08 taco

I've got the '05 6 speed manual version of that truck, with an Access Cab. Except for the TPMS and some minor details, it's the same truck. I use my truck as a pickup truck, towing two different trailers, carrying woodworking materials and tools, remodeling debris, outdoor power equipment and stationary tools, bicycles, and kayaks. MY largest tow load has been a Volvo S80 on a 4 wheel trailer. For daily commuting, I ride a bicycle. I am a cradle to grave vehicle user, so I'm picky! After 3+ years and 30,000 miles, I can say the following:

The only problems I had were related to early production, including too short cab mounts and a noisy spring. My truck was built 3 months into the currently body style. All were promptly and properly repaired under warranty, trucks built after mine include running changes to correct the problems I had.

Cons (this took some thinking ):

- In-town gas mileage has always been in the 15-16 MPG range for me. However, I tow often, use 4WD more than most, and often carry aerodynamically awful loads on Interstate highways.

- Only one overhead rack fits, a Thule Xsporter.

- No factory aux in on the stereo

- The tailgate is a tad flimsy

- No stake pockets

- Factory 6 disc changer is nothing to write home about. I paid $150 for it, and got about what I paid for. I added a $75 aux input from Logjam Electronics for my Ipod.

- No mirror defrosters available.

Pros:

- Power of the overall package. I've towed 5500 pounds with it, and this is got to be the best V6 ever made. This is a trade-off with Con #1. If you'll never need it...

- Tailgate is very easily removable, so you can run power equipment ramps right to the bed

- The plastic bed is absolutely OUTSTANDING! From the plastic surfaces, to the tie-downs, to the sliding rails my overhead rack mounts to... All I can say is Bra-Vo! I had a 250 pound rented floor sander do a barrel roll and hit the side hard enough to break the machine. The only bed damage was a tiny hole. With all my scratches, NO RUST!

- Outstanding 4WD performance, better than my '99 Wrangler.

- I really like the TRD bucket seats.

- Lots of interior storage

- Basic maintenance, like oil and air filter changing and lube work is very well thought out. Look under the hood at the dealership.

- Very nice turning circle for a truck this size.

- Used versions are selling very close to what I paid new at local dealers!

- Cruise control works nice.

- I really like the bed mounted inverter. I use it to charge power tools and to power my airplane's oil pan heater during winter preflights.

- Excellent headlights

- Excellent interior control layout

Final thoughts:

- After three years, no other vehicle has made me this happy, and I've had some very nice vehicles. I would buy it again in a heartbeat.

- This truck would be an awful commuter vehicle. The ride is pretty busy with no load, and the gas mileage isn't great. Toyota did a great job making it great at what it does, without compromising it into a _car_.

- Buy the Toyota heavy rubber bed mat. If keeps things in place in the bed, and can be tossed over lightweight items like insulation or yard debris. A great accessory.

- If you put overhead racking on it. The Toyota "flat" steps are much more useful for loading and strapping than the more fashionable "tube" steps, as you can more safely stand anywhere on them.

My version is an '07 double cab, prerunner, auto, so can't comment on the 4WD, however, I've never been more satisfied with a vehicle. Have

13K miles on it and has not been back to the dealer for anything (good deal here, love the truck, hate the dealer).

Pros:

Like the sheet molded compound bed a lot. Thought it might be a little delicate but not so. Agree with Barry on the need for a heavy rubber mat or great diligence when tieing down loads that might shift.

My mileage is 20.2 charted over the entire life with 53% city driving, and I normally get about 18.6 or so in the city. (note: I excluded checking a couple of tanks when towing, my city is fairly mileage friendly, I drive conservatively, and I have a bed cover which seems to help marginally). I consider this outstanding mileage for a truck that has a tow rating of 6500 lbs., and a gross combined rating of

11,200 lbs. Of course 4 x 4 will be less.

Cons:

even on my 07 no input for external players on the premium sound system, maybe changed for 08.

Ergonomic body angle different from most trucks, took some getting used to, but I'm ok with it now.

Frank

How difficult a job was this?

Frank

thanks guys for your input. this will be a daily driver for me doing 40 miles round trip a day. i am going down friday to look again and tesy trive both a extended cab and a double cab. i now have a gmc extended cab and in the 4 yrs i have owned it, i think maybe 6 times i have had ppl in the back. i may just look at the reg 4x4 sr5 package. thanks again tho.

One plug, one socket, and a plastic putty knife or cloth covered metal putty knife. It's cake! No "real" electronic knowledge needed. The unit takes power from the radio, where it plugs into a "data" plug.

Once the unit is in, you select CD1-Track 1, with no disc in the unit, and the aux works.

If you carefully pry the climate control knob panel off, (4) 10mm bolts are exposed. Remove those, and the whole stereo slides towards you.

Knowing you background from the woodworking group, you could do it in your sleep.

The Taco is a good compact truck, but the latest ones may have some quality issues:

Toyota pickup probe pushed Sudden acceleration claims hard to pin down BY JUSTIN HYDE * FREE PRESS WASHINGTON STAFF * April 7, 2008

It's a wonder Frank Visconi walked away from the crash that turned his new Toyota Tacoma pickup into an unrecognizable mush of metal, plastic and dirt. But Visconi has a different wonder -- why Toyota doesn't believe his complaints of sudden acceleration.

Visconi, a retired vehicle theft investigator, describes driving down a rain-slicked freeway north of Nashville last June when he tapped the brakes to avoid another car. Instead of slowing, he says, the engine revved, spinning out the truck's rear wheels. The truck ran off the road, jumped an embankment and rolled several times before coming to rest on its side.

His crash is one of eight in a passel of 33 complaints to federal regulators that has restarted a decades-old debate about whether sudden acceleration claims reflect vehicle defects or mental ones. At a customer's urging, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration launched an investigation into 2006 and 2007 Tacoma pickups over sudden acceleration -- the fourth such look in three years at Toyota models over similar complaints.

The Tacoma cases have yet to suggest a technical explanation. Over the past eight years, the agency has closed at least six investigations into reports of unexpected or uncontrolled acceleration in vehicles without finding evidence of defects.

On the day of the crash, Visconi was on his way to a Toyota dealership to have it examined for uncontrolled acceleration. Since April 2007, he had sent letters to Toyota, dealers and his insurance company detailing several instances where he says the engine surged when he hit the brake, including a couple of cases where he had to mash the pedal to keep the vehicle under control.

"Toyota has said to us they've found nothing wrong with the truck and it's our fault," Visconi said, referring to about a dozen Tacoma owners with similar complaints. "They're basically calling us all stupid."

Federal officials and automakers maintain that without evidence of a problem, the most likely answer will always be driver error. Before last October's recall of Toyota and Lexus floor mats in Camry and ES

350 sedans, the NHTSA had triggered only two other similar recalls since 1989.

"Sudden acceleration is a tough issue," said Ricardo Martinez, a doctor who was the chief NHTSA administrator from 1994 to 1999. "If a crash occurs, you always blame it on the vehicle, but most always the investigation found that wasn't the case."

Toyota spokesman Bill Kwong says the company has found no problems with the Tacoma that would explain the complaints.

"We don't feel it's an issue with the vehicle," he said. Regulators "get sudden acceleration complaints from consumers for various manufacturers ... and in most cases they have found it's a misapplication of the pedals by the driver."

But attorneys and safety advocates argue that sudden acceleration complaints are symptoms of defects, including electronic failures in increasingly complex vehicle-control systems that may leave no trace and can't be easily reproduced by a mechanic.

If there "were truly human error, there would be a proportional distribution across models," said Clarence Ditlow, who has spent years researching sudden acceleration as head of the Center for Auto Safety in Washington. "It's very difficult to explain how some makes and models have higher numbers of complaints than others absent some flaw in the vehicle."

The NHTSA began receiving complaints about the current Tacoma and sudden acceleration in late 2005. Some owners report trucks surging after they put on the brakes, or while at a stoplight. Others say their Tacoma surged while they were driving. A few said they were barely able to control the vehicle using the brakes.

None of the complaints suggest a clear cause, and those who say they've had their trucks inspected by a mechanic report no problems found.

The agency did not review the complaints until it was petitioned to do so by William Kronholm, a retired journalist in Montana. After two incidents of uncontrolled acceleration with his 2006 Tacoma within 2 hours in January, Kronholm examined the NHTSA's online database.

Kronholm said his research showed that compared with the mass of Tacoma complaints, including six injuries, there were only four reports of sudden acceleration from owners of all other 2006 and 2007 pickups. His Toyota dealer found no problem, and Toyota declined to examine the truck.

The NHTSA has examined Kronholm's truck and sent a request for data to Toyota. The agency doesn't comment on open investigations as a matter of practice, and Toyota says it's cooperating. The investigation is still in its early stages, and the NHTSA would need to take several additional steps before suggesting a recall.

But without a clear cause, a recall seems unlikely no matter how many drivers complain. From 2004 to 2007, the NHTSA closed three separate investigations into sudden acceleration by Toyota Camrys and Lexus ES330 models. In each probe, many owners complained of sudden acceleration and gave similar details.

And in each investigation, no mechanical trend was found, and the NHTSA closed the cases because of a lack of evidence.

The last time the NHTSA fully explored the issue of sudden acceleration complaints was in 1989, following years of dispute over vehicles such as the Audi 5000, the poster car for the problem because of a "60 Minutes" report in 1986.

After sorting through thousands of complaints and running its own vehicle tests, the agency found that where there was no mechanical evidence of a vehicle defect, "the inescapable conclusion is that these" cases "definitely involve the driver inadvertently pressing the accelerator instead of, or in addition to, the brake pedal."

Automakers cheered the ruling, but by that time, they had started installing brake-shift interlocks that forced drivers to apply a brake if they tried to put a vehicle in gear. Throughout the 1990s, the number of sudden acceleration complaints to the NHTSA steadily declined.

But consumer advocates and attorneys say the NHTSA closed its eyes rather than admit the problem. Tom Murray, an Ohio attorney who specializes in sudden acceleration cases, said automakers and the NHTSA did not want to acknowledge other possible causes of sudden acceleration, namely electrical interference. Murray says complaints rose as automakers stuffed new electronics in vehicles -- and fell after they learned how to better shield those electronics.

"NHTSA accepted" the "claim of Audi that the absence of proof is proof of absence," Murray said. "They made one of the most colossal blunders by saying 'We can't find a defect inside the vehicle after the fact; it must be the driver.' "

Murray said he has seen an uptick in complaints in recent years as more vehicles, including the Tacoma, began to use drive-by-wire systems -- where electronics replace mechanical connections between the pedals, engine and sometimes the brakes. He and Ditlow maintain that the NHTSA lacks the money to track down more complex electrical failures, especially those that might be random and leave no physical evidence.

"I always thought that when Toyota went to drive-by-wire, the likelihood of hav> thinking about an 08 tacoma v6 4x4 trd rugged package.

I don't think we will ever know the truth on some of those until the NASCAR road course "foot cam" is installed in daily drivers.

Big feet or boots in a panic situation, vehicles that have ever so slight differences in pedal placement, RF interference causing uncommanded throttle application, distracted drivers...

Kind of like every unexplained small plane crash called pilot error.

The Toyota Camry/Lexus ES recall was because of an all-weather floor mat jamming the accelerator. The Taco may or may not be the same. The owner in the article was an investigator so he may be capable of more than the average level of scrutiny. We'll see what the Feds say.