2013: Toyota Tacoma vs Nissan Frontier ?

And Tacoma is the only truck you can have with 4WD and a 4cylinder. That did it for me.

 

This thread makes me LOL

 

WTF are you guys stalking about that a Nissan costs close to a Toyota ??

We got a Nissan dealership right next door. if you want to buy a Titan ( 1 % of the half ton market in the USA ) They sell that gas guzzling POS for 6k under sticker.. maybe more if you have good credit.. and Frontiers... ??? ever seen a new one driving around ?? NO... because they dont sell any.

I sell Toyotas... I work next door to Nissan... and them dudes are starving. Tacoma had 67 % of the small truck market.. before Dakota and Ranger just gave up.

I work at Toyota... Nissan is next door... we sell 3x combined what those clowns sell. Cars too... Its really that simple

 

I understand.....but I still wanted to check out at least one other truck before deciding...even though I was pretty sure it was a Taco I was going with. The Dakota was never on my radar and I generally don't buy used. So that left really just the Frontier. And yes...even without a/c and radio...the 2wd, 4 cyl, 5-speed Frontier stickered for several hundred more than the Taco. The gap widened if you added a/c and radio, as that was another $995.

 

The only other great trucks out there are not comparable to a tacoma. Ford Raptor or a big diesel. And like I said, different class of truck

 

2013 Frontier base model short bed, 4 cyl, 2wd, 5 speed with no a/c, no radio, no bedliner, no mudguards- MSRP $20,105. With a/c and radio - MSRP $21,095.

My 2013 Taco base model, 4 cyl, 2wd, 5 speed with a/c, touch-screen HU, sliding rear glass, floormats, rear mudguards and standard composite bed - MSRP $18,605.

The Frontier did have a cargo light, though.

 

Just for clarifications sake, Nissan does not make a regular cab truck anymore. king cab and 4 door double cabs are the only cab configurations. So if you compare apples to apples which A/C delete is not an option on the Tacoma the price between the two models is comparable.

 

Yeah...I mentioned in my first post that one of the big reasons I did not like the Nissan was because you can not get it in a regular cab. I don't need or want an extended/double cab...so it would be wasted money. Still though...even with the regular cab configuration, the Taco's standard features make it a much better value vs. the extended cab Frontier. The little things that the Taco comes standard with are all extra on the Nissan....like a/c, radio, bedliner, mudguards.

If I spec up a Frontier (from Nissans site) as close as possible to my Taco it comes up to $21,581.

That breaks down this way:

Base price $19,260
A/C and radio $990
Mudguards $110
Front tow hooks $46
Bedliner $330
Destination charge $845

That's a nearly $3000 difference just for a foot or so of space behind me. And that doesn't include some features on my truck that you can't even get on a base Frontier...like sliding rear glass, telescopic steering wheel, touch screen HU. Then there's the more subjective things like...the Taco's better ride quality, higher quality interior and stouter feeling engine.

For me it was an easy choice.

 

I too looked long and hard at the Nissan (4x4 Off Road). I had not bought a new truck since '95. All the new features had me impressed, then we took it out for a test drive, went up some very steep dirt and it did great.

But I had reservations.

Did not see many on the street. Kept looking, even at the Ford product line, of which the twin turbo hauled and the Raptor. Since my last was a full sized GMC 3/4 4x4.

Decided to check out the Toyota dealership. The personal contact made all the difference. He spent two hours going over the 4x4 line up and based on my needs, it was down to the 4 Runner, Tundra, and Tacoma. The 4Runner lost me with it's change in body build, the Tundra was fine, but decided on the Tacoma and have never looked back, well maybe just a bit on the Tundra.

 

Wow, you have really drinking the Toyoda kool-aid.

Let me guess, you've never seen a Tundra sold for $6k under sticker?

How about this? in August a good family friend purchased a brand new Tundra CrewMax Platinum with navigation 4x4 for $40,995. Sticker was almost $49k.

Don't be a sheep and believe all the bullshit your managers feed you. They don't care about you, they only care how many cars you sell for them this month.

And what does credit score have to do with the amount you get off of MSRP?

 

X2

 

Just got something in the mail about a lawsuit against Nissan for the radiator/ transmission cross contamination. Said I may be eligible for reimbursement. Glad I traded it for the Tacoma so I don't have to worry about that issue anymore.

 

Pack of geeds

 

So here is my take and I have experience with all of these:

Ridgeline: Not a bad vehicle. Great ride, nice features, essentially a highlander with a truck bed or a smaller (but done very well) Chevy Avalanche. Great on the creature comforts but at the expense of off road ability and the "truck feel". Most people think both of those shortcomings are actually good things. My score A- because it's ugly as hell, but overall a great vehicle.

Frontier: I have had 2 friends that owned them and both like them a lot. They also both would have preferred to have the equivalent version on the Tacoma but here in CA anyway the Toyota was 5k and 6k more respectively for their vehicles. This may be different in other areas, but the Taco was more and they both shopped around and couldn't justify the added expense and went with the Nissan. Although they both were happy, they both will admit they liked and still like the Taco better, just not 5-6k better. Fair 'nough.. pretty darn good trucks.

Frontier(ish) personal experience: I owned a 2003 Xterra for 5 years. This is so close to the frontier, it's not worth even mentioning that they aren't the same.

I got the v6 base model 2wd for the wife that she wanted and it was a good vehicle. You want to talk about missing features? Man this thing had NOTHING. Granted it was a base, but all manual seats, windows, doors locks, no cruise control, etc etc.. It never had ANY drivetrain problems and was so basic I feel like it would have lasted many more years had it not had 4 major air conditioning failures at AMAZINGLY bad times. The first was when my wife was 6 months pregnant.. in june.. with our 1 year old in the back seat. Yeh.. she wasn't having it. We bought her a new car and I took over the X until we could repair the AC. I ended up liking it because it suited my lifestyle way better than the '06 civic I had at the time for my backpacking, scuba, golf, biking lifestyle so it became my daily driver. The other AC failures were while I was driving to Lake Powell with my family who flew into Vegas to drive out for a houseboating trip and it was 110 degrees outside, the other two were, well you can guess really really hot times.

Long story longer: Nice vehicle and maybe I had a lemon air conditioner.

Tacoma: Best lil' truck ever. I currently know 5 guys with Tacos.. All love it and have owned them between 3-9 years and don't have a bad word to say. Great trucks and they are exactly what we wanted.

Consumer reports has their high points, but for the most part their opinions are just that.. like the rest of us. They also hate on a lot of other great vehicles like the FJ, and for a long time scion.. Big Props to Toyota for offering the super mundane like corolla and Camry, to the super nice Avalon with 40/40mpg in complete luxury, to the hybrids which are the best hybrids on the market, to two great trucks, a bunch of nice SUV's and lets not forget scion and lexus!!!

To each their own at the end of the day..

 

Tacoma is better by far Nissan took a year off of production for the frontier and not going to lie the new sentra would be my choice over the corolla

 

I love how ignorant the majority of these other replies are. Here is the real answer to your question why the Frontier has been rated better than the Tacoma:

The Frontier even though rated similarly in towing capacities (even less than Tacoma in most models) is actually much more confident in towing and infinitely better at braking when under load. There are multiple real world application towing reviews to back this up.

The Frontier's engine is much more composed and refined than the Tacoma's. I mean seriously, do a quick search and you will see that some model of the current VQ engine in the Frontier has been on the top 10 engine list for the last decade.

Believe it or not the past few years the Frontier has climbed to surpassing the Tacoma in number of repairs and cost of repairs (insert ignorant biased Taco fan responses here).

The Frontier's frame is much stronger (although much heavier) than the Tacoma's. The frame is the same grade of materials used in the full size Titan just shortened. And the steel bed will last much longer than the crap Toyota decided to use for a truck bed.

The Frontier is EASILY 5k cheaper on most models since their truck sales just don't compare. Which if you do some math (I know, this is asking a lot) COMPLETELY negates any defense about better resale value on the Tacoma. There is actually a reason behind this though, Nissan as a whole chose to use their limited available cash to promote car sales and did very little advertising for the Frontier and is obviously a much smaller company.

The Frontier has better crash test ratings, and is virtually the only truck to actually score well in roll over/roof strength testing (I know some Toyota fan's minds just exploded finding out that the Toyota isn't always the safest vehicle).

The Tacoma accelerates quicker unless you actually tow with it, under load the Frontier has better acceleration. The Tacoma has much more refined interior, better sound system, a telescoping wheel (this is very handy for all the 4' tall Toy fans that have a 6" inch lift on their truck and need a ladder to get in) and more comfortable seats. The Tacoma also uses much nicer materials for the interior, whereas the Frontier uses a lot, A LOT, of hard plastics. The Toyota gets better gas mileage.

So at the end of the day the Toyota is definitely better in a lot of ways, I'm not going to argue that. However, the Frontier is better at being a truck and is more reliable so why shouldn't it win in a TRUCK comparison? And yes I do own a Frontier and yes I debated for over 9 months between the Tacoma and the Frontier. For me I wanted a truck that will still be running in 30 years and I truly don't believe the newer Tacomas are going to withstand the test of time, they are riding on a legacy built on the Tacomas of the past while taking more and more shortcuts in build quality and material usage.

 

the dummies doing the review don't know what a truck is.the less of a truck it is the better they like it.i buy a truck to work it,not just drive around.a ridgeline would be like most of my apprentices,done by the end of the first week.

 

I was looking at frontiers too before I bought my Taco. I could have bought a lightly used pro-4x for about two grand less than I paid for my base 4x4 dcsb

Throw all the technical shit out, and purely on aesthetics... tacomas look good, and the interior of the frontier is like a casio watch, yes it gets the job done, but no one is proud of it.

 

So sayeth the duke, so sayeth we all.

 

JD Power does not even have the Tacoma rated in the top three in reliability over the past three years. 2010 was the last year for the top three in reliability,
Frontier is not in the top three either. However they do rate the 2012 Frontier as the best in initial quality. Ranger seems to top the category until it's demise. I think Toyota is living a little on past reputation lately.

The Rav 4 took first in it's category.



http://www.usatoday.com/story/money...o-study-dependable-gm-toyota-lincoln/1914527/
http://autos.jdpower.com/content/press-release/bTiXte5/2013-u-s-vehicle-dependability-study.htm