Is a 2nd gen safer than a 1st gen Tacoma?

I am buying it for my son (new driver) and was wondering if there was a difference in safety. I believe the 2nd is a little bigger. Thanks. Posted on both forums.

 

The second gen will have more safety features.

 

Absolutely.

 

2nd gen is a little bigger and has a few more safety features. That said, tacomas have always done a good job at letting people walk away from all the postings I have seen on here.

 

Personally I think the are very safe trucks, either way.
2nd gen will have a little more weight, more mass in the event of a crash (good), more saftey features, and possibly less prone to breakdowns due to age. But they will be more costly to buy, maintain, and fix.
1st gens are still great trucks, just simpley less technology and mass and may be less reliable due to age. But they are cheaper to buy, maintain, and fix.

Both are have great saftey ratings, I'd buy depending on the amount of cash you can spend. What fits in your budget better.

 

There's a lot more to safety than just mass. If this were the case, 50's Cadillac would be the pinnacle of safety.

Thin doors, Thin Pillars, no curtain air bags, traction control systems/ rollover prevention, better brakes etc etc all play into why the second gen would me much safer than a first gen.

 

2004 5 star safety rated is completely different from 2013 5 star safety rated.

 

True, there’s no doubt that the 2nd gens are safer. The 1st gens are by no means dangerous to drive though.

 

Newer is always better, the 1st gens also adopted traction control later in life, where as the 2nd gens all have standard traction control.

The 1st gens never got curtain airbags either. 2nd gens have them on all double cabs. 2nd gens also have pre-tensioning seat belts.

I think a 1st gen is still a good choice, but tires and mechanical have to be 100%. No airbag can protect like a good set of tires.

 

When was this? Was this the goal of the 2.7L Engine?

 

Size has very little to do with safety. A new Smart car is safer than an old Tacoma. The newer tacomas have more airbags, better traction control, better crumple zones, etc... which make them safer.

 

2nd gen for sure, I'm always hammered when I drive my 1st gen it's really dangerous.

 

I have to call you on this one. Size (mass) wins.

 

That's kinda true, as far as how much the smaller car get wrinkled, but I'm talking about passenger survival, as I'm sure most people are when talking "safety".

A huge chunck of pig iron (suburban) might come out of a wreck with fewer dents, but that passenger feels a lot more of the impact because it's not dissipated by crumpling the car.

It's the difference between wearing a helmet made of carbon fiber and foam vs one made of concrete. What do you want your head inside?

 

NHSA ratings vary from year to year on the Tacoma, not just generation specific. 2003 looks like the first year of Taco to be tested, but they didn't test rollover rating until 2004.

A 2006 has 5-star front and side rating, 4-star rollover rating. A 2004 has 4-star front, and 5-star side, rollover is 3-star for 4x4 and 4-star for 4x2 (weird right?!)

Here is the 06:



Here is the 03:



Obviously 4-door is better than 2-door in a crash. As time went on, NHSA started doing more complicated tests so for 2012 Tacoma you would see front-driver and front-passenger get different ratings and side-impact looks at the difference between front and rear seat safety. The more complicated the testing got, the worse the Tacoma's ratings got for the second gen.. keep in mind that one test will give different results for similar vehicles and not actually tell you how "safe" it is because every crash is different.

Oh, and 3rd gen is the best haha:

 

Somewhere I'm sure...









Pictures courtesy of @m3bassman

 

It's all about that tip lyfe...

 

Source: National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) passenger survival statistics. When a passenger car crashes with a LTV (truck, SUV, VAN) people in a passenger car die 3 to 4 times more often.

 

First gens don’t have dual front air bags till 99 I believe. I think they all have driver. I dont know about 2nd gen.

 

I'd like to submit the below link as exhibit A, if it pleases the court:

https://www.edmunds.com/car-safety/are-smaller-cars-as-safe-as-large-cars.html

At least in part, it says basically what I said, where a large old car (a "tank") is not necessarily safer than a new smaller car because of all the modern safety features. Size isn't the only thing that determines how "safe" a vehicle is.

I wasn't meaning to say that all small cars are safer than all big cars. Obviously, at least in a head-on collision, we know who would win between a modern Suburban and a modern Smart Car (assuming they both have 5 star ratings).

If I had to choose between being in an old big car, vs a new smaller car, I'd take the smaller new car if my only concern were safety. That said, I still drive an old Tacoma, lol...