Drove my Chevy to the levee and bought a Toyota instead

Just bought my first Toyota and am planning to slowly build it for some serious off-roading. My last build was a 2019 Chevy Silverado 1500 Trail Boss (@ChevyMods on instagram) and I'm happily switching over to a very lightly used 2020 Toyota Tacoma TRD Off-Road.

Plan to take this truck across Mojave Road, to Colorado for some trail runs and camping, and many other off-road trails everywhere in between. It still needs to be a functional daily driver and work vehicle for home chores, so the modifications will need to be functional and tastefully done.

Appreciate recommendations and welcome new ideas for how to make this thing stout and useable as an all around truck.

 

Congrats and welcome to TW!

 

Thanks! Happy to be here!

 

Put some terrain appropriate tires on it, pack up recovery gear, camping gear, some hand tools and air compressor and go.

People tend to 'build' way more than is needed.

 

What he said. This is my “built” truck. It’s taken me all over North America on and off road, over all kinds of terrain.



These trucks are really capable stock so unless you’re going to do rock crawling, you really don’t need to add a whole lot. I run hybrid tires (General Grabbers) and a 2” lift. Nothing crazy. I have a build thread if you’re looking for ideas but I think my truck is probably considered too tame for most people here.

I have everything I need and nothing I don’t. Don’t lie to yourself and get a bunch of stuff you don’t need, unless you want to!

I would say drive it stock for a while and see what you really need to upgrade. Can’t wait to see what you do!

 

Welcome to TW. Good choice. Curious as to why you switched teams.

 

Haha, I totally agree. This isn't my first rodeo so I have some leftover parts from my old builds that'll get me started. I do plan to drive it "stock" for a bit before upgrading suspension and tires. I will definitely follow the "Lockers before light bars" build mentality though. function is king. Here's my old build for some history at least:
Photo from Mojave Road 2021
- Icon Stage 2 suspension with billet UCA's
- 35" BFG KM3
- Lot's of hidden things like comms, air compressor, etc.



My thoughts on this Tacoma build are some good K02 tires (maybe 33" once I do a small lift and body mount relocation). The motor is solid, so I'll leave that alone. If necessary I'll look into a re-gear, but I'd like to leave drivetrain/powertrain stock for as long as I can without compromising the Toyota magic.

 

That’s a beautiful rig! If you do 33’s and full armor, you may want to regear down the line. I did 33’s for a bit and the loss in power/braking was just too much for the form over function equation (for how I use the truck) so I went back down to 265/75/16’s and I’ve stayed there.

If you want to avoid a regear, there are some really good tunes around. My truck has been tuned for almost 2 years now and it makes it drive like a different truck.

 

I think if I did go for a re-gear I may do air lockers at the same time. haha. That's good to know though on the power/braking loss. I definitely do notice that this truck has a lot less passing power than my old truck. Lucky for me I don't mind going a bit slower. I've had my fair share of fast cars in the past and I think I got that all out of my system. With this truck being so much lighter and maneuverable than my last truck I may not need 33's or bigger for a few years until I run out of fun trails the truck can do within a reasonable distance. These trucks are always so much more capable than I expect them to be.

 

Same here, I drive the truck very mildly on the road. Helps with gas mileage haha.

Yeah I don’t do any rock crawling or wheeling, just light-medium trails and beach driving and I’ve never needed anything more than what I have. Plus I have an SR5 so no lockers or anything. I feel like a lot of people get caught up in the “I need huge tires” thing because they look good (which I agree with) but I think if you have the appropriate tire for what you do, that goes farther than size.

I also really love the size of these trucks. I used to have a Ram and I’ve taken this truck on trails the Ram could have never squeezed through.

 

Absolutely. Without a doubt bigger tires are more capable than smaller tires, but the amount of money required to run the bigger tires functionally without breaking things is exponential from my experience. Not to mention the compromise in fuel economy and acceleration/braking, and on-road performance loss. Once I can get to a point where this is a weekend only vehicle, maybe I can justify going to 35's. haha. Not a minute sooner though.

 

Welcome dude! My best recommendation is to understand the prado platform. Based on your experience and what you been saying you seem to be in the correct path.
Check Kai’s channel https://youtu.be/_68Hc8GtLko super well explained. I got a channel as well with some low budget ideas and diy guides. Cheers!

 

Thanks man, I'll check out the vid. Looking forward to learning more about the tacoma and build something to be proud of.

 

I couldn’t have said it better myself. I’m sure you’ll do an awesome build since you clearly know what you’re doing already.

I would love to put mine on 35’s because I love the looks, but I just don’t have the money to do that on a daily driver like you said.

 

Those 35" KM3's are BEASTS man. I like those. I was looking at some KM3's but for my driving I'm with Road_Warrior and stuck with some 265/75/16's.
Giving the Yoko Geo X-AT's a whirl.

 

Yeah that makes a lot of sense. I’m curious how you like those tires. I’ll probably go with K02’s or K03’s on this truck for now, but am curious what other tires are working well for people.

so far I’ve tried these tires on my past vehicles
- Nitto Trail Grapplers
- Nitto Ridge Grapplers
- Goodyear Wrangler Duratracs
- BFG KM3

 

I’ve been really, really happy with my General Grabber ATXs. I only have one complaint and that is that they have gotten pretty loud over time. I think that will happen with all hybrid tires though.

I’ve driven all over the country with them (and to Canada) in all kinds of conditions. It’s the only hybrid tire I can find with the 3PMS rating and a good treadwear warranty. It’s the perfect tire for driving several hours to a trail and then doing a legit trail ride, then riding several hours on the highway back.

I rarely see anyone else running them and I’m not really sure why, maybe they aren’t “cool” lol

 

That's good to hear that they're working well for you. I have heard good things about the Falcon Wildpeak AT3W tires too, which are also some good hybrid tires that have the 3PMS rating. Believe it or not, out of all the tires I've had on my vehicles, the 35" BFG KM3's were the quietest and somehow didn't affect my fuel economy compared to the 33" Wrangler Duratracs they replaced. Honestly I'm sort of talking myself into getting those for this truck instead of the K02's.

 

I actually just read yesterday that *allegedly* the AT4W will be coming out soon. I didn’t realize they’re a hybrid tire, I thought they were an all-terrain. That’s good to know!

That’s wild about the KM3’s though. I had Yoko g003’s for a little bit and they were really quiet for a mud terrain as well but they still had the howl. Although at this point, in the 30-40mph range my Grabbers are just as loud as those mud terrains were.

 

So I did some reading on the interwebs last night and confirmed that the Wildpeak AT3W is an all terrain tire not a hybrid. A few well known tire reviewers actually said the tread pattern favors on-road characteristics more than off-road.

I’m only saying that in case you were looking at a set for this truck, don’t want you to be disappointed or wind up with something different than what you expected. Just trying to be helpful not start an argument lol