I know a good amount of folks agree with the sentiment (at least on the forum alone) based on all the posts I have seen regarding the seats comfort over all the years I have been a member on here, so they've (the members) had to do something about them to address them. Toyota trucks and SUV's have just never been fantastic as far as comfort goes and they tend to make their seating surfaces harder than softer unfortunately.

Anyways, yeah... I guess where I was going with this was that if you want something done right you gotta do it yourself. In this case I wanted a lot of things right on this truck. Or at least to a higher standard than the factory form it came in, so I redid a lot of it myself. It has reached a point, however, where I just decided to let well enough be, as it starts, runs, and gets me from point A to point B with the equipment its hauling whenever I need it to and that's all I ask of it now, every single time. It's been a good truck, but in my eyes, it's still junk.

Consider my sentiments regarding the matter a long term review of the truck, not an attack on the nameplate.

 

Except for the width, those old tundras had 50'' in the bed between the rear wheel wells.

 

Idk why so many complain about the shifting of these trucks, it couldn't be any better. Maybe the way they initially broke them, they screwed the learning process of these transmissions.

 

Well looking at your build page you sure did an impressive amount of stuff. So at least your in a good place with the truck and can have fun with it.

 

Right, the fact of the matter is, the American consumer has the illusion of choice. You can buy a Toyota which is usually down tuned for longevity, or you can buy something else and suffer the consequences. Either way, no one is getting what they want.

I blame the EPA, not Toyota.

 

I'm sorry for your experience OP. Maybe some of it is the truck you got. I have a 2017 and experience almost none of the issues you've described. Granted, I'm 5'9" and the seating position is very subjective. I, too, have gone to Colorado, Wyoming, and Utah with my truck fully loaded, from Michigan. I can't say I experienced any power issues at altitude, and certainly less power loss than other vehicles I've driven at altitude (includes a lot of rentals).

As for power, I'm not sure what you're comparing to. When I first joined, those who complained about power were usually one of two categories. 1: coming from a full size truck with a V8, or some sort of sports car, or just plain any other car with an engine which this truck was never designed to compete with. 2: those who are not used to direct injection who don't realize these engines are at home about 1200 or so RPM higher than port injection engines. I can't speak to your experience directly, but I can tell you this truck is slower off the line than my 2008 Canyon, but way better accelerating at highway speeds than that same truck. But the two trucks had different power trains and different gearing so it was completely understandable. The Tacoma also has more HP, torque, and a higher tow rating.

As for off roading, I've never experienced any lights so far that have caused any warning lights to come on. I've been on plenty of inclines and declines. I have no idea how steep you're referring to. I've never maxed out my incline guages, but I've been well past half way (could tell you exactly how far) and never had any oil lights or other lights come on.

MPG: this is easily the best MPG truck I've ever driven. Even at elevation, it gets great MPG provided you also go down the mountains. I'm not sure what you consider good and bad, but I was pretty happy with 18+ being fully loaded, at elevation, with a RTT and two bikes on the back (exactly as seen in my profile pic). My old truck was lucky to get 18 on a good day and that had 1 less cylinder.

Shifting: once my truck adjusted, the shifting was fine. I will also add, using cruise control greatly reduces some of the complaints I've seen on here. But, the gear hunting complaints can largely be attributed to having more gears than other vehicles people have driven before. You mentioned thinking 8-10 speeds would reduce your issues, but I'd have to disagree. Why? Because, before coming to my Tacoma, I was very heavily interested in the 2016-2020 F150. Those featured the Ford/GM 10-speed transmission. People complained all the time about "gear hunting" when all the transmission was doing was its job: finding the right gear to balance needed power in that particular moment, and MPG. My previous truck had a traditional 4 speed transmission so coming to this 6 speed, I was definitely not used to the shifting. But, it also allowed my truck to cruise at 70 MPH below 2k RPM while I was at 23k in my old truck, which likely explains some of the difference in MPG.

My truck hasn't been all sunshine and roses though. Lately I've had poor tire wear and have had to bring it in for the timing cover leak. They also found the water pump and head gaskets leaking. Luckily for me, they're all covered under my platinum extended warranty so I'm not out anything. I've also put approximately 85k miles on the truck in 3 years (odo reads just shy of 101k) and the current tires have been on for 70k according to the book I keep with service history. Mine is also a 2017 which was built in 2016 so it's basically still a first model year truck so some of this is unfortunate, but understandable. I have a 2023 Highlander as a loaner and it is nice, but I am not a big fan of it. It just isn't for me.

Have I considered other trucks? Sure. But here's why I'm still happy with my Tacoma:
-Ford: I like the F150, but didn't love it. Especially the new ones I've driven. I think the Ranger is fugly and wasn't super impressed with the one I rented and put through a 10 hour road trip a couple of years ago. It worked well, but it didn't wow me in any way.

-GM: I grew up a GM guy and my last truck was a GM. However, after my experiences and the experiences I've seen with a lot of others with GM vehicles, I have developed some trust issues with the brand. I think they have the best ride but the interiors wore out quickly and I have a hard time finding one that's 10 years old without some sort of warning lights on that aren't necessarily the check engine light. I do like the styling on the new Colorados though. But all of their trucks develop frame rust very fast where I'm at.

-Ram: too many issues and I can't get behind the new shifters they have. One coworker loves his and has had few issues although has had a couple of random gremlins. Another coworker has had numerous issues with his. Both are of the latest iteration of the RAM 1500.

-Nissan: no thank you. I don't need an "in between" size truck, especially when a mid size has worked for what I've needed. The new frontiers look good, but are still unproven. I have a relative with the previous generation who likes it, but I wasn't a big fan of it when I had to drive it for a week, especially compared to trucks I've had since then.

-Honda: good joke. The truck is ugly AF to me and not what I need. A recent episode of Berm Peak also confirmed it's a "truck" that's not so good at doing actual truck things very long.

-Last but not least, Toyota: I have no desire to get a 2nd gen. The power train is good, but I do not like the styling nor the higher prospect of frame rot and the fact that it's an aging platform. I wouldn't mind a 1st gen from a styling perspective, but the rest of what I just mentioned still holds true. I've driven the latest Tundra and liked it, but it's still too new for me to be comfortable getting one from a price and reliability standpoint. Older Tundras are extremely reliable, but basically function on a mid-2000's platform that also has the power and very poor MPG of those same trucks. I was also not a fan of the styling. I love the styling of the 3rd gen and what I'm seeing of the 4th gen. But the 4th gen will need to be out for a few years to work out issues before I'm comfortable placing an order.

TL;DR: everyone's experience and past experiences are different. Perhaps you got a lemon or perhaps you were just expecting different things based on past experiences.

 

It’s the fact that some of our trucks are straight up defective, and Toyota refuses to do anything about it. Combine that with unhelpful dealers and the problem never gets recognized, let alone resolved.