2024 Tacoma Review

The corrosion mechanism near the cat is as follows:
1. Cab mount bottom has big opening.
2. Inside the cab mount, on the outboard wall of the frame rail, there's a big lightening hole.
These two design features allow road spray kicked up by the front tires to go directly into the frame rail.

3rd gen already fixed item #2 and has cavity wax sprayed inside the frame rails. 4th gen does all that and additionally fixed item #1.

 

Nice to hear my 3rd gen has some frame rail rust prevention vs the gen 2. Fortunaly I no longer have to commute 60 miles per day in heavy salted rush hour traffic during the winter months.

The cat is right on the other side of those holes in the frame, which I feel accelerated the rust progress right there.

There were more rust issues in that gen 2 frame besides the one I posted. That was area with multiple holes. If I would have hit that area or others with a ball pean hammer as was done when my Gen 1 failed..the hammer would have pentrated the frame in many places.

Time will tell on the 4th gen, hopefully Toyota has rectified the rust issue in the frames and improved their tolerance to failure. The upper midwest with salt spray applications, especially on bridges, seems to ruin every vehicle that it can, with time.

 

4th gen frames may rust faster than 2018+ 3rd gen frames actually. Welds rust first because paint doesn't adhere well to the cladding. The 4th gen frame has a lot more welds.

 

Theres a couple places near the metro that do undercoatings. I haven't had anything done yet, but plan to this summer. While researching I was seeing ~$1200-1500 for truck coatings with lifetime touchups. My plan is doing that and just bringing the truck in each fall for a inspection and touch up.

 

Just a follow-up to my earlier posts in this thread comparing the specific power output (horsepower per liter) of various generations of Toyota engines, and speculating that doubling the specific power output does not seem likely to preserve or improve the long-term reliability of an engine --

While this vid is about the new Lexus GX550 3.5L bi-turbo'ed V6 engine, there's a ton of useful technical detail, questions, etc. on the general subject of Toyota's trend (along with all other manufacturers) to get much, much more power and torque out of much-smaller engines.

The jury is still out & will probably remain so for at least 5-10 years as these small, hot-running powerplants accumulate mileage.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1XdaccfMxn4

 

Just watched the review and it does look like they did a good job on it. I'm sure as accessories and mods come out over the next year or two it's going to be a fantastic ride. My 2017 still runs/ drives/looks great - and I'd consider the 4th Gen in a few years - but not sure I can stomach the price. SR5 4x2s are right around 40K out the door. SR5 4x4 DC are around $45K. A TRD Offroad with similar options from the Gen 3 are low to mid 50K. There will be people that can afford that - but unfortunately most will not. For that I could buy x2 (nice) used Gen 3s, drive one - keep a 'spare' in storage and be set for 20+ years....lol. Not gonna do that of course.

 

What did you pay for your 2017? I paid $36,000 for my 2016. With inflation, that's $47,800.

 

Out the door - Right at $33K (2017 TRD Sport 2WD). It was a pretty good deal! Yeah - inflation is the big killer here. If wages kept up with inflation - there's a great point there. I just think TRD OR/SPORT is significantly outpriced for a mid-trim level truck. Quickly looked at Q1 Sales stats it stated a nearly 60% decline in Tacoma Sales. Not because it's a bad truck - it's just too expensive to buy cash or to finance at the median income (~80K in USA) and people are likely holding on to their Gen 2 & 3 longer. IMHO YMMV

 

They weren't hitting the dealers since March. In Idaho/Montana, the dealers get them, and they're gone in two to three weeks.

 

There were early Feb deliveries. And there are regions outside yours where they are sitting, SET is one of them.

 

You're right. A few. Toyota has struggled to ramp up Tacoma production. Whether it's parts production or labor or whatever, they can't sell what they don't have. If dealers want to sit on inventory, quit jacking up prices. But it's not happening here.

 

The price of the new Tacoma may be a small contributor, though the big one is that they are still scaling up production, which takes a full year. So the comparison isn’t fair or accurate to say they are down 60%. If they had built as many as they did last year at this time, which they didn’t even come close, then it would fairer and we’d have a better picture into the price affect. Higher interest rates are affecting demand, too.