4th Gen AT Test Drive - Impressed!

I wouldn’t worry a whole lot about the engine. Volkswagen has been doing turbo fours for a long time and aside from some growing pains with low tension piston rings, the engines are solid. It’s the rest of the car you have to worry about. I have utmost faith that Toyota builds a better engine than Volkswagen. There are quite a few high mileage 2JZ‘s out there.

 

Hmmm, yea mine still hunts (well, shifts in and out) for gears living in a hilly area with speed limits 35-55, but it is nowhere near as cumbersome as the 3rd gen auto I had. Actually traded that truck for a 3rd gen manual and hated that darn thing too after a while

 

I'm surprised you'll settle for an automatic because of, what, 5 less HP? Get the stick homie.

 

Wage growth in actual BLS statistics suggests otherwise. In real dollars compared to wages, they’re the same at a given set of features. But somehow you’re okay with having paid what you paid for your truck despite my first gen costing only $17k

what does “added turbo” even mean? It’s vastly more torque with a peak delivered 3300rpm sooner. It’s not even close. But sure, engines can’t be designed from the ground up for reliability under modest boost.

okay, but the only thing you know about poor reliability is an issue that was fixed last year. But boy are you clinging to it

people said this about small v6s with 11:1 compression like yours when we moved away from 8:1 compression 350 chevy motors. But you trust yours more than the BIG engine. Why?

sounds like this isn’t the truck for you. So don’t buy one. Literally nobody asked you to, but here you are in the 4g forum

 

Meh. Been driving long enough to know that after a while of stomping the clutch and shifting in traffic and around town, it gets old after a while. Manuals are fun in certain vehicles and for short drives. As much as I've driven manuals in my 50 years on this earth I would rether just push the gas and sit back and enjoy the ride. When I learned to drive all I had access to were manual transmission trucks. Had to drive my dads ford flatbed dump with a 5x2 transmission a ton. I am so glad to not have to do that through town anymore, LOL.

 

And yet your signature suggests this is exactly what you're doing - a new truck every ~10 years. Seems like a pretty low drama launch from a problem perspective, seems like plenty of us are buying despite the price, despite interest rates, despite "not making any more money than 5-10 years ago". By all means hold your truck if the new ones don't interest you, great, but claiming some moral high ground / anti-consumerism stance isn't backstopped by your own signature, and personally speaking my income is certainly not flat even accounting for inflation over the last 10 years. Quite happy with my 24 TRD OR and judging by the bulk of the actual owners here in the 4G subforum and elsewhere, most people echo that sentiment.

 

I have owned Tacoma since 1986...1986, 2006, 2017, 2021, 2022 and 2025...I have to say that the switch to 4th generation took some thought and a little guts since 2022 only had 15,000 miles. The driving experience is completely different. The new generation has a lighter feel and less road feel with the new suspension. The V6 although solid had its issues with teeth chattering downshift RPMS via the 6 speed tranny. The new truck feels light on its feet and not as truck like as before. Its quieter and much more comfortable. The rear seat fold down design did nothing to improve storage. In an attempt, and with success, they changed the the back wall of the storage area to more sound deadening material but with less functionality. I like the built in flares on my SR5 and the infotainment center is useable but way too complex with little improvement. Needless to say I didn't need to trade for this truck but my trade in value was acceptable and they dropped the sticker 6500 from 41,176 . 2025 double cab SR5 4x2 short bed with full sized spare and no add on except Toyotaguard platinum without sales tax ( I am exempt in GA) out the door with trade allowance of 31,000 was 5016....I know the game, they gave me less on trade but dropped the sticker....no matter it's the bottom line that's important.

 

my manual 4g feels slow as hell but i love it.

 

Noop. Look at the data.

Use this
https://www.ssa.gov/oact/cola/awiseries.html

And this
https://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl?cost1=44,000.00&year1=201301&year2=202505


You'll see your statement holds true for only the last year or two. But for at least a decade prior (I didn't go further) buying power of today's income is much higher than all those prior years.