2025 Tacoma Limited, one week and 500 miles. Here’s the review after one week of ownership.
BLUF - I like the truck, very much. we traded our F150 XL for it and I’m coming from a large, quiet, excellent driving, highly capable half ton with gobs of space and well-sorted dynamics and tow/haul capacity.
The limited is mid-tier model. It slots in between the low trim, high value SR5 options and below all of the off-road and TRD offerings. It offers some tech and features which probably vary in real-world usefulness. It is clear that a lot of “brainstorming” went into the design - there’s a lot of “what can we do with what we now have” evidenced in the build. Frankly, I appreciate the drill, but be forewarned that this doesn’t mean you need or even want all those things. That said, here we go:
Drive Modes:
The taco has multiple drive modes - normal, comfort, sport, eco and custom. They all fiddle with the four following parameters: engine, steering weight (normal, sport), suspension (sport, normal, comfort), climate (normal, eco). The suspension setting seems to change low speed shock valving. Climate I think drops fan speed down a notch for AC in eco mode. Engine differences seem to be based on 3 different throttle curves. Between normal and eco I’ve not noticed much of a mpg difference, I’m driving mostly in eco.
Headlights:
Pretty Good! It’s a little harder to discern road texture with the typical high-temp LEDs everyone has now and I’m longing for an aux halogen low beam setup, which will probably happen for unlit country road driving done here daily. They do not provide as much “information” than the low temp HIDs and halogen combo setup I had in my previous vehicle. Focus is good, cutoff is sharp, distribution is quite wide. After a week, admittedly I’ve gotten more used to the higher color temp and it doesn’t bother me as much. I do a lot of dark driving on unlit streets and do have on the casual upgrade list, my favorite lighting upgrade which will include e-code halogen low beams in lieu of fog lamps.
Interior:
Storage space is limited in the hybrid. The traction and 12V batteries are under the back seat. The center console is about 6x8x8 inches and the glove box is about normal for a civic. There is a weird (or clever use of space) “moat” around the fore and starboard sides of the shifter where pens and things can fall. There is a “shelf” above the glove box which if you use it, will be handy and display your clutter. They did what they could with what they have - there’s not a lot of room to work with, considering it’s a RWD.
Seat comfort:
Less padding than a Toyota sedan, while also being better contoured. They are stiffer than the stock foam in a ford, but softer than the park-bench BMW. They are bolstered but also wide - similar probably in many ways to a Honda chair. For a guy in decent health, they feel good, and I found myself comfortable in a variety of different positions. No memory feature on the limited, which is suprising. 3 levels of heat, and probably a higher wattage than most vehicles on “high.”
Rear: the rear seat cushion is generously sized, the backrest is a little vertical. Headroom is adequate. The rear is usable if the front seats are set midway. If you like to stretch out in your driving position, the person behind you will suffer. However if the driver sets a more vertical seating arrangement, there is decent room for an adult behind them for 45 minutes or so. It’s better than the supercab F150 by comparison (not crew cab).
Steering:
Toyota really seems to have EPS nicely dialed in by now. I find the feedback good enough, return-to-center seems natural. It’s natural on the highway and smooth in parking lots.
Cabin noise: this is a different world from the tacomas of yesterday. It’s on par with the 2018 F150 we had. This taco has noise canceling in the stereo, so I can’t tell how much is the vehicle and how much is the electronics, but the end result is nice. HOWEVER, based on the amount of engine, turbo, and inverter noise that works its way into the cabin, I suspect it could be easily overwhelmed by tire choice. The oem tires are Michelin primacy street tires, which are inherently quiet. A set of mild all-terrains or even just an anything below a quiet highway tire could result in a lot of road noise, is my guess. These tires are too new to have started to harden up as well.
Suspension: I think Toyota gained a lot by moving to a trailing arm, coil sprung rear axle. It isolates the truck in a way that leaf springs dont, considering the typical jostling found in small trucks, I think this is a good move. It is also still firmly sprung with less give than I recall in by gen1 tundra, for instance if I stand in the bed and hop up and down. Even on “comfort” mode, the vehicle doesn’t flex the suspension much. Toyota seems to really count on the high profile tires (18” wheels, 65 series sidewall) and suspension bushings, to take the edge off the ride. I’m considering 17” oem take-offs as the chrome-plastic wheel cover is chintzy to my eye, but anything done there is a ways out.
Handling around town: This is a fun around town vehicle. It’s nimble. It has a lot of torque off the line. It is not afraid to accelerate, or stop. The chassis is communicative. Smaller than that F150, doors open nicely in parking spaces.
Handling on the interstate: well, it’s not as relaxed as a full size truck with the narrower track and shorter wheelbase (about 6” less track and 12” less wheelbase while only being 2” shorter). It’s busier to some moderate degree while it tracks well, but you can’t get around physics. Road noise is excellent for this size on the interstate, in stock form. Wind does push it around some.
Turbo four goodness: I like it. It is different from the 6. The 6 was a quiet, refined, “big” feeling engine, while the 4 feels like a 19 year old athlete. It’s a little raw, it’s a little buzzy, and it feels like it wants to grab and go. There’s torque for days and it’s happy to cruise at 70 at stupid low RPM (is that timing chain hydrodynamic at that low speed?). If you are experiencing the raw and buzzy sounds, you are probably asking it to move sportingly, and that’s part of the fun. The turbo is clearly audible and sounds weird as it defuels between shifts and gets modulated by the engine systems. No, this doesn’t feel like a well-refined power plant, but it does feel like a bit of a diesel with plenty of torque and some roughness around the edges. Our rav4 (NA) has a similar rawness to it. Game on. I like it and don’t feel like it’s a downgrade from the 6. It also doesn’t have to rev high for power.
Trans tuning. Shifts quick and gets out of the way. Hear me - this is a great engine/trans combo.
Hybrid system: there is a ballet between auto-start-stop, turbo lag, transmission shifts, and the hybrid system. I’d say this probably dials in similarly to Ram’s mild hybrid in nature. The taco hybrid pulses to start the engine and support changes in throttle position, perhaps providing that immediate pulse until the turbo catches. The engine will eagerly drop to neutral and shut down if power is not being demanded and the hybrid will briefly give a slight push, like “coast+1” but really won’t sustain the vehicle itself much. It can get to 7mph by itself with 1 egg under the pedal, 15 mph by itself with 2 stacked eggs under the pedal, and might carry itself at 25 on level ground with the cruise engaged. Traction battery hovers around 50% most of the time, providing transient bursts. If you happen to charge it to 80% with a downhill descent, it will spend the next 3 miles “bleeding off” energy by supplementing the engine on level ground at a less than 10% output rate, until it’s back down to 50%. It doesn’t tell you when and how much charge or regen it’s doing during downhills or deceleration, or at least I haven’t found a display for it, but it is not a significant contributor like the RAV4 or Prius system.
It will creep along in stop-n-go with majority of electric, which is helpful here.
I often read/study in parking lots or parks - and the battery will run climate control for a period of time.
Digital dash. Home run. Buried deep in the menus, you can select 3 different layouts (2 primary gauges, 3 zones, or a 1 central gauges, 3 zones, different themes to each, and assignable gauge features within each, or no dials and simply 3 zones of numeric readouts). You can fill that thing up with so much data you can’t see a thing. Oil pressure (seems low res but functional), oil temp, 12v sys voltage, engine temp, trans temp, coolant temp, fuel level, rpm, speedo, are all available. Plus driving aids information, infotainment messages, can all be put in front of you.
It’s got a number of tow-oriented things, but in all honesty someone who tows often will find the things as a gimmick. Trailer hookup and operation is a very manual thing and the dash seems like a toy.
Infotainment. Normal Toyota fare for these days. Good menu, usable system. There is absolutely no need for the larger iPad-sized display - it’s the same stuff you get on the 8” screen. The 8” is far, far more reasonable, especially for this sized cab. The large screen is a sad detractor from an otherwise wonderfully-laid out dashboard and is a crying plea to please someone enamored with their stinkin’ phone. You get it, i hate the screen. It’s the worst part about the vehicle, in that it simply doesn’t need to be there. It’s huge. It’s larger than double the instrumentation. Too much light at night, even when it is fully dimmed down. I’ve had it off 3 times during the first week, so that I can just drive (at night). If there ever becomes a “small screen mod” for this truck, I would pay $1,000 for it. Perhaps I could have found the combination of features I wanted with a smaller-screened taco with a special order, but they didn’t have such a thing on the lot and I was motivated to stop dragging the purchase process out and get something “good enough” within a narrow schedule. Done. But be warned, if you are considering one of these and have the time, study the feature availability in advance.
Hi FI - it’s certainly better than so many I grew up with. The sound is very “front” oriented. There’s some decent processing behind it. It’s not hi-fi but it’s also quite good for driving around in a truck. There is something like an 8” sub behind the back seat. It seems to communicate the kick drum without the tone of the bass guitar, so there are some psychoacoustics happening here to convince you it can thump while not having a full spectrum coverage. It’s hard in such small space. Anyone wanting to compete needs a bigger cab for room to handle behind-the-cone back pressure. They would achieve better tone with a smaller diameter sub with appropriate porting behind it, but then they will lose every SPL desire out there. I personally like the center dash speaker for spoken word clarity, and they seem to use digital processing to convince you that there is a stereo field, but imaging purists will probably balk. Also the center dash speaker is a rechargeable, removable Bluetooth speaker, which will provide some hints probably as to its SQ nature. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a fun stereo which will keep us quite pleased on a road trip, but mark levinson it is not. Lexus it is not. The center clarity will delight spoken-word news and podcast junkies, and anyone who is not an automotive audio purist will probably delight in the practical use of the system. It is not “Bad” at all. It’s quite good, especially for the cabin. They spent some time with it. You would expect more at this price tag, but on the other hand, it is miles ahead of other Toyota stereos I’ve had in the past. Lexus is better here.
MPG:
I thought this truck was rated at 24/24/24 by the factory. I’ve seen as high as 25mpg average and typically see 20-21. It’s sitting at 20.7 average now, and I’m a conservative driver. Something is amiss. Apparently the mileage varies a lot based on the trim. This particular one is something like 23-21-22 or something close. I will try higher octane fuel for fun. Manual calls for 87. This is with the lower bumper dam attached. The bumper dam looks like the beard of Thanos (marvel character). Goodness, or like a 2WD F150 - it’s huge. You can’t unsee it. It is tall enough to clear a parking curb, just. Once I figure out a baseline mpg, it’s probably coming off for a comparison. Depending what Toyota did behind it, the truck may look far better without it. Thanos’ beard … there, you won’t be able to unsee that.
Toyota has traditionally made fuel-thirsty trucks and I did hope for better with the hybrid tech. One thing i learned is this model is always in some form of AWD. You can’t unlock the front axle. I’ve not figured out yet if the full time AWD is RWD with front-axle assist or a center diff in the T-case - modes are basically AWD, Lock, and Low. I’m fairly certain that’s a part of the reduced mileage. These trucks can be had i believe with 3 different types - 2WD, 4WD part time and AWD/4WD, and 3 different tire-rim size combinations.
Exterior:
Looks are in the eye of the beholder. There’s a lot of plastic on the exterior. The fender flares are snapped in, and that’s probably a wise move. The bed rail covers look like they will detach themselves quickly. The corners of the rear bumper are also molded plastic, but the owners manual indicates radars behind them, so they probably need to be. The entire front nose is plastic. the headlights are small and squinty.
Safety and driving aids.
It has many nannies and beeps. It has camera angles. I’m not accustomed to them so some I’ve left on and some ive turned off. Some are adjustable. The radar cruise is quite good. The only time I’ve seen it get confused is when someone in front of you changes lanes to a right exit lane and decelerates quickly - they go from 65 to 15 to make that turn, and this will absolutely nail the brakes and pull us down to 15 as well, which is bad on a 65mph road. It has two modes of lane management - one is a wheel-tug if you’re approaching the line, the other is a sort of hands-on auto-steer to augment cruise control. It’s weird to hold the wheel while it’s driving and i find it hard to trust because it is entirely dependent upon good eyesight and can miss things when lines disappear. From a habit-forming perspective, I see dangers in learning to rely on it, and yet i see it helpful as an aid … idk mixed feelings. Part of me thinks it needs to either be 100% foolproof, or it shouldn’t be relied upon. Maybe an old dog doesn’t like new tricks.
The bed
You read it here first. I’ve not seen this on a single professional review. “Man, that’s awesome that it came brand new with line-ex!” That’s what I thought. Get up under it, and the entire bed tub is composite - looks like a molded plastic/carbon composite. No kidding. Bed is plastic, thick plastic. Exterior fenders are metal. It’s not going to rust.
Cost cutting?
Rear bumper seems like someone lost a budget fight, yet high-lift jack points on both sides. That shows some thinking and market attentiveness? No engine cover. Cable and pipe routing under the hood is NOT typical Toyota - there’s stuff everywhere. (I LOVE that the hybrid puts the 12V battery beneath the back seat - it’s going to last a long time back there). Plastic bed is odd, but I’ve thrown concrete blocks back there and this didn’t reveal any problems. Buttons on the steering wheel feel a bit like a no-name solar calculator - they’ll probably last but they are not stout in material.
Daily liveability
For my use of about 90 minutes per day it’s great. I’ve had it a week, everything feels good. It’s taking me a while to get used to the features, and a number of them I’ve turned off. It’s phone-app-connected, and I want to like it and it seems to whisper nice things about being connected to your car, making it more personal - but I see a time when i delete the app. Is the app bad? No. My wife has it on her RAV4 and it has instilled car care I’ve never seen. She scheduled her own dealer service (several years free) because the app tells her she should and presents a calendar. Right there the app is useful!… but I’ll likely let the associated data subscriptions expire and be done with it.
I’m of average height and have had to slow down getting in and out, having banged my head 3 times on the upper glasses console (I’m still not sure how this happens).
Pedal spacing and dead pedal feel good. Dash is easy to read now that I’m getting used to all the stuff on it. Infotainment wants too many screen touches to be convenient, and I wish it would remember the last screen it was on.
It has a good feel of quality in how it drives and handles. It doesn’t rattle my teeth out but it isn’t gentle either. The interior is rather stylized with the branding, perhaps borrowing from the recently-over baked Jeep playbook, but it’s not as far as Jeep went. “Tacoma” lights on the eyebrows outboard of the headlights. It tells you inside and out that it’s a Tacoma. Any more and it would be a detractor. As it is, it is fine. The window sills have some padding in them - they are a mite bit high but you can rest your forearm up there. The padding is nice. Haven’t seen that in a while. It’s a shelf-surface and seems intentional. That’s going to be a high point to me as soon as the windows come down, fun!
Truck gets attention in parking lots - the baby brick (they are squared off) has good lines without bragging or inviting thoughts of overcompensation. Really, it’s rather small coming from a full-size. OEM motorized steps get comments. The truck is just high enough to need steps. I prefer metal bars but the electrics scream “up scale.” Mind you, this “upscale” doesn’t have memory settings for the seats or mirrors, which would have been more useful.
Speaking of useful, a larger fuel tank would be useful. The 18 gallon tank really doesn’t get it that far at 21 mpg. Consume down to 1/4 displayed, and it takes 12 gallons to fill it. So if you like to fill up at 1/4 tank, you have 12 gallons to work with, or 250 miles. I could start to complain … until crawling under it - and you will find there simply isn’t that much space to put one, and they filled most of what they have. Now, perhaps a low-paid summer intern would have been a wise move, because with some careful design work they could have gotten another 2 gallons of volume, maybe 3. And the intern would have gotten some great experience. I would pay for an upgrade here. Seriously, 250 miles per fill-up is poor. I recall VW used to place two 1-gallon auxiliary fuel storage tanks above each front wheel in the vanagon, supplementing the primary tank, amounting to 2.4 gallons added from that move. 2 plastic jugs and some rubber pipe, tested and approved. C’mon Toyota…. All that said, this one checks a lot of boxes and offers a nimbleness and everyday ease with a little sporting, play-ready handling - refreshing coming from a full size. I have enjoyed it enough that I have not missed the larger cab, windscreen or presence of my full-size predecessor. Long live the Taco.
BLUF - I like the truck, very much. we traded our F150 XL for it and I’m coming from a large, quiet, excellent driving, highly capable half ton with gobs of space and well-sorted dynamics and tow/haul capacity.
The limited is mid-tier model. It slots in between the low trim, high value SR5 options and below all of the off-road and TRD offerings. It offers some tech and features which probably vary in real-world usefulness. It is clear that a lot of “brainstorming” went into the design - there’s a lot of “what can we do with what we now have” evidenced in the build. Frankly, I appreciate the drill, but be forewarned that this doesn’t mean you need or even want all those things. That said, here we go:
Drive Modes:
The taco has multiple drive modes - normal, comfort, sport, eco and custom. They all fiddle with the four following parameters: engine, steering weight (normal, sport), suspension (sport, normal, comfort), climate (normal, eco). The suspension setting seems to change low speed shock valving. Climate I think drops fan speed down a notch for AC in eco mode. Engine differences seem to be based on 3 different throttle curves. Between normal and eco I’ve not noticed much of a mpg difference, I’m driving mostly in eco.
Headlights:
Pretty Good! It’s a little harder to discern road texture with the typical high-temp LEDs everyone has now and I’m longing for an aux halogen low beam setup, which will probably happen for unlit country road driving done here daily. They do not provide as much “information” than the low temp HIDs and halogen combo setup I had in my previous vehicle. Focus is good, cutoff is sharp, distribution is quite wide. After a week, admittedly I’ve gotten more used to the higher color temp and it doesn’t bother me as much. I do a lot of dark driving on unlit streets and do have on the casual upgrade list, my favorite lighting upgrade which will include e-code halogen low beams in lieu of fog lamps.
Interior:
Storage space is limited in the hybrid. The traction and 12V batteries are under the back seat. The center console is about 6x8x8 inches and the glove box is about normal for a civic. There is a weird (or clever use of space) “moat” around the fore and starboard sides of the shifter where pens and things can fall. There is a “shelf” above the glove box which if you use it, will be handy and display your clutter. They did what they could with what they have - there’s not a lot of room to work with, considering it’s a RWD.
Seat comfort:
Less padding than a Toyota sedan, while also being better contoured. They are stiffer than the stock foam in a ford, but softer than the park-bench BMW. They are bolstered but also wide - similar probably in many ways to a Honda chair. For a guy in decent health, they feel good, and I found myself comfortable in a variety of different positions. No memory feature on the limited, which is suprising. 3 levels of heat, and probably a higher wattage than most vehicles on “high.”
Rear: the rear seat cushion is generously sized, the backrest is a little vertical. Headroom is adequate. The rear is usable if the front seats are set midway. If you like to stretch out in your driving position, the person behind you will suffer. However if the driver sets a more vertical seating arrangement, there is decent room for an adult behind them for 45 minutes or so. It’s better than the supercab F150 by comparison (not crew cab).
Steering:
Toyota really seems to have EPS nicely dialed in by now. I find the feedback good enough, return-to-center seems natural. It’s natural on the highway and smooth in parking lots.
Cabin noise: this is a different world from the tacomas of yesterday. It’s on par with the 2018 F150 we had. This taco has noise canceling in the stereo, so I can’t tell how much is the vehicle and how much is the electronics, but the end result is nice. HOWEVER, based on the amount of engine, turbo, and inverter noise that works its way into the cabin, I suspect it could be easily overwhelmed by tire choice. The oem tires are Michelin primacy street tires, which are inherently quiet. A set of mild all-terrains or even just an anything below a quiet highway tire could result in a lot of road noise, is my guess. These tires are too new to have started to harden up as well.
Suspension: I think Toyota gained a lot by moving to a trailing arm, coil sprung rear axle. It isolates the truck in a way that leaf springs dont, considering the typical jostling found in small trucks, I think this is a good move. It is also still firmly sprung with less give than I recall in by gen1 tundra, for instance if I stand in the bed and hop up and down. Even on “comfort” mode, the vehicle doesn’t flex the suspension much. Toyota seems to really count on the high profile tires (18” wheels, 65 series sidewall) and suspension bushings, to take the edge off the ride. I’m considering 17” oem take-offs as the chrome-plastic wheel cover is chintzy to my eye, but anything done there is a ways out.
Handling around town: This is a fun around town vehicle. It’s nimble. It has a lot of torque off the line. It is not afraid to accelerate, or stop. The chassis is communicative. Smaller than that F150, doors open nicely in parking spaces.
Handling on the interstate: well, it’s not as relaxed as a full size truck with the narrower track and shorter wheelbase (about 6” less track and 12” less wheelbase while only being 2” shorter). It’s busier to some moderate degree while it tracks well, but you can’t get around physics. Road noise is excellent for this size on the interstate, in stock form. Wind does push it around some.
Turbo four goodness: I like it. It is different from the 6. The 6 was a quiet, refined, “big” feeling engine, while the 4 feels like a 19 year old athlete. It’s a little raw, it’s a little buzzy, and it feels like it wants to grab and go. There’s torque for days and it’s happy to cruise at 70 at stupid low RPM (is that timing chain hydrodynamic at that low speed?). If you are experiencing the raw and buzzy sounds, you are probably asking it to move sportingly, and that’s part of the fun. The turbo is clearly audible and sounds weird as it defuels between shifts and gets modulated by the engine systems. No, this doesn’t feel like a well-refined power plant, but it does feel like a bit of a diesel with plenty of torque and some roughness around the edges. Our rav4 (NA) has a similar rawness to it. Game on. I like it and don’t feel like it’s a downgrade from the 6. It also doesn’t have to rev high for power.
Trans tuning. Shifts quick and gets out of the way. Hear me - this is a great engine/trans combo.
Hybrid system: there is a ballet between auto-start-stop, turbo lag, transmission shifts, and the hybrid system. I’d say this probably dials in similarly to Ram’s mild hybrid in nature. The taco hybrid pulses to start the engine and support changes in throttle position, perhaps providing that immediate pulse until the turbo catches. The engine will eagerly drop to neutral and shut down if power is not being demanded and the hybrid will briefly give a slight push, like “coast+1” but really won’t sustain the vehicle itself much. It can get to 7mph by itself with 1 egg under the pedal, 15 mph by itself with 2 stacked eggs under the pedal, and might carry itself at 25 on level ground with the cruise engaged. Traction battery hovers around 50% most of the time, providing transient bursts. If you happen to charge it to 80% with a downhill descent, it will spend the next 3 miles “bleeding off” energy by supplementing the engine on level ground at a less than 10% output rate, until it’s back down to 50%. It doesn’t tell you when and how much charge or regen it’s doing during downhills or deceleration, or at least I haven’t found a display for it, but it is not a significant contributor like the RAV4 or Prius system.
It will creep along in stop-n-go with majority of electric, which is helpful here.
I often read/study in parking lots or parks - and the battery will run climate control for a period of time.
Digital dash. Home run. Buried deep in the menus, you can select 3 different layouts (2 primary gauges, 3 zones, or a 1 central gauges, 3 zones, different themes to each, and assignable gauge features within each, or no dials and simply 3 zones of numeric readouts). You can fill that thing up with so much data you can’t see a thing. Oil pressure (seems low res but functional), oil temp, 12v sys voltage, engine temp, trans temp, coolant temp, fuel level, rpm, speedo, are all available. Plus driving aids information, infotainment messages, can all be put in front of you.
It’s got a number of tow-oriented things, but in all honesty someone who tows often will find the things as a gimmick. Trailer hookup and operation is a very manual thing and the dash seems like a toy.
Infotainment. Normal Toyota fare for these days. Good menu, usable system. There is absolutely no need for the larger iPad-sized display - it’s the same stuff you get on the 8” screen. The 8” is far, far more reasonable, especially for this sized cab. The large screen is a sad detractor from an otherwise wonderfully-laid out dashboard and is a crying plea to please someone enamored with their stinkin’ phone. You get it, i hate the screen. It’s the worst part about the vehicle, in that it simply doesn’t need to be there. It’s huge. It’s larger than double the instrumentation. Too much light at night, even when it is fully dimmed down. I’ve had it off 3 times during the first week, so that I can just drive (at night). If there ever becomes a “small screen mod” for this truck, I would pay $1,000 for it. Perhaps I could have found the combination of features I wanted with a smaller-screened taco with a special order, but they didn’t have such a thing on the lot and I was motivated to stop dragging the purchase process out and get something “good enough” within a narrow schedule. Done. But be warned, if you are considering one of these and have the time, study the feature availability in advance.
Hi FI - it’s certainly better than so many I grew up with. The sound is very “front” oriented. There’s some decent processing behind it. It’s not hi-fi but it’s also quite good for driving around in a truck. There is something like an 8” sub behind the back seat. It seems to communicate the kick drum without the tone of the bass guitar, so there are some psychoacoustics happening here to convince you it can thump while not having a full spectrum coverage. It’s hard in such small space. Anyone wanting to compete needs a bigger cab for room to handle behind-the-cone back pressure. They would achieve better tone with a smaller diameter sub with appropriate porting behind it, but then they will lose every SPL desire out there. I personally like the center dash speaker for spoken word clarity, and they seem to use digital processing to convince you that there is a stereo field, but imaging purists will probably balk. Also the center dash speaker is a rechargeable, removable Bluetooth speaker, which will provide some hints probably as to its SQ nature. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a fun stereo which will keep us quite pleased on a road trip, but mark levinson it is not. Lexus it is not. The center clarity will delight spoken-word news and podcast junkies, and anyone who is not an automotive audio purist will probably delight in the practical use of the system. It is not “Bad” at all. It’s quite good, especially for the cabin. They spent some time with it. You would expect more at this price tag, but on the other hand, it is miles ahead of other Toyota stereos I’ve had in the past. Lexus is better here.
MPG:
I thought this truck was rated at 24/24/24 by the factory. I’ve seen as high as 25mpg average and typically see 20-21. It’s sitting at 20.7 average now, and I’m a conservative driver. Something is amiss. Apparently the mileage varies a lot based on the trim. This particular one is something like 23-21-22 or something close. I will try higher octane fuel for fun. Manual calls for 87. This is with the lower bumper dam attached. The bumper dam looks like the beard of Thanos (marvel character). Goodness, or like a 2WD F150 - it’s huge. You can’t unsee it. It is tall enough to clear a parking curb, just. Once I figure out a baseline mpg, it’s probably coming off for a comparison. Depending what Toyota did behind it, the truck may look far better without it. Thanos’ beard … there, you won’t be able to unsee that.
Toyota has traditionally made fuel-thirsty trucks and I did hope for better with the hybrid tech. One thing i learned is this model is always in some form of AWD. You can’t unlock the front axle. I’ve not figured out yet if the full time AWD is RWD with front-axle assist or a center diff in the T-case - modes are basically AWD, Lock, and Low. I’m fairly certain that’s a part of the reduced mileage. These trucks can be had i believe with 3 different types - 2WD, 4WD part time and AWD/4WD, and 3 different tire-rim size combinations.
Exterior:
Looks are in the eye of the beholder. There’s a lot of plastic on the exterior. The fender flares are snapped in, and that’s probably a wise move. The bed rail covers look like they will detach themselves quickly. The corners of the rear bumper are also molded plastic, but the owners manual indicates radars behind them, so they probably need to be. The entire front nose is plastic. the headlights are small and squinty.
Safety and driving aids.
It has many nannies and beeps. It has camera angles. I’m not accustomed to them so some I’ve left on and some ive turned off. Some are adjustable. The radar cruise is quite good. The only time I’ve seen it get confused is when someone in front of you changes lanes to a right exit lane and decelerates quickly - they go from 65 to 15 to make that turn, and this will absolutely nail the brakes and pull us down to 15 as well, which is bad on a 65mph road. It has two modes of lane management - one is a wheel-tug if you’re approaching the line, the other is a sort of hands-on auto-steer to augment cruise control. It’s weird to hold the wheel while it’s driving and i find it hard to trust because it is entirely dependent upon good eyesight and can miss things when lines disappear. From a habit-forming perspective, I see dangers in learning to rely on it, and yet i see it helpful as an aid … idk mixed feelings. Part of me thinks it needs to either be 100% foolproof, or it shouldn’t be relied upon. Maybe an old dog doesn’t like new tricks.
The bed
You read it here first. I’ve not seen this on a single professional review. “Man, that’s awesome that it came brand new with line-ex!” That’s what I thought. Get up under it, and the entire bed tub is composite - looks like a molded plastic/carbon composite. No kidding. Bed is plastic, thick plastic. Exterior fenders are metal. It’s not going to rust.
Cost cutting?
Rear bumper seems like someone lost a budget fight, yet high-lift jack points on both sides. That shows some thinking and market attentiveness? No engine cover. Cable and pipe routing under the hood is NOT typical Toyota - there’s stuff everywhere. (I LOVE that the hybrid puts the 12V battery beneath the back seat - it’s going to last a long time back there). Plastic bed is odd, but I’ve thrown concrete blocks back there and this didn’t reveal any problems. Buttons on the steering wheel feel a bit like a no-name solar calculator - they’ll probably last but they are not stout in material.
Daily liveability
For my use of about 90 minutes per day it’s great. I’ve had it a week, everything feels good. It’s taking me a while to get used to the features, and a number of them I’ve turned off. It’s phone-app-connected, and I want to like it and it seems to whisper nice things about being connected to your car, making it more personal - but I see a time when i delete the app. Is the app bad? No. My wife has it on her RAV4 and it has instilled car care I’ve never seen. She scheduled her own dealer service (several years free) because the app tells her she should and presents a calendar. Right there the app is useful!… but I’ll likely let the associated data subscriptions expire and be done with it.
I’m of average height and have had to slow down getting in and out, having banged my head 3 times on the upper glasses console (I’m still not sure how this happens).
Pedal spacing and dead pedal feel good. Dash is easy to read now that I’m getting used to all the stuff on it. Infotainment wants too many screen touches to be convenient, and I wish it would remember the last screen it was on.
It has a good feel of quality in how it drives and handles. It doesn’t rattle my teeth out but it isn’t gentle either. The interior is rather stylized with the branding, perhaps borrowing from the recently-over baked Jeep playbook, but it’s not as far as Jeep went. “Tacoma” lights on the eyebrows outboard of the headlights. It tells you inside and out that it’s a Tacoma. Any more and it would be a detractor. As it is, it is fine. The window sills have some padding in them - they are a mite bit high but you can rest your forearm up there. The padding is nice. Haven’t seen that in a while. It’s a shelf-surface and seems intentional. That’s going to be a high point to me as soon as the windows come down, fun!
Truck gets attention in parking lots - the baby brick (they are squared off) has good lines without bragging or inviting thoughts of overcompensation. Really, it’s rather small coming from a full-size. OEM motorized steps get comments. The truck is just high enough to need steps. I prefer metal bars but the electrics scream “up scale.” Mind you, this “upscale” doesn’t have memory settings for the seats or mirrors, which would have been more useful.
Speaking of useful, a larger fuel tank would be useful. The 18 gallon tank really doesn’t get it that far at 21 mpg. Consume down to 1/4 displayed, and it takes 12 gallons to fill it. So if you like to fill up at 1/4 tank, you have 12 gallons to work with, or 250 miles. I could start to complain … until crawling under it - and you will find there simply isn’t that much space to put one, and they filled most of what they have. Now, perhaps a low-paid summer intern would have been a wise move, because with some careful design work they could have gotten another 2 gallons of volume, maybe 3. And the intern would have gotten some great experience. I would pay for an upgrade here. Seriously, 250 miles per fill-up is poor. I recall VW used to place two 1-gallon auxiliary fuel storage tanks above each front wheel in the vanagon, supplementing the primary tank, amounting to 2.4 gallons added from that move. 2 plastic jugs and some rubber pipe, tested and approved. C’mon Toyota…. All that said, this one checks a lot of boxes and offers a nimbleness and everyday ease with a little sporting, play-ready handling - refreshing coming from a full size. I have enjoyed it enough that I have not missed the larger cab, windscreen or presence of my full-size predecessor. Long live the Taco.
