2022 Toyota Tacoma

I do not buy new vehicles, but seriously considering getting a new Tacoma, so I'm here to ask a few questions. I currently drive a RAM 1500 quad cab 4x4 with a 5.7 and it's a great truck, but it's a big truck. I've always driven pickups because of work and building a new house, I use the bed quite often. Lately I've been thinking a smaller truck would work now that the house is done and I only tow heavy stuff a few time a year. It's all about compromise since it is basically transportation 320 days/year vs towing and hauling one or two days every other week. The smaller truck that better gas mileage would be nice. 
 

I just looked and I can buy a "plain Jane" 4-door 4x4 Tacoma for $36-38k. I don't need anything fancy, trust me. As long as it goes down the road, has an FM radio, 4x4 and the windows roll down, it's fine by me. 
 

My question is Toyota reliability nowadays. I had an '89 pickup(22RE, 5-speed, 4x4) that was as reliable a vehicle as I've ever had and went 220k miles before the tin worm got to it. I had a 2005 Tundra(4.7, 4x4, double cag) that I sold with 274k and didn't have a spot of rust. I know how older Toyotas were, but are current offerings as reliable as the older ones? If I consider one, I would like it to last 10 years as my DD. Anyone have experience with recent Tacomas over the last few years? I want to know if reliability and build quality is still the same as it used to be.

In reply to lotusseven7 (Forum Supporter) :

I've not met a Tacoma owner who didn't love it. I've also seen the issues that creep up in them. In the small truck segment, I think they're as good or better than any other options. That said, if you're not stuck on new I'd seriously recommend finding a clean low mileage -2015 with the 4.0. The 3.5 just isn't a truck engine, and the autobox has some mpg wizardry in the computer that makes the thing feel really sluggish and unpleasant. We see all the issues because we're the only dealer in a long stretch, but with how many are being sold it's not anything I'd worry about, especially with factory warranty. 
 

*Edit. I'd also recommend thinking hard about a 4Runner instead. It doesn't have a bed, but the build quality is better and they still have the 4.0 and the transmission doesn't act mutinous. 

I have to say I really like the new Frontier, if I wasn't looking to get another sporty car sometime this year, I'd take our Mazda 3 and go get one. Little more power/torque and 9 speed vs the Tacoma. And I like the looks better, but that's just personal preference. 

I owned a 2012 for a few years (TRD Off road, 6MT).  Here is my list of complaints about the Tacoma.

The cab is vertically very short.  The seats are low like a sedan with your legs more in front of you which is fine but the roof is also low.  I felt like the top of the windshield was below my eyeline and traffic lights where annoying because you had to lean forward and down to look up at the lights (I'm 6' tall so not a giant).  Comming from a full size it's something to be aware of.

MT Reverse gear is very high (Fast) so you have to use 4 Low when backing a trailer or you will burn out your clutch.

The TRD rear suspension is not pleasant for road use.  It has wierd damping that makes the rear end unstable which made cornering at high speeds uncomfortable (Yes it's a truck but it was bad by truck standards and I drove 2 other ones at the dealer and they where both like that)

Otherwise it was reliable for 50K miles but only for ~17 Mpg.  I towed 6K lbs with it a few times and it was adequate.  It was fun to drive In that I'm driving a MT truck sort of way.  

I would probably look at a Gladiator or Ranger if I was buying another one today.  The new Tacoma didn't fix the things I didn't like about mine.  

The Tacoma of today is not the massive jump in quality and ergonomics of the Tacoma of 20-30 years ago. 

For starters, fuel efficiency has benefited bigger trucks far better than smaller trucks. Toyota seems to think it's just fine offsetting its terrible truck MPG with higher MPG from its cars. Even the new Tundra with a hybrid is only expected to get 18/23 mpg.  You would think a far smaller truck would easily be able to get 30mpg, but it hasn't happened yet (unless we're talking 2wd Ranger or Maverick).

The other is the size - I personally think the ergonomics of the Tacoma aren't great. It's like Toyota has kept the exterior dimensions the same while bloating up the interior. It feels pretty small in there, and thats coming from someone with a Honda Fit. 

Honestly if I was looking for a truck that would only occasionally go offroad, would only need a 5' bed, and only occasionally haul dirty loads, then I'd probably be looking at A) Maverick or Ridgeline or B) an SUV with a trailer.

It's hard to find a cheap Tacoma. Most online places (Carmax) are pushing $40,000 used plus tax for a 1-2 year version stick shift.  Dealers never have sticks   

Also I drive a Silverado - sitting on my couch.   The smaller trucks sit on thinner cushions - not a couch.   Make sure you check one out.  

Unless you want a mini truck for parking space or offroading, theres really no reason to buy a mini truck.  Modern full size do everything as good or better.  

I think you might be surprised at how not much better the Tacoma fuel mileage is. Or really pretty much anything bigger than the Maverick, especially if you want to keep 4wd (which is very reasonable). Looks like a decent amount better locally, but less than 10% better highway mileage. And the math on buying a new vehicle just to save money on gas almost never works or to begin with, let alone a situation with that small of a change in mileage.

You also might be surprised at how big the Tacoma is. Quick googling says it's only 3-16" shorter than your ram, depending on configuration.

My dad has had a current gen Taco now for the past...year? two years? Forget how long it's been exactly.

Anyway, he was similarly looking to downsize after a series of 2nd gen Tundras and overall seems quite happy with the decision. I think it's averaging about 22mpg in mixed driving (mostly two lane country roads) versus about 18 in the Tundras. Reliability has been flawless so far, although I think it's only got about 20k or so on it so that's to be expected. 

Regarding the size, that was actually the primary factor that drove the change from the Tundra, and frankly I have to agree with dad on this. The exterior footprint is so much more manageable in daily use and even the interior feels more "right size," whereas the Tundras felt like like wearing a size XXXXL shirt - they work, they just feel like they're built around someone much larger than him or me. That's the real selling point versus a half ton, IMO.

As nocones said, the seating position is a bit odd for a truck, more feet forward than feet beneath, but I actually prefer that as most pickups tend to bother my lower back after a few hours in the saddle. Having recently done several 2+ hour trips as a passenger, it's very comfortable overall actually. As far as headroom goes, at 6'3" that's been enough of an issue to really put me off of the prior two generations of Taco (as well as my mom's current gen 4Runner with a sunroof,) but the new ones don't seem to taper inwards nearly as much at the roof line which makes a HUGE difference, IMO. I think I could wear a helmet in one no problem now, but definitely not a ten gallon hat. 

The 3.5 definitely isn't as "trucky" as the old 4.0, and certainly has nothing on either the 5.7 or 4.7 from the Tundras, but it's fine. Financially, these things make zero sense to me as a used vehicle anyway, such is the resale value. You can either buy new for ~$37k, 2-3 years old  with 40k miles for ~$35-40k (huh??), 10 years old with 100k miles for $25k, or 20 years old with 200k+ and the frame rusted in half for $10k. 

I currently have a 2019 Tacoma, which replaced a 2005. Both are Double Cabs, V6 4x4. I've loved them both, but they are very different.

I did quite a bit of towing with the first one: Miatas, Porsches, Jeeps, Subarus and BMWs on an aluminum trailer. It was no Cummins, but I towed through the mountains of Vermont and New Hampshire, as well as through New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Connecticut.

The new engine is much nicer to live with as a daily driver. It's very car-like. But it sucks to tow with. I towed the Volvo home with it and it was awful. I was fearing for the life of my transmission, and it was only about a year old at that point. It's rated for 6500 pounds, and I was probably at less than 4000, but I wouldn't want to tow with it frequently.

The first truck was super reliable for almost 200,000 though, and they still gave me $12k for it, even after I had negotiated a very good deal on the new truck.

The old truck returned 17 mpg on almost every tankful (unless I was towing). New truck is only one or two mpg better.

The new truck is a much nicer every day vehicle.

Personally, I'm excited for mine to get here. Ordered a '22 TRD sport, dual cab short bed, V6, 6mt. The wait time is pretty long, so I hope you're not in a rush. I "ordered" (or whatever the reservation thing is called) mid November, no word on build date.  You'll also want to find a dealer who isn't doing a price adjustment.

I didn't want to spend that much on a truck,  but as furious said - used market is crazy. Being in CT, not only would I be paying 20k for a 10+ yr old truck with 100-150k, it comes pre-rusted!

Nothing else to add on size discussion as I'm coming from an '05 Dakota 4 door. Power wise, the V6 definitely doesn't have the same low end power which kind of stinks.

I don't understand why Toyota (of all companies) doesn't make a hybrid Tacoma. I think I would have bought one if it was available when I bought mine. That's certainly what I would want now. 
 

There is a new hybrid Tundra coming out now.  

So, I went and did a bunch of shopping around at local dealerships. I have several friends in the industry, so it was a chance to go say hi and catch up a bit. At a local Ford Dealership, I looked at a Ranger and it's a nice truck. When I mentioned I was looking at a Toyota, he mentioned that they have a used Tacoma on the other lot. We went to have a look and I was blown away. It's a 2016 access cab, 4-cyl short bed 4x4 with 46k miles. They have it priced at $35,990! You have got to be kidding me. I then went to the local Toyota dealership to discuss ordering a new truck. During the conversation I mentioned the Tacoma down the road and she looked it up on their website. She searched the VIN and found that the trucks original MSRP was $30,900. So a 6 year old Toyota with nearly 48,000 miles is worth or at least advertised for $5000 more than it was new. WTF is wrong with this world?!? Why wouldn't I or anyone go buy a new truck? Am I missing something here? I don't know that I am or even could be, but what is that dealership thinking putting that truck out there at that kind of number???? They must be smarter than I am, but I have a feeling that a new SR5 double cab 4x4 long bed is in my future. I'll drive it for 5 years, keep it cleaned, waxed and maintained and get back most of my purchase price. Sign me up.

I have a 2020 Tacoma that I use mostly to haul my race car(s).  I do not like trucks, did not want a truck, but *really* did not want to work on a truck.  Like you, I concluded the used market was insane and just bought a new one.  I got the TRD sport, access cab with the long bed and manual transmission.  It's rated to tow 6,000 pounds.  I was able to get a slight discount on it because it had 50 miles on it--sold to someone whose financing fell through.  I did not get the color I wanted, but settled because it had everything else.

Value-wise, the Tacoma is overpriced when compared with its competitors.  I expect Toyota-like reliability from it, but it's unclear that the other small trucks will be that bad.  But I like and trust Toyota, and crucially, the Tacoma is available with a manual transmission which was a must-have for me.  (I have rules. 11 cars, and not a single one of them has an automatic!)  So I signed up for a car payment on the most expensive vehicle I've ever purchased and I don't like trucks.

I've got 14,000 miles on it now (5,000 of which were from driving from Colorado to New Hampshire to pick up an E30 rally car a couple months ago).  The rest of it is towing my Formula Vee around.  It's been flawless reliability-wise (but with 14k miles over 2 years, it better be). 

As someone else mentioned, reverse is way too high for towing.  Actually, it's too high for not-towing, but it's terrible for towing.  While you can put it in 4 low to back a trailer on dirt, doing so is murder on the diffs on pavement.  Fortunately, this is available:

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/group-buy-2lm-pnp-plug-and-play-2wd-low-range-for-the-3rd-gen-tacoma.614743/

I've installed it, and it absolutely fixes the backing a trailer problem at the cost of some button pushing and knob fiddling.

The next problem is that while an E30 and this trailer are under the 6,000lb towing limit, if you also fill up the bed with spare rally car parts, it sags badly:

The sharp cutoff headlights did a great job of blinding everyone on my way home with the rear sagging like that.  I've since installed a set of airbags which fixes that problem.  Pre-airbags the rear suspension in the truck was quite unpleasant while unloaded, but an unexpected benefit is that somehow it's better now.  I'm not entirely sure why--the rear felt over-sprung and under-damped when unloaded.  The airbags at the min 5psi have minimal effect, but the way they're mounted looks like it might *slightly* increase the leaf spring rate because it slightly changes their pivot point.  In any case, it's even more over-sprung empty now, but doesn't bounce around as much?

It has plenty of power for towing, but its Camry engine makes a lot of it over 4,000RPM.  6th gear is usable only on completely flat terrain--you need to downshift to 4th for any moderately sized hill.  This doesn't bother me, but I think if I had an automatic that would have to go hunting rather than being able to plan ahead with a manual, I'd hate it.  I get 18mpg towing my Vee (probably under 2,000 lbs with the trailer) at 80mph.  I got about 12mpg towing the E30 at 70mph.

I'm fine with the seating position, but my 5'6" wife finds it absolutely terrible.  She has to put a pillow behind her back so that she can operate the clutch without her shin banging on the panel below the dash.  I'm 6'2" and my right shin hits the center console thing at some angles, but it's mostly okay.

A surprising thing to me is how low-tech the Tacoma is.  It's got things like rear drum brakes and a belt-driven fan, features that I thought went away in the '80s.  The upside to the simplicity is that it should be easy to fix when it breaks.  It has modern-car things like auto-high beams which blinds oncoming drivers but gets confused by reflective signs, radar cruise control which slows down and lets everyone get in front of you when it sees a car on the horizon (actually nice when towing, terrible otherwise), and it beeps when you cross a lane marker without using a turn signal.  The upside is it has android auto, which is the best thing to happen to modern cars.

If you're ever going to tow anything with it, I'd think the I4 wouldn't be the best choice.  Even not towing anything, the V6 isn't exactly sprightly.  Fuel-economy wise, it doesn't look like the I4 is that much better than the V6 either--I think that the only major advantage you get from the I4 is purchase price?

In reply to lotusseven7 (Forum Supporter) :

This is exactly what I saw. My local Toyota dealer had a '17 dual cab, short bed, V6 manual for like 37.5k with 60k on it.... Only buy used if you can't wait for a new truck to be delivered.

Brotus7 said:

In reply to lotusseven7 (Forum Supporter) :

This is exactly what I saw. My local Toyota dealer had a '17 dual cab, short bed, V6 manual for like 37.5k with 60k on it.... Only buy used if you can't wait for a new truck to be delivered.

Right, it's priced like that (and probably will sell) because you can drive it home today instead of putting a bunch of time and effort into finding a dealer that will sell you a new one without any markup and then waiting 3-6 months for it to show up.

The nice thing about new Tacomas is that you can usually test drive one for a few years and then get most of your money back if you don't like it. 

The Santa Cruz tows 6500 iirc (in turbo awd guise) 

I have a friend who gets a new Tacoma every 14 months, I think he's gotten less when reselling it then he originally paid for it once. It's weird to me as the reliability is the key component of their value, but the way to get peak value per a dollar with regards to ownership is to sell it before half of the factory warranty period has even passed. 

Wasn't the lack of Android Auto in the Taco one of the biggest complaints?

Also have to support the Tacos since I think it's the only truck still available with a manual trans.

dxman92 said:

Wasn't the lack of Android Auto in the Taco one of the biggest complaints?

Also have to support the Tacos since I think it's the only truck still available with a manual trans.

Definitely has it as of 2020.  Works great.

I owned one from Feb to May 2021. Hated it. Crew Cab, V6, Long bed. It should have been a nice truck, had the right options, good color, etc. I wanted to like it and just hated it. I traded it for a Gladiator. 

I'm sure someone is loving it as I put the right wheels/tires/rack/cap/etc. on it. I even had the rear stickers custom made in black because the red ones looked dumb as there was no other red on the  truck
 

Steve_Jones said:

I owned one from Feb to May 2021. Hated it. Crew Cab, V6, Long bed. It should have been a nice truck, had the right options, good color, etc. I wanted to like it and just hated it. I traded it for a Gladiator. 

Care to explain why? Im looking at almost the same truck, 2022 SR5, double cab, V6, long-bed 4x4. I will say that my cousin has an '16 TRD Off-Road and HATED it! Wore tires on the front like crazy and rode harsh. Bought an '18 and loved it. 

In reply to lotusseven7 (Forum Supporter) :

The main reason is it felt cheap, like I was driving a base model Corolla. It was confusing because it shouldn't have. It had leather, heated seats, sunroof, etc. I kept adding stuff figuring it would help me like the truck more. On paper, it's a great truck, just didn't feel like it to me. It is very underpowered, I was going to supercharge it, but decided to just get rid of it. I still wanted a small truck, so I ended up with a Gladiator, and supercharged that :)

The really strange part is I had a 2020 4Runner at the same time as the Tacoma and loved it, so it wasn't a "not liking Toyotas" thing. I actually made $2k on the Tacoma (after all of the upgrades) selling it back to the dealer I bought it from, go figure. 
 

Edit: I don't know what gas mileage the Ram gets, but don't expect much better from the Tacoma. That was another frustration, underpowered and gas mileage sucked. I'm ok with either, not both. 

Captdownshift (Forum Supporter) said:

The Santa Cruz tows 6500 iirc (in turbo awd guise) 

 

I have a friend who gets a new Tacoma every 14 months, I think he's gotten less when reselling it then he originally paid for it once. It's weird to me as the reliability is the key component of their value, but the way to get peak value per a dollar with regards to ownership is to sell it before half of the factory warranty period has even passed. 

5000lbs and it's not super clear (to me at least) what all extra equipment is needed to actually achieve it in practice. And it costs tacoma money (potentially more even) and gets basically tacoma fuel mileage. IMO might as well get the bigger more functional truck unless you really need the smaller form factor. It is probably more exciting to drive though with basically the same power in a smaller and (presumably) lighter vehicle.