discouraged by lack of build quality

Toyota trucks have never been perfect like people beleive. Problems they had in the early 80's still plague them today, weak rear springs, weak tail gate, noisy engines, rust etc. That said they have been consistently better than other manufactures trucks and still are. I feel they desperately need an update within the next few years though or they will fall behind some others. Looking at 2012's this afternoon I really felt no need at all to replace my high mileage 2006.

This all said, my 06 Tacoma has been very reliable (knock wood). It does have its small annoyances like a faintly ticking blower motor on the low setting only and some rattles in the access cab doors over really rough roads. What other truck could I have bought that with 200,000km would have only needed a few hundred dollars in replacement parts (idler pulleys mostly) and hardly any wear items have worn out yet.

 

This, really.

Like I said before, they're not perfect, but Toyota puts most of the effort and money where it matters - the drivetrain. Whatever gripes people have with ToMoCo trucks, they are never regarding reliability of the basic function of the vehicle - which is to say, remaining functional as transportation.