About to buy my first Tacoma, I4 or V6?

LOL, falling out of my chair laughing

 

He's probably worried about the loss of 2 mpg lol

 

I will chime in, as I own and drive daily one of the rarest 2nd gen Tacoma configurations available. (I have seriously never seen another on the road) But anyway, I drive a 2014, DC, 2.7, PreRunner and I LOVE IT!

This truck is my daily driver, family hauler (Wife and two small kids) and I use the heck out of it during the week for work (Carrying some 300-500 lbs in the box daily).

I will re echo the sentiments that the truck is pretty slow, but only by todays standards. IMO, it's quicker than a 2wd, 2011 Ford Ranger SuperCab I had briefly, and it's quicker than a 2010 Honda Insight my wife had briefly when she commuted over 100 miles daily a few years ago.

I also used to own back in the day, both a '92 Toyota with 22RE, and 5-speed (115hp IIRC??) and later a '95 Toyota with the 150hp 3.0 V6 and dare I say this '14, DC, PreRunner (Automatic and all) is quicker than both of those trucks, but is slower than most average vehicles made today.

That said, with 400-500lbs in the box I can safely climb a 6% grade near my home daily, and maintain the speed limit or better, if I really want to the truck will hit 80 mph up that same grade. My old 22RE truck would not do 70 mph up the same grade as an example.

As far as MPG's, I feel qualified to make an appropriate comparison here, as up until two weeks ago, I owned two DC, PreRunner's, one V6, one 2.7. Using both the same, with the same weight. The 2.7 gets about 1.0 mpg better. Empty the spread is much larger, I drove my 2.7 around for a week empty (Taking it easy) and my avg was 22 City/ Hwy mixed. Took my DC, 2.7 on a 200 mile round trip a month ago with family on board and got 25, which was pretty impressive. My V6, DC is pretty much maxed out at 21 mpg's hwy.

But let me say, the V6 was a lot more powerful and easier to negotiate traffic with. I got to plan ahead if I want to pass someone or get ahead on a merge with the 2.7 truck. That said, I don't regret getting my DC, PreRunner one bit. I have young kids, and I could not get our car seats to work properly, or fit what I considered safely in an Access cab, and a V6 Tacoma was some $4-$5K more outside of my budget.

Here's my truck.

 

I purchased a Curt hitch for mine, as like yours mine didn't come with a hitch. Got mine new off Ebay for $125 shipped to my door, new OEM was over $500, and required a more involved install. Had my Curt on the truck under a 1/2 hour (taking a beer break in between)

Count me in the camp that agrees, 4WD is soooooo overrated, if you don't need it. My wifes daily driver is a '13 Subaru Outback, we take that skiing, or to our family cabin when it snows (So having two 4x4 vehicles is pointless for my household) At 36, married with kids, my days of taking my daily driver out to the woods to wheel and beat on are long gone. In my twenties I had a 4x4 Ram, 2500 Diesel, a '94 Grand Cherokee Laredo, just recently sold a 2013 Ford F-150, FX4 I never took wheeling.

I also have to ignore all the posts that constantly show up on this board about how 4x4 Tacoma's hold their value sooooo much better than 2wd. I've probably owned more Tacoma's/ Toyota trucks (Buy them for my business) than anyone on this board, and can tell you Toyota trucks bring ridiculous re-sale value regardless of 2wd/ 4wd. An old guy on my street for goodness sake, just sold a pretty mint condition 2000, 5-lug, 2.4l, X-Cab for $11K. Told me he paid $12K new in '99 for it WTF?? truly was mint though, 60K miles, Automatic, looked like the box was never used to haul anything.

 

My last 4x4 was a GM product and between fluid changes and repairs, was a waste of money and not what I consider cheap. My fiance's GM 4x4 with electronic TC controls isn't any better either.

My opinion is solely my own! But I have 18k miles on my 1 year anniversary with my Tacoma and all of them with the "slow" and "crappy" I4/auto DCSB Prerunner. No experience with 4x4 Tacoma durability, just based on my experiences with past 4x4s. In any event, if you don't need 4x4 any money spent in maintaining the additional equipment is money down the drain. My throwaway income is better spent elsewhere. YMMV.

 

Reading the OPs initial post again i really do think he could get away with the 4cy Double Cab PreRunner. Its not my choice. But yall make some great points on both sides. He says he lives in So Cal and just needs to get from point A to B. Occasional trips to the mountains and such. Earlier i wrote that I would get the V6 4x4 and i still think its the best combo. But really being in SoCal where the weather is perfect and roads are flat i think the 4cy would be okay for his needs. But its your call OP. Im a Kansas driver. And I'll admit that i cant drive a 2wd truck in the snow.

 

2mpg isn't a common difference. Tons of threads here with people getting 15-17mpg average with V6 4x4 with day to day driving. I get 21-23 every fill up. I can drive to the Sierras, burn gas up driving around town and nearly get 30mpg on that tank. Not an easily attainable number with the V6 4x4. Your sarcasm over "2mpg lol" would seem that you don't care about what the OP is asking and what some have legitimately answered.

Per your addition to the thread, which isn't accurate, the difference of 2mpg is at least equal to over $400 in extra fuel cost annually with my own mileage and fill up frequency. Maybe it's badass to look at $400 like it's nothing serious, but that isn't me and likely isn't the OP either. Thanks anyway.

Your lifted V6 AC 4x4 doesn't lend much to the mpgs of stock I4 DC 4x2s..

 

Build a Tacoma feature only allows builds that exist currently on dealer inventories according to your zip code area, per Toyota Customer Care. It will limit your options of the configuration and won't allow a build that isn't sitting on a local lot.


That's what I was told, anyway.

 

I have 4's in an '84 ... '94 ... '06 ... '10 ... they all served me well ... I never second guessed myself ... never any remorse ... not a moment of trouble ... ran strong ... bullet proof ... but ... just got a '14 with a 6 and am never looking back.

 

Different strokes, enjoy it JB! Good input from an owner of both.

Another example why you buy what you want and balance that with what you want to pay. If you want a big engine 4x4, get one. But OP as he presents is suited fine with the cheaper configuration he was asking about. Coming from an owner of that truck, not as an owner of a completely different truck looking for internet bro-fives or having the need to feel like I have to "have what they're having" to justify why I have the same truck as everyone else on TW.

 

Interesting enough, here's the 2 sides of TW. Easy to see which side of the aisle people fall.
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I have a single cab 4X I4 a/t. I love the truck, but it's a dog off the line. If Toy had a V6 single cab, I would have bought it. Don't get an auto DC with the I4. Mine shifts down two gears on freeway hills. Very annoying.

 

With mods, and maybe a heavy foot?

My stock DCSB Prerunner hasn't had to downshift 2 gears on any grade unless I wanted to go 20mph faster than the car I was passing on a steep highway.

 

Gotcha. Sounded like you believed it was a regional configuration "but only in some areas" and not a configuration based on inventory in the area. Just wanted to clarify.

 

Go V6.

On this vehicle the engine is not something you want to skip on.

 

I'd recommend the towing package too, even if you're never going to tow. The added transmission cooler makes the whole thing more resilient to extreme situations and the upgraded alternator is pretty nice.

 

I would strongly recommend 4wd. Once you get to the ski resort after a big snow storm you'll be kicking yourself for getting a 2wd. I'd also recommend the V6. The 2wd in that configuration doesn't get better mpg with the I4. A few folks here have regretted getting the I4.

 

Possibly, would be interesting to know. I know there are less than 800 2013 Tacoma's in my configuration in the entire state of CA.

 

Some good perspectives on this thread from folks who actually own that 4cyl dbl cab pre-runner configuration.

 

Me? That wouldn't suit my needs at all. I bought the cheapest 4x4 truck I could for offroading so I wouldn't cringe when it picked up brush scratches and such.