Helpful Information for 1st Gen Owners

AN IMPROVEMENT IN YOUR EBAY SHOPPING EXPERIENCE

Success! Sometimes diligence does pay off. It wasn't easy, but I was finally able to get eBay to fix the software problem I discovered in their vehicle fitment software. What problem? Let me call it the BASE/DELUXE product fitment problem.

Before the software error was fixed, I had made up two identical (with one exception) 2000 Tacomas in eBay MY GARAGE, one denoted BASE and the other denoted DELUXE. Then I checked an EXEDY KTY13 clutch kit (from RockAuto, so I knew it fit, regardless of Trim), and eBay would say that this clutch kit would fit my BASE Tacoma, but would NOT FIT my DELUXE Tacoma. Since the majority of 2000 4x2 Regular Cab Tacomas produced (but also all other 2000 Tacomas) were fitted with A/C, which only came as an OPTION, those Tacomas that had A/C were denoted by Toyota as being DELUXE, evidently because the addition of the A/C UPGRADE over the basic STANDARD truck needed a different name. Bottom line: owners of Tacomas who had the DELUXE version could be told that by eBay that a certain product WOULD NOT FIT, when it actually might have fit.

EBay's fitment decision on those trucks could not have been correct because nothing in the Trim Level (or OPTIONS) could have made whatever clutch fit one Trim Level not fit another. Remember: The clutch kit parts are all installed outboard the flywheel yet inside the bell housing, so it is hard to imagine an OPTION being assembled or installed into the vehicle that would effect any parts of the clutch residing inside the bell housing.

Further reasoning, I had found the EXEDY KTY13 clutch kit while looking for clutch replacement parts on RockAuto.com, and when I had input my vehicle identification information at RockAuto.com, the Trim Level (BASE/DELUXE) was never asked for. RockAuto would say, if they could be asked, that the EXEDY KTY13 clutch kit fits both the 2000 BASE and DELUXE Tacomas. They say that by implication. You enter your vehicle information as a sequence of selections, none of which has anything to do with the vehicle's TRIM.

For those who might have written off all website fitment software as being unable to deal with the sloppily defined (by Toyota) Trim Levels, and had fallen into a default mode when shopping for replacement parts, you should go check eBay using your own vehicle and see if a part that you know fits your truck, does fit, according to the eBay part fitment software, if nothing more than to gain some confidence in their fitment process. If the part that you know for certain fits your truck, doesn't fit, please let me know. I would be surprised to receive such a notification, but I am aware that one fix to a piece of software can sometimes have "side effects"! In this case, the fitment software ought to be rather simple and straight forward for eBay, and I don't expect to see them making their software worse. That software must be very simple, compared to, say, an iOS update.

I am not claiming that all problems with the eBay fitment software have been eliminated. But consider that failures in that software can cost eBay $$$$, as this particular problem was actually doing. No telling how many Exedy KTY13 clutch kits were not sold because of this (NO FIT) problem. I can say that 1st Gen owners (and possibly others) who entered their trim levels, as was required before this, now should not have to worry about getting incorrect fitment results.

I was not able to have a conversation with the software engineer who did the fix, so what was done, or why, was not available to me. eBay is like an impenetrable fortress when you want to solve a problem such as this.


GOOD INFORMATION ABOUT VIN DECODING

Want to know what the trim level of your Tacoma is, and be certain about it? Then, there is another useful finding that I came upon while studying that problem above that can help you get that information, as well as all information that was provided by Toyota about your vehicle to the US government National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) PRIOR to it's being assembled.

Every car or truck owner should be aware that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), the people who standardized the VIN for vehicle identification back in 1981, has an excellent VIN decoder they can use (and probably should) to get their vehicle's definitive information. After entering your VIN, you will be able to print out 9 pages of results.

There exist many VIN decoders already, so why use this one? The answer goes to the laws that directed NHTSA to develop and standardize the VIN to gain the ability to keep track of each and every vehicle that exists in the USA, as a UNIQUE entity. That's right, every VIN is UNIQUE! Their goal was to provide a VIN that would not allow any two vehicles driving within the US, throughout a 30 year period, to have the same VINs. As a result, every vehicle manufacturer has to submit their VIN information in a standardized form to NHTSA, with all of their VIN related information filled out BEFORE they begin to manufacture the vehicle onto which that VIN will be affixed.

The VIN tells you key information that defines your vehicle uniquely, such as:

Vehicle Descriptor: [VIN without the six characters used for the serial number]
Manufacturer:
Plant City:
Plant Country:
Plant State:
Plant Company Name:
Vehicle Type:
Model:
Model Year:
Make:
Body Class:
Series:
Trim:
Gross Vehicle Weight Rating:
Axles:
Axle Configuration:
Engine Model:
Engine Displacement:
Drive Type:
Cylinders:
Primary Fuel Type:
. . .

And on it goes for 9 pages! The majority of information slots are unfilled, blank, for use by other automobile manufacturers, or left blank because too much work would have been required to put it down to provide to the government. In fact, there could have been information that might have been helpful to the vehicle owner that was left out. But, it is what it is.

The important thing to know is that when you utilize the NHTSA decoder, you get ALL of the raw information that Toyota provided to the government, of course along with a super load of unfilled information slots. This was especially useful to me because TRIM was the parameter that I was talking about above, either BASE vs DELUXE, or a host of other trim levels that have developed over time. There it was, my TRIM was DELUXE. Check your vehicle out at.

https://vpic.nhtsa.dot.gov/decoder/