Mexico or US Built Model Trends?

2008 Dbl. cab TRD offroad - U.S.A.

 

Does any one know where to get the steering wheel air bag side plate without the radio control factory radio went legs up

 

2010 Double Cab trd sport. Built in Cali.

 

Mine's a 98 base model Extra cab. The vin starts with a 4 and the door label doesn't say where it was assembled. What does that mean?

 

09 DC 4x4 TRD- Hecho en Mexico

 

'09 Double Cab 4X4 Auto TRD Off-Road Mexico

 

06 prerunner single cab 4 cyl. built in US

 

'10 Built in the good ol USA

 

'10 sr5 reg cab, built USA

 

Mine was built at Nuumi in Fremont, Ca. I see a TON come over on car carriers every weekday here in San Diego though, they take them to the loading piers here, so I assume that they go where needed to fill lots no matter where that is. I should start taking more pictures. It seems they load and move out about 6am every day and I end up behind them.

 

'10 DC TRD Off Road with all the bells and whistles.....................................Mexico

 

'10 DC TRD OR ... Born in the USA!

 

My 2010 TRD Sport was built in the US, my 1st number in my VIN is (5)

 

I used to work for Toyota in college 2003-2005 as an engineer and was fortunate enough to spend a week in the Toyota Mexico plant (called Toyota Motor Manufacturing de Baja California or TMMBC). My main work was for Toyota Motor Manufacturing North America, the manufacturing HQ just outside Cincinnati, OH, also working in the (at the time under construction) Tundra plant in San Antonio, TX.

They used to manufacture all of the Tacoma DC's to my recollection. Clearly, that's not the case anymore but they only make DC's in Mexico, no regular or AC's, those are all made at NUMMI. It's probably a matter of the popularity of the DC's these days and not being able to meet the demand. They do however manufacture all of the truck beds at TMMBC.

rutherk1 has it exactly right, in fact, there are some pretty interesting things done by hand that you would NEVER see happen in the US/Japan. For example, the truck frame is initially upside down for assembling things like the suspension, wiring, and fuel lines. They have to flip it to put on the cab and bed and that flipping is done by two big straps, like recovery straps, that are hooked to pulleys up on the roof of the factory that are then rolled by hand. It's pretty dangerous looking but I was assured at the time, about a year into production, they had no "incidents" yet.

Also, for part sourcing, all parts are still sourced in the combination of the US and Japan, few to none in Mexico. Basically, Toyota ships Tacoma Lego sets to TMMBC and they ship out the finished product.

This again is exactly correct and just about the only reason Toyota is building trucks in Mexico. It was quite a headache to get a plant built in Mexico not to mention managing it from the US and supplying parts and shipping final products over an international border.

Final cool fact, because TMMBC falls under the North American (read: US) division of Toyota, all large capital projects, like major model changes, are managed from the Cincinnati office. But, Toyota doesn't want it's American and Japanese employees living in Tijuana because of the crime. Instead, all the Japanese and America engineers that work at TMMBC live in San Diego, CA and drive over or take one of Toyota's shuttle buses over the border. The neat thing is, this helps avoid the border check issues when driving from Mexico to the US. The bus drops everyone off, they walk across the checkpoint (which is WAY quicker than driving), and meet another bus on the US side.

Anyway, I loved working for Toyota and had a great time meeting some of the employees at TMMBC in my one short week. I even got to practice some español.

 

2007 DC TRD Off Road 4x4 - USA

 

U.S.A. - TRD OR purchased in NC.

 

2009 DC 4x4 TRD Sport. All options except JBL. Made in Mexico.

 

2008 DC 4x4 TRD OR made in Mexico

I will be sure the next one I buy comes from the San Antonio plant.

 

2010 TRD Sport........ Born in the USA

Canadian Max