Impressed with the 4th Gen

Is yours a manual trans?

 

Two biggest losses are the larger fuel tank and no hand brake. Actually, no hand brake is my only gripe so far with the truck

 

yeah, I like an old school plain jane cable actuated emergency brake. If every other gizmo goes haywire, I can mechanically apply the rear brakes.

Sure, that’s an outlier scenario. I’ve just been around long enuf to see weird sht happen.

Like the day my wife called me while on the freeway and her gas pedal wouldn’t come back up. As she was approaching a frequently congested section. Talk about a sphincter tightening phone call.

This was long enuf ago she had keyed ignition and I walked her thru shutting off the motor without locking the steering wheel, and that she’d loose the boost on the steering and brakes. Got her safely stopped at the side of the road over the phone. Chrysler Sebring. Dual cable throttle actuation and one cable broke / jammed, preventing the throttle from easing off. Fkg Chrysler.

But here we are.

Thankfully I’m in GA where we don’t have the road salt impacts of where I grew up. I’d be way more concerned with the electronic parking brake there than here where underbody fasteners don’t rust.

 

Yes, if I were trade up I'd get that one. That's what I originally wanted, but US only on the 3rd gens.

 

I know. That was my one wish for the DCLB. Is a manual trans. God. Don’t remind me of the small ass tank.

 

I'm not quite calling myself a previous hater of the 4th gen but I didn't understand the love of the 4th gen until I drove one.

I snagged a TRD OR allocation last week end should be in the new one next week.

I read a lot of concern about the reduced gas tank size and I do wish it was bigger but the range should be similar to the 3rd gen IMO (even with the non-hybrid). I have 2.5 years of gas logging the 3rd gen. It will be interesting to see the difference with the 4th gen.

 

My 2g PreRunner low fuel light would usually come on at 360mi. Only 2600mi on the 4g so maybe not fully broken in, but I got the low fuel light yesterday at 350mi. Smaller fuel tank, 4wd vs 2wd, 33" vs 31" tires, way more power options. A bigger tank would have been nice, but for comparable trims range should be the same or better.

 

Is the 350 miles freeway miles? At what speed?

 

I was bummed the extra cab is not available in any fun trims.

Although hard to find, I’m grateful Toyota offers the sr5 extra cab with 6 foot bed in 4wd. Other manufacturers don’t.

 

So far I've got over 1,000 miles on mine and I haven't even got out of eco mode and haven't even gave it full throttle. Most I've done is 3/4 throttle and definitely plenty of power .

 

All city.

 

The 4th gen is Atkinson cycle too. The design is popular across several engines now.

I've got my doubts.

Even as a mostly manual transmissions owner for 5 decades, I happily chose the automatic and long bed combo after doing a whole lot of testing. The narrow splits between gears make it much better for work/payload stuff.

 

Prerunner is as fun as the Xtracab gets I'd get a Prerunner if one was available near by. I like the looks of the SR the best I only want the 278 vs the 228 hp and foglights. I'd take the foglights over the $1400 SR upgrade package.

 

It's an automatic. I just looked at the manual for mine and it shows differences between manual and automatics, too. Just never looked at that part of the manual and never even got to look at a manual Taco since my wife shot the idea down immediately.

I presume it's because the hole in the console is bigger to make room for the manual shift lever to waggle around and there wasn't any room left for the buttons. Just seems odd that they'd make even another, different panel for the space behind the shifter when they could have done the same panel for both AT's and MT's and put the buttons down there. They've got four different panels rather than only two.

 

Love mine. Only dislikes the tilt steering or lack of adjustability, no rain sense wipers and no alarm on the side monitor system only light up.

 

Not a 4th Gen hater by any means....
Here is my opinion:

Had a 2nd gen for 180K miles. Never an issue. Currently on a 3rd gen 60k. Plenty of mods. My old man had a 1st gen, no issues. Plenty of tacos around here.

Drove new 4th Gen Sr5 Sunday and Monday for 6hrs VA to PA and back, total of 600 miles. Mix of hwy and back roads.

Thoughts: impressive get up and go. This truck moves. It goes, I felt like I was speeding all the way. Good on mpg, I got 22 to 23mpg.
It was comfortable, I think the ride wasn't as bumpy so ok there on the frame and stock suspension.

The bad: interior feels cheap. The infotainment just looks cheap as hell, like a Kia feeling. The plastic stuff...and the finish wasn't of my taste. The instrument cluster...uhm..not sure.

The ugly: the engine sound at times, with and without the ECT on, sometimes it feels like a stressed out engine. At high revs I wonder if it's going to run out of air or something, but I know the intake has that special sound etc, like a diesel truck at times. I couldn't take it.

Would it grow on me? Not sure. I am sure if I get on a trdpro...maybe i might feel different. Would I buy one? No. I have done way too many things on my 3rd gen (regear, supercharger, 33s, Fox2.5 with dsc, OTT, and some other mall crawler stuff.

But boy, when I got on that pedal on the 4th gen I was impressed. I can't deny that. Congrats to the new owners.

 

The only reason the 3rd gen owners shit on the 4th gen is because they don’t have one. It’s very simple.

 

I don't have a purse and I'm not shitting on any anyone else's hand bag. I don't have a 3G either.

 

I think you would have a better impression of the 2025 Off-road with the Premium package.

 

Squeezing the cost out Gen4’s interior is my biggest gripe, but I will say like a proper truck, it’s pretty easy to wipe down and clean.

The trade-off for some cheap plastic bits is sharing an overbuilt (and very expensive) truck platform with a $115k LX700h or global LC300. You can appreciate that when driving, or just crawl underneath and compare to a Gen2 or Gen3.