Toyota Tacoma rocks

Hi,
Thank you for welcoming to Tacoma World.
I’d been a Chevy woman all my life and this year decided to go Toyota. I began this adventure by buying a used 2020 Tacoma double cab TRD Sport to see how it goes. I just bought it this past Friday the 8th of April/2023.
I love how smooth it rides and generally I’m falling in love with it.
However what I believed to be chrome on the rear bumper (which I intended to cover) turned out to be cheap, poor quality silver plastic covers that within 3-4 days have already cracked. I want a tough off road truck as I live in the Adirondacks. I’m quite disappointed on the cheap silver plastic bumper covers. I want to upgrade my taco. But want to address the bumper issue first. I joined the group looking for ideas on the bumper and in order to look for cool upgrades. At least till I’m ready to buy a brand new one. Hope you guys have some good suggestions. Glad to be part of the group. Marianiki

 

Welcome to the TW

 

Thank you. Glad to be part of TW!

 

@‘jwctaco
Any suggestions concerning the ugly silver plastic covers? Take it up with the dealer or hire independently to have it checked? It’s really cheap plastic, almost like what plastic spoons are made of.

 

Use the search function, I think there is a thread covering the topic. 3rd generation bumper caps-covers.

 

Plastic is fine….get body color painted ones off eBay or get the Ecoological body color shells. Really not a big deal.

 

Welcome to TW! You could remove the plastic covers and have the bumper powder coated or sprayed with bed liner.

 

Thanks, BLtheP. It’s not just that it’s plastic, it’s a plastic like the one used for metallic look plastic cutlery used for children’s parties. I’m going to check on 3rd generation bumper car covers suggested by jwctaco. I’ll look into buckhuntin-tacoma’s suggestion too.

 

Good suggestion. If you don't want to replace the bumper this is probably your best bet if you want it easy.
You could swap oem parts from another trim as well.
https://runnin4tacos.com/collection...lz-rear-bumper-covers-toyota-tacoma-2016-2021

You should just replace the whole thing though.
Welcome to TW.

 

The covers are easy to pull off, just look at YouTube, as there are several vids out there showing how they come off, as they are just a shell.
While fairly thick they can and do get scratched up, but easy enough to pull off and replace if needed.

Personally, I'm going to install an armored bumper, as companies like RCI make steel 1 piece aftermarket ones that replace the entire structure, including the metal framework that the bumper covers attach to. They aren't cheap, but IMHO, that's about the best way to go if you want a more durable rear bumper.

 

You could use plastidip on them in the meantime. Cheap, effective and looks decent when done properly. Should hold you over for the meantime until you decide to upgrade the bumper altogether.

 

Good suggestions from ahomeofbones, JoeT4R, and Out2gtcha. I’m sure I’ll wind up replacing the rear bumper. I bought the taco on Friday. I was not crazy about the chrome on the rear bumper and was considering covering it, thinking it was actual chrome. Then I realized they are just poor quality covers. I found out after someone tapped the passenger side cover either with a car or shopping cart and put an ugly crack on it I was inside the store when it happened, so don’t know for sure how that went. Just know the crack wasn’t there before I went in. The cover was installed by the dealer and it’s really thin, cheesy shiny silver plastic. I want an all black bumper. NO silver. I appreciate and welcome all suggestions. You are a great bunch of Tacofiles. TY.

 

There are a number of options you can get, especially if you want black over color match. You can just buy some black caps and swap them right on pretty easy. You could also just buy a replacement chrome cap easily and then buy shells like I mentioned, or really whatever you want to do.

Either way, they’re all plastic so the cracking is gonna happen if someone hits it right. That sucks that happened but you have a number of cap options to get fixed back to good, however you prefer to go about it.

 

Welcome to TW! I think that you’ll find that there will be quite a few options out there for the bumper and that actually goes for most things on the Tacomas. Have fun, they’re great trucks!!

 

Plastidip fixes everything!

 

That was very helpful. Much Appreciated.