**The Toyota Tacoma: A Reliable Midsize Truck**

Not going to rot out so that's the X Factor here that's why people are complaining about it so much is they don't care so much about refinement as they do is this thing going to work. I think I talked about it in the shop and I spent a lot of time with the chief engineer Sheldon on this thing and they are you it's an American team this is one of the few Toyota products along with the Camry that is actually designed here in the United States right by an American customer an American engineer and they're well aware of why people like Tacomas and their thing is they're doing everything they can to ensure that it's reliable. To have used things in decades not quarters like a lot of American brands they really have a Long View of this stuff and if you have a little bit of faith in the brand which to be fair I think they've earned it at this Point yes there's some problems with the tundra yes they have recalls but they do seem to actually care about their product and you know the grand scheme of what it is. I I'll give them the benefit of the doubt in that regards and then when you drive this thing and you know most of the time again Tacomas are not really Fleet purchase Vehicles so for people who buy them for their own personal work or lifestyle stuff versus the really the the two competitors that I think most people are going to CR drop this with other than the frontier which you're buying the frontier if you don't buy anything I'm saying you just want a B6 naturally aspirated old school truck are the Colorado and the ranger longterm as I hate to say that in this Toyota product than a GM. I mean do you agree or disagree I don't know I know you're really digging into that cake I'm more interested in my black forest cake. I'll be honest one thing I will say is because and I I know you mentioned this in the shop they are doubling down on this engine family right these engines and this V6 yeah it's going to be around forever so there's going to be 6 billion parts for it so even if there are problems with it it's it has to be fixed like it has to be fixed away you'll be able to get parts for this in 15 years yeah and I I think that's that's the big difference is yeah okay maybe it won't have the ultimate reliability of the old one but you will have the knowhow and the parts and the supply chain and everything goes along with keeping this thing on the road for a long time and the same thing goes for the hybrid if you choose to get the hybrid variant the I force Max you get slightly better fuel economy makes even more power and Toyota has been doing hybrids for 20 years now and they've done a good job. Yeah and their battery packs for Priuses today if you need to go get them replaced how small the battery pack is in this vehicle are not hyp expensive and your day-to-day driving character of that vehicle is really good the torque fill the electric motor further deletes any of the weird turbocharged power delivery of this drivetrain which honestly no truck is fast off the line to begin with and I think this four poer because the torque is delivered so low is really good.

**A Better Midsize Truck**

Mark with that I think it's time for us to head in. Final thoughts on the Toyota Tacoma. Once again huge thanks to Bridgestone our financial sponsor and of course Sheldon the chief engineer of the toy Tacoma who spent so much time with us over the years. So what do I think about the truck well I will say the midsize truck is no longer all that cheap as tests the vehicle behind us is like over $50,000 but this is objectively a better truck than the generation before and every metric you could possibly really measure gets better fuel economy it's better to drive it's more comfortable the engine's more powerful you can still get it as a manual and these trucks are highly configurable you can get a base model or you can go all the way up to nearly $70,000 TRD Pro the truck we have behind us is the TRD off-road. I will say if you are looking for a midsize truck and you can live with it in the confines what this thing can do what it can tell how much it costs I think it is probably the best midsize to actually live with. The Interior Space is really really nice it's comfortable the drivetrain smooth have a strong feelings can be very reliable and historically toy Tacomas have very very strong residuals if you're looking to actually live with a midsize truck this is definitely one of the better ones so that thanks for watching hope to see you soon

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enthe allnew Toyota Tacoma this is a truck Mark and I've covered extensively on this channel at this point we are at its launch in Hawaii or it's unveiling we drove it at the first drive in California but the one thing we've had to do which has been quite the privilege has spent a lot of time with Sheldon he's the chief engineer of this truck and we've got to know him over the years and he's recently been tasked to work on the updates to the upcoming Tundras now what do you need to know about this video this is not going to be an off-roading video Mark and I work in the middle of Chicago where there's not a lot of off-roading opportunities this is going to be what the truck is and what it's not how they've improved it over the prior generation Tacoma why would you buy this thing and of course walk you through some of the engineering philosophy in the shop and what they tried to address with this generation Tacoma now starting with the interior and exterior this is on the latest generation of TM F specifically for the Tacoma what that means to you as a driver is the bod is more rigid they spent a lot of time isolating at the cabin and the big thing from a livability perspective is they've improved the foot to hip ratio meaning if you are a taller driver the distance from where your foot is to your hip and that Comfort is far far better than the older generation Tacoma if you were a larger person you basically felt like you were driving that thing with your knees in your chest particularly compared to something like an F-150 or a tundra they fixed at for this vehicle the interior space is for a truck Ultra refined doesn't matter what trim level you get it is a much better place than they used to be midsize trucks for a long long time were essentially appliances they realize now with how expensive everything is getting your expectations have risen you can get this with either a 5-ft or 6-ft bed Mark will list the towing ratios based upon what trim level you have on the screen when you get this truck that we have which is a off-road TRD with every option it's pushing over $50,000 but from a interior Comfort perspective it's very good the doors are well laid out all the controls are physical to's infotainment screen despite being hilariously large is reasonable to use this JBL with its removable JB L Bluetooth speaker is actually pretty good the wireless charging pads work well the heated and cooled seats are actually a godsend in this heat the back seats are not that large but they do fold straight up and the bed itself is very usable there's lots of both fixed and movable tie downs you have a 400 W plug in the back and you have a different plug for a 12vt and some USBC charging points other than that though I think it's time for Mark and I to head into the shop and put this thing up on the left where we can walk you through some of the finer details behind its Engineering in the shop with a fourth generation Toyota Tacoma this is going to be the meat and potatoes of our video I've had the unique privilege of spending a lot of time with a chief engineer of Tacoma his name is Sheldon I first met him a couple years ago at the unveiling of the Tacoma in Hawaii and we've talked about the trials and tribulations that went into this truck and what his team had to do so first off this is an American truck now well yes the drivetrain is designed in Japan obviously the basic architecture is largely designed in Japan the Tacoma is an American product it's designed at the cty design studio and Sheldon is an American chief engineer he has to work within the constraints of what this architecture is the reason why people bought Tacomas in the past according to you the viewers as well as the forums and Toyota is that they were bomb proof efficient at what they were intended to be which is a midsize truck and they did everything reasonably well for this generation they had to live up to that bomb proof reliability but they to deal with a changing Market not only are missions more complicated but people themselves are asking more out of their trucks they're getting more expensive the competition which was largely throwaway in the past is now better than ever and these vehicles have to be more things and more people they have to be a daily driver they have to be comfortable they have to be a substitute for a small SUV or full-size SUV they have to do truck things and they also has to have to last a very very long time so how do they accomplish that well let's start with the frame this is on the tngf architecture it is Toyota lexus's highly scalable truck platform and it underpins everything from the LX Land Cruiser GX upcoming 4Runner Tundra and seoa however it is highly modular it is not the identical frame they can gauge up and gauge down the steel where necessary they can change the length of the ladder frame and the suspension hard points can be moved slightly the overhangs can be changed in the front and the rear This is highly highly flexible and with their Tajima welding their patent and Welding structure where they add blanks into certain areas with the gauging up and gauging down to Steel they can make the frames as light and as efficient as possible for their intended purpose the Tacoma has the same width as a tundra but it is obviously much shorter and this truck has to be stretched it can be their extra cab 5ft bed all the way up to their quad cab 6-ft bed there's a lot of flexibility there now from suspension so the base model truck is the SR grade it starts at just over $31,000 and it is a leaf spring truck it is their work truck markk and I joke this is the poverty trim level this is for somebody who doesn't care about refinement and necessarily be all end all of handling or off-road capability they just want a truck that's what this thing accomplishes it can be four-wheel drive that was predominantly sold as rear wheel drive and the Leafs in the back are underslung re Leafs the reason they do that is so they can easily manufacture this thing and they don't have to change the line to fit the other variants of suspension for this truck which from that trim level up so SR5 all the way up to the TRD Pro off-road and TRD Trail Hunter are all multi-link rear suspensions so the SR5 it gets a twin tube shock it can be had as four-wheel drive then the TRD variants like the TRD Sport and off-road like this truck have their own spe specific suspension tuning they change spring rates and damber tuning to fit the profile of the truck so for example the TRD sport well does not get the monot tubes off of this has more sportily tuned Springs and dampers to make sure the vehicle feels a little bit more Nimble this tiity off-road which according to Toyota in the past was one of their most popular trim levels gets the billstein monotube dampers with piggyback canisters in the rear this truck was specifically tuned to be that heavier off-road truck while still maintaining its onroad capability while being built at a price point when you move up to the TRD Pro and the TRD Trail Hunter you get another level of sophistication when it comes to dampers and you get unique upper control arms you get forged upper control arms in the front for obviously greater strength and better suspension geometry to deal with Rebound in the TRD Pro you get Fox dampers which are adjustable and then in the TRD Trail Hunter you get old man emu shocks the primary difference is the purpose of the driving character of both vehicles the TRD Pro which I have driven off-road and can jump is for that baja high-speed off-road truck driver someone who wants to jump through the truck bfo rally driver and the trail Hunter is built for somebody who's planning on doing slower off-roading with a heavily Laden vehicle it's for that overlanding crowd the idea is this truck is going to be loaded full of your crap possibly a tent in the back and you're going off-road at lower speeds but the truck is going to be absolutely maxed out with crap Toyota is working with their suppliers like old man emu and fox to build the best possible package for the vehicle let's talk about the next part of this which is how they set up lockers and sway bars so basically as soon as you get up to the TRD models you get electronic locking rout differential in the case of the TRD off-road you can get an optional disconnecting front sway bar which helps with articulation that obviously carries over to the other higher TRD models and let's talk about drivetrain next and this is the most controversial part of this truck the reason why people were upset is in the past you got a V6 a 3.5 L was a ubiquitous Toyota engine everybody had hearts for it everybody knew how to work on it problem with that engine is twofold by modern power standards it does not make a lot of power and it is not fuel efficient both of those are issues both for Cafe standards and trying to keep up with the other competitors in this class in the past the ranger was a garbage can now it's actually quite good the Colorado is pretty decent the frontier is continuing to be the Old Reliable truck and it makes a decent amount of power the old 3.5 just didn't cut it and to be fair to the 2.4 4cylinder options you you can get this as either a I force or I force Max that means either this is going to be a hybrid drive train or a pure turbocharged 4 cylinder the 24 makes either 270 horsepower in the case of the sixspeed manual or 278 if you get the automatic which is an eight-speed automatic far superior to the old six-speed found in the regular Tacoma and the manual is honestly largely similar feeling or you can get this as a hybrid which only comes as an 8-speed automatic the advantage of this hybrid is that electric motor there's a very small nickel metal hydride battery less than 2 kwatt hours it's going to be reliable it's a Toyota drivetrain blah blah blah but you get a lot of power out of it the electric motor makes an additional 48 horsepower over the regular 2.4 L and that has more torque more torque down low you feel it pulling this truck through everything that's one of the things that you want in a truck like this you want a low down a lot of low down torque now the last thing I'm going to talk about the one thing that this did have a problem with early on is it snapped an axle with tfl and that's due to to Toyota's two off-road electronic control units it has multi-train select and crawl control the way tfl snapped their front axle was with multi-terrain select I spoke to Sheldon about this and I know this was quite a paino for his team credit to them they address it pretty quickly essentially they had an issue with their software early on and what they mean by that was it wasn't entirely ID proove according to Toyota essentially tfl put their truck in a mode in MTS that was never supposed to be in they were driving in an ice conditioned mode but they had it in rock mode so the truck assumed that it would it had a lot of grip when it didn't so it sent a lot of torque to one single axle and it snapped it so knowing that what Toyota did is they reprogrammed the software in these trucks to never let you be in a position where you could accidentally break the truck regardless of the mode you are in they had to further idiot proof the truck's electronic systems it's teething plane of an early truck but I've been assured that that is no longer a problem so that said I think it's time for Mark and I to go take this for a quick drive I'm glad you brought a black forest cake for this drive Mark we're going to talk about the new Tacoma and instead of overdriving this thing I'm actually going to have you experience what this vehicle is like in the real world we're in a TRD off-road not a TRD Pro the TRD models the sport on the off-road are apparently the primary sellers for Toyota and the Tacoma so they view most of their customers buying obviously we talked about in the interior segment and I talked about in the shop first things first the engine this is a controversial bit of this truck you talk about it all the time how you don't like four cylinders in big vehicles but I have spent time in all of the trucks in this class now everything from the frontier which is basically now taking the place of the Ulta being the only V6 natur naturally aspirated truck you can buy to the new ranger to the Colorado and we spent time in the Gladiator and basically everything else in between what I think this truck does really well is this drivetrain Toyota's mastered the four cyinder the 4-cylinder hybrid so let's take this the base 4 cylinder you forgot about the ridg line oh forgive me it's got a V6 I I hate to be that guy it's not a real truck it's unibody can't tow doesn't have a big payload and no one's off-roading a front-wheel drive based truck yeah I think they are I think you're wrong about that all right but this four-cylinder compared to the V6 while it makes the same amount of horsepower it makes far more torque it's like 60 ft-lbs extra the old truck made like 260 this makes 317 0 to 60 something you didn't talk about in the shop this is 0 to 60 in 7 Seconds which for a big four-wheel drive truck is fine compared to the old truck it's over half a second quicker the real world no one's doing 0 to 60 runs what you really care about is going you know 30 to 50 or 60 to 80 you need to pass someone on the highway you need to merge yeah that's where the 8-speed automatic which the majority of these trucks sold where this four POA really comes in torqus more readily available your passing power is more immediate it downshifts quicker it doesn't gear hunt and the fuel economy aspect of it is I mean it's not a lot better it's like 10 to 133% so 1 to two miles per gallon but you combine that with the better torque delivery and smoother gearbox I think the drivetrain as much as I hate to say it is better than the V6 if you're just coming out if you're not a Toyota fan Fanboy right you're not the four runner bro you're not all the off-roaders and the Tacoma people and you look at this generation of truck objectively and you drove the old one to the new one there's no planet that you would be like oh I like the old truck better everything you just said from refinement all the way around from drivve drain chassis interior everything's better on this truck you can't even argue it but the thing is Toyota Fanboys and Toyota people that love these types of products it's more than just about the new stuff what they want is tried and true what they want is the fact that they're still going to have this truck 25 years from now with assuming it's not going to rot out so that that's the X Factor here that's why people are complaining about it so much is they don't care so much about refinement as they do is this thing going to work I think I talked about it in the shop and I spent as I referenced this video a lot of time with the chief engineer Sheldon on this thing and they are you it's an American team this is one of the few Toyota products along with the Camry that is actually designed here in the United States right by an American customer an American engineer and they're well aware of why people like Tacomas and their thing is they're doing everything they can to ensure that it's reliable to have used things in decades not quarters like a lot of American brands they really have a Long View of this stuff and if you have a little bit of faith in the brand which to be fair I think they've earned it at this Point yes there's some problems with the tundra yes they have recalls but they do seem to actually care about their product and you know the grand scheme of what it is I I'll give them the benefit of the doubt in that regards and then when you drive this thing and you know most of the time again Tacomas are not really Fleet purchase Vehicles so for people who buy them for their own personal work or lifestyle stuff versus the really the the two competitors that I think most people are going to CR drop this with other than the frontier which you're buying the frontier if you don't buy anything I'm saying you just want a B6 naturally aspirated old school truck are the Colorado and the ranger longterm as I hate to say that in this Toyota product than a GM I mean do you agree or disagree I don't know I know you're really digging into that cake I'm more interested in my black forest cake I'll be honest one thing I will say is I don't necessarily know that that's going to be true but what I will say is because and I I know you mentioned this in the shop they are doubling down on this engine family right these engines and this V6 yeah it's going to be around forever so there's going to be 6 billion parts for it so even if there are problems with it it's it has to be fixed like it has to be fixed away you'll be able to get parts for this in 15 years yeah and I I think that's that's the big difference is yeah okay maybe it won't have the ultimate reliability of the old one but you will have the knowhow and the parts and the supply chain and everything goes along with keeping this thing on the road for a long time and the same thing goes for the hybrid if you choose to get the hybrid variant the I force Max you get slightly better fuel economy makes even more power and Toyota has been doing hybrids for 20 years now and they've done a good job yeah and their battery packs for Priuses today if you need to go get them replaced how small the battery pack is in this vehicle are not hyp expensive and your day-to-day driving character of that vehicle is really good the torque fill the electric motor further deletes any of the weird turbocharged power delivery of this drivetrain which honestly no truck is fast off the line to begin with and I think this four poer because the torque is delivered so low is really good so Mark with that I think it's time for us to head in the final thoughts and for you to go to the hospital final thoughts on the Toyota Tacoma once again huge thanks to Bridgestone our financial sponsor and of course Sheldon the chief engineer of the toy Tacoma who spent so much time with us over the years so what do I think about the truck well I will say the midsize truck is no longer all that cheap as tests the vehicle behind us is like over $50,000 but this is objectively a better truck than the generation before and every metric you could possibly really measure gets better fuel economy it's better to drive it's more comfortable the engine's more powerful you can still get it as a manual and these trucks are highly configurable you can get a base model or you can go all the way up to nearly $70,000 TRD Pro the truck we have behind us is the TRD off-road I will say if you are looking for a midsize truck and you can live with it in the confines what this thing can do what it can tell how much it costs I think it is probably the best midsize to actually live with the Interior Space is really really nice it's comfortable the drivetrain smooth have a strong feelings can be very reliable and historically toy Tacomas have very very strong residuals if you're looking to actually live with a midsize truck this is definitely one of the better ones so that thanks for watching hope to see you soonthe allnew Toyota Tacoma this is a truck Mark and I've covered extensively on this channel at this point we are at its launch in Hawaii or it's unveiling we drove it at the first drive in California but the one thing we've had to do which has been quite the privilege has spent a lot of time with Sheldon he's the chief engineer of this truck and we've got to know him over the years and he's recently been tasked to work on the updates to the upcoming Tundras now what do you need to know about this video this is not going to be an off-roading video Mark and I work in the middle of Chicago where there's not a lot of off-roading opportunities this is going to be what the truck is and what it's not how they've improved it over the prior generation Tacoma why would you buy this thing and of course walk you through some of the engineering philosophy in the shop and what they tried to address with this generation Tacoma now starting with the interior and exterior this is on the latest generation of TM F specifically for the Tacoma what that means to you as a driver is the bod is more rigid they spent a lot of time isolating at the cabin and the big thing from a livability perspective is they've improved the foot to hip ratio meaning if you are a taller driver the distance from where your foot is to your hip and that Comfort is far far better than the older generation Tacoma if you were a larger person you basically felt like you were driving that thing with your knees in your chest particularly compared to something like an F-150 or a tundra they fixed at for this vehicle the interior space is for a truck Ultra refined doesn't matter what trim level you get it is a much better place than they used to be midsize trucks for a long long time were essentially appliances they realize now with how expensive everything is getting your expectations have risen you can get this with either a 5-ft or 6-ft bed Mark will list the towing ratios based upon what trim level you have on the screen when you get this truck that we have which is a off-road TRD with every option it's pushing over $50,000 but from a interior Comfort perspective it's very good the doors are well laid out all the controls are physical to's infotainment screen despite being hilariously large is reasonable to use this JBL with its removable JB L Bluetooth speaker is actually pretty good the wireless charging pads work well the heated and cooled seats are actually a godsend in this heat the back seats are not that large but they do fold straight up and the bed itself is very usable there's lots of both fixed and movable tie downs you have a 400 W plug in the back and you have a different plug for a 12vt and some USBC charging points other than that though I think it's time for Mark and I to head into the shop and put this thing up on the left where we can walk you through some of the finer details behind its Engineering in the shop with a fourth generation Toyota Tacoma this is going to be the meat and potatoes of our video I've had the unique privilege of spending a lot of time with a chief engineer of Tacoma his name is Sheldon I first met him a couple years ago at the unveiling of the Tacoma in Hawaii and we've talked about the trials and tribulations that went into this truck and what his team had to do so first off this is an American truck now well yes the drivetrain is designed in Japan obviously the basic architecture is largely designed in Japan the Tacoma is an American product it's designed at the cty design studio and Sheldon is an American chief engineer he has to work within the constraints of what this architecture is the reason why people bought Tacomas in the past according to you the viewers as well as the forums and Toyota is that they were bomb proof efficient at what they were intended to be which is a midsize truck and they did everything reasonably well for this generation they had to live up to that bomb proof reliability but they to deal with a changing Market not only are missions more complicated but people themselves are asking more out of their trucks they're getting more expensive the competition which was largely throwaway in the past is now better than ever and these vehicles have to be more things and more people they have to be a daily driver they have to be comfortable they have to be a substitute for a small SUV or full-size SUV they have to do truck things and they also has to have to last a very very long time so how do they accomplish that well let's start with the frame this is on the tngf architecture it is Toyota lexus's highly scalable truck platform and it underpins everything from the LX Land Cruiser GX upcoming 4Runner Tundra and seoa however it is highly modular it is not the identical frame they can gauge up and gauge down the steel where necessary they can change the length of the ladder frame and the suspension hard points can be moved slightly the overhangs can be changed in the front and the rear This is highly highly flexible and with their Tajima welding their patent and Welding structure where they add blanks into certain areas with the gauging up and gauging down to Steel they can make the frames as light and as efficient as possible for their intended purpose the Tacoma has the same width as a tundra but it is obviously much shorter and this truck has to be stretched it can be their extra cab 5ft bed all the way up to their quad cab 6-ft bed there's a lot of flexibility there now from suspension so the base model truck is the SR grade it starts at just over $31,000 and it is a leaf spring truck it is their work truck markk and I joke this is the poverty trim level this is for somebody who doesn't care about refinement and necessarily be all end all of handling or off-road capability they just want a truck that's what this thing accomplishes it can be four-wheel drive that was predominantly sold as rear wheel drive and the Leafs in the back are underslung re Leafs the reason they do that is so they can easily manufacture this thing and they don't have to change the line to fit the other variants of suspension for this truck which from that trim level up so SR5 all the way up to the TRD Pro off-road and TRD Trail Hunter are all multi-link rear suspensions so the SR5 it gets a twin tube shock it can be had as four-wheel drive then the TRD variants like the TRD Sport and off-road like this truck have their own spe specific suspension tuning they change spring rates and damber tuning to fit the profile of the truck so for example the TRD sport well does not get the monot tubes off of this has more sportily tuned Springs and dampers to make sure the vehicle feels a little bit more Nimble this tiity off-road which according to Toyota in the past was one of their most popular trim levels gets the billstein monotube dampers with piggyback canisters in the rear this truck was specifically tuned to be that heavier off-road truck while still maintaining its onroad capability while being built at a price point when you move up to the TRD Pro and the TRD Trail Hunter you get another level of sophistication when it comes to dampers and you get unique upper control arms you get forged upper control arms in the front for obviously greater strength and better suspension geometry to deal with Rebound in the TRD Pro you get Fox dampers which are adjustable and then in the TRD Trail Hunter you get old man emu shocks the primary difference is the purpose of the driving character of both vehicles the TRD Pro which I have driven off-road and can jump is for that baja high-speed off-road truck driver someone who wants to jump through the truck bfo rally driver and the trail Hunter is built for somebody who's planning on doing slower off-roading with a heavily Laden vehicle it's for that overlanding crowd the idea is this truck is going to be loaded full of your crap possibly a tent in the back and you're going off-road at lower speeds but the truck is going to be absolutely maxed out with crap Toyota is working with their suppliers like old man emu and fox to build the best possible package for the vehicle let's talk about the next part of this which is how they set up lockers and sway bars so basically as soon as you get up to the TRD models you get electronic locking rout differential in the case of the TRD off-road you can get an optional disconnecting front sway bar which helps with articulation that obviously carries over to the other higher TRD models and let's talk about drivetrain next and this is the most controversial part of this truck the reason why people were upset is in the past you got a V6 a 3.5 L was a ubiquitous Toyota engine everybody had hearts for it everybody knew how to work on it problem with that engine is twofold by modern power standards it does not make a lot of power and it is not fuel efficient both of those are issues both for Cafe standards and trying to keep up with the other competitors in this class in the past the ranger was a garbage can now it's actually quite good the Colorado is pretty decent the frontier is continuing to be the Old Reliable truck and it makes a decent amount of power the old 3.5 just didn't cut it and to be fair to the 2.4 4cylinder options you you can get this as either a I force or I force Max that means either this is going to be a hybrid drive train or a pure turbocharged 4 cylinder the 24 makes either 270 horsepower in the case of the sixspeed manual or 278 if you get the automatic which is an eight-speed automatic far superior to the old six-speed found in the regular Tacoma and the manual is honestly largely similar feeling or you can get this as a hybrid which only comes as an 8-speed automatic the advantage of this hybrid is that electric motor there's a very small nickel metal hydride battery less than 2 kwatt hours it's going to be reliable it's a Toyota drivetrain blah blah blah but you get a lot of power out of it the electric motor makes an additional 48 horsepower over the regular 2.4 L and that has more torque more torque down low you feel it pulling this truck through everything that's one of the things that you want in a truck like this you want a low down a lot of low down torque now the last thing I'm going to talk about the one thing that this did have a problem with early on is it snapped an axle with tfl and that's due to to Toyota's two off-road electronic control units it has multi-train select and crawl control the way tfl snapped their front axle was with multi-terrain select I spoke to Sheldon about this and I know this was quite a paino for his team credit to them they address it pretty quickly essentially they had an issue with their software early on and what they mean by that was it wasn't entirely ID proove according to Toyota essentially tfl put their truck in a mode in MTS that was never supposed to be in they were driving in an ice conditioned mode but they had it in rock mode so the truck assumed that it would it had a lot of grip when it didn't so it sent a lot of torque to one single axle and it snapped it so knowing that what Toyota did is they reprogrammed the software in these trucks to never let you be in a position where you could accidentally break the truck regardless of the mode you are in they had to further idiot proof the truck's electronic systems it's teething plane of an early truck but I've been assured that that is no longer a problem so that said I think it's time for Mark and I to go take this for a quick drive I'm glad you brought a black forest cake for this drive Mark we're going to talk about the new Tacoma and instead of overdriving this thing I'm actually going to have you experience what this vehicle is like in the real world we're in a TRD off-road not a TRD Pro the TRD models the sport on the off-road are apparently the primary sellers for Toyota and the Tacoma so they view most of their customers buying obviously we talked about in the interior segment and I talked about in the shop first things first the engine this is a controversial bit of this truck you talk about it all the time how you don't like four cylinders in big vehicles but I have spent time in all of the trucks in this class now everything from the frontier which is basically now taking the place of the Ulta being the only V6 natur naturally aspirated truck you can buy to the new ranger to the Colorado and we spent time in the Gladiator and basically everything else in between what I think this truck does really well is this drivetrain Toyota's mastered the four cyinder the 4-cylinder hybrid so let's take this the base 4 cylinder you forgot about the ridg line oh forgive me it's got a V6 I I hate to be that guy it's not a real truck it's unibody can't tow doesn't have a big payload and no one's off-roading a front-wheel drive based truck yeah I think they are I think you're wrong about that all right but this four-cylinder compared to the V6 while it makes the same amount of horsepower it makes far more torque it's like 60 ft-lbs extra the old truck made like 260 this makes 317 0 to 60 something you didn't talk about in the shop this is 0 to 60 in 7 Seconds which for a big four-wheel drive truck is fine compared to the old truck it's over half a second quicker the real world no one's doing 0 to 60 runs what you really care about is going you know 30 to 50 or 60 to 80 you need to pass someone on the highway you need to merge yeah that's where the 8-speed automatic which the majority of these trucks sold where this four POA really comes in torqus more readily available your passing power is more immediate it downshifts quicker it doesn't gear hunt and the fuel economy aspect of it is I mean it's not a lot better it's like 10 to 133% so 1 to two miles per gallon but you combine that with the better torque delivery and smoother gearbox I think the drivetrain as much as I hate to say it is better than the V6 if you're just coming out if you're not a Toyota fan Fanboy right you're not the four runner bro you're not all the off-roaders and the Tacoma people and you look at this generation of truck objectively and you drove the old one to the new one there's no planet that you would be like oh I like the old truck better everything you just said from refinement all the way around from drivve drain chassis interior everything's better on this truck you can't even argue it but the thing is Toyota Fanboys and Toyota people that love these types of products it's more than just about the new stuff what they want is tried and true what they want is the fact that they're still going to have this truck 25 years from now with assuming it's not going to rot out so that that's the X Factor here that's why people are complaining about it so much is they don't care so much about refinement as they do is this thing going to work I think I talked about it in the shop and I spent as I referenced this video a lot of time with the chief engineer Sheldon on this thing and they are you it's an American team this is one of the few Toyota products along with the Camry that is actually designed here in the United States right by an American customer an American engineer and they're well aware of why people like Tacomas and their thing is they're doing everything they can to ensure that it's reliable to have used things in decades not quarters like a lot of American brands they really have a Long View of this stuff and if you have a little bit of faith in the brand which to be fair I think they've earned it at this Point yes there's some problems with the tundra yes they have recalls but they do seem to actually care about their product and you know the grand scheme of what it is I I'll give them the benefit of the doubt in that regards and then when you drive this thing and you know most of the time again Tacomas are not really Fleet purchase Vehicles so for people who buy them for their own personal work or lifestyle stuff versus the really the the two competitors that I think most people are going to CR drop this with other than the frontier which you're buying the frontier if you don't buy anything I'm saying you just want a B6 naturally aspirated old school truck are the Colorado and the ranger longterm as I hate to say that in this Toyota product than a GM I mean do you agree or disagree I don't know I know you're really digging into that cake I'm more interested in my black forest cake I'll be honest one thing I will say is I don't necessarily know that that's going to be true but what I will say is because and I I know you mentioned this in the shop they are doubling down on this engine family right these engines and this V6 yeah it's going to be around forever so there's going to be 6 billion parts for it so even if there are problems with it it's it has to be fixed like it has to be fixed away you'll be able to get parts for this in 15 years yeah and I I think that's that's the big difference is yeah okay maybe it won't have the ultimate reliability of the old one but you will have the knowhow and the parts and the supply chain and everything goes along with keeping this thing on the road for a long time and the same thing goes for the hybrid if you choose to get the hybrid variant the I force Max you get slightly better fuel economy makes even more power and Toyota has been doing hybrids for 20 years now and they've done a good job yeah and their battery packs for Priuses today if you need to go get them replaced how small the battery pack is in this vehicle are not hyp expensive and your day-to-day driving character of that vehicle is really good the torque fill the electric motor further deletes any of the weird turbocharged power delivery of this drivetrain which honestly no truck is fast off the line to begin with and I think this four poer because the torque is delivered so low is really good so Mark with that I think it's time for us to head in the final thoughts and for you to go to the hospital final thoughts on the Toyota Tacoma once again huge thanks to Bridgestone our financial sponsor and of course Sheldon the chief engineer of the toy Tacoma who spent so much time with us over the years so what do I think about the truck well I will say the midsize truck is no longer all that cheap as tests the vehicle behind us is like over $50,000 but this is objectively a better truck than the generation before and every metric you could possibly really measure gets better fuel economy it's better to drive it's more comfortable the engine's more powerful you can still get it as a manual and these trucks are highly configurable you can get a base model or you can go all the way up to nearly $70,000 TRD Pro the truck we have behind us is the TRD off-road I will say if you are looking for a midsize truck and you can live with it in the confines what this thing can do what it can tell how much it costs I think it is probably the best midsize to actually live with the Interior Space is really really nice it's comfortable the drivetrain smooth have a strong feelings can be very reliable and historically toy Tacomas have very very strong residuals if you're looking to actually live with a midsize truck this is definitely one of the better ones so that thanks for watching hope to see you soonthe allnew Toyota Tacoma this is a truck Mark and I've covered extensively on this channel at this point we are at its launch in Hawaii or it's unveiling we drove it at the first drive in California but the one thing we've had to do which has been quite the privilege has spent a lot of time with Sheldon he's the chief engineer of this truck and we've got to know him over the years and he's recently been tasked to work on the updates to the upcoming Tundras now what do you need to know about this video this is not going to be an off-roading video Mark and I work in the middle of Chicago where there's not a lot of off-roading opportunities this is going to be what the truck is and what it's not how they've improved it over the prior generation Tacoma why would you buy this thing and of course walk you through some of the engineering philosophy in the shop and what they tried to address with this generation Tacoma now starting with the interior and exterior this is on the latest generation of TM F specifically for the Tacoma what that means to you as a driver is the bod is more rigid they spent a lot of time isolating at the cabin and the big thing from a livability perspective is they've improved the foot to hip ratio meaning if you are a taller driver the distance from where your foot is to your hip and that Comfort is far far better than the older generation Tacoma if you were a larger person you basically felt like you were driving that thing with your knees in your chest particularly compared to something like an F-150 or a tundra they fixed at for this vehicle the interior space is for a truck Ultra refined doesn't matter what trim level you get it is a much better place than they used to be midsize trucks for a long long time were essentially appliances they realize now with how expensive everything is getting your expectations have risen you can get this with either a 5-ft or 6-ft bed Mark will list the towing ratios based upon what trim level you have on the screen when you get this truck that we have which is a off-road TRD with every option it's pushing over $50,000 but from a interior Comfort perspective it's very good the doors are well laid out all the controls are physical to's infotainment screen despite being hilariously large is reasonable to use this JBL with its removable JB L Bluetooth speaker is actually pretty good the wireless charging pads work well the heated and cooled seats are actually a godsend in this heat the back seats are not that large but they do fold straight up and the bed itself is very usable there's lots of both fixed and movable tie downs you have a 400 W plug in the back and you have a different plug for a 12vt and some USBC charging points other than that though I think it's time for Mark and I to head into the shop and put this thing up on the left where we can walk you through some of the finer details behind its Engineering in the shop with a fourth generation Toyota Tacoma this is going to be the meat and potatoes of our video I've had the unique privilege of spending a lot of time with a chief engineer of Tacoma his name is Sheldon I first met him a couple years ago at the unveiling of the Tacoma in Hawaii and we've talked about the trials and tribulations that went into this truck and what his team had to do so first off this is an American truck now well yes the drivetrain is designed in Japan obviously the basic architecture is largely designed in Japan the Tacoma is an American product it's designed at the cty design studio and Sheldon is an American chief engineer he has to work within the constraints of what this architecture is the reason why people bought Tacomas in the past according to you the viewers as well as the forums and Toyota is that they were bomb proof efficient at what they were intended to be which is a midsize truck and they did everything reasonably well for this generation they had to live up to that bomb proof reliability but they to deal with a changing Market not only are missions more complicated but people themselves are asking more out of their trucks they're getting more expensive the competition which was largely throwaway in the past is now better than ever and these vehicles have to be more things and more people they have to be a daily driver they have to be comfortable they have to be a substitute for a small SUV or full-size SUV they have to do truck things and they also has to have to last a very very long time so how do they accomplish that well let's start with the frame this is on the tngf architecture it is Toyota lexus's highly scalable truck platform and it underpins everything from the LX Land Cruiser GX upcoming 4Runner Tundra and seoa however it is highly modular it is not the identical frame they can gauge up and gauge down the steel where necessary they can change the length of the ladder frame and the suspension hard points can be moved slightly the overhangs can be changed in the front and the rear This is highly highly flexible and with their Tajima welding their patent and Welding structure where they add blanks into certain areas with the gauging up and gauging down to Steel they can make the frames as light and as efficient as possible for their intended purpose the Tacoma has the same width as a tundra but it is obviously much shorter and this truck has to be stretched it can be their extra cab 5ft bed all the way up to their quad cab 6-ft bed there's a lot of flexibility there now from suspension so the base model truck is the SR grade it starts at just over $31,000 and it is a leaf spring truck it is their work truck markk and I joke this is the poverty trim level this is for somebody who doesn't care about refinement and necessarily be all end all of handling or off-road capability they just want a truck that's what this thing accomplishes it can be four-wheel drive that was predominantly sold as rear wheel drive and the Leafs in the back are underslung re Leafs the reason they do that is so they can easily manufacture this thing and they don't have to change the line to fit the other variants of suspension for this truck which from that trim level up so SR5 all the way up to the TRD Pro off-road and TRD Trail Hunter are all multi-link rear suspensions so the SR5 it gets a twin tube shock it can be had as four-wheel drive then the TRD variants like the TRD Sport and off-road like this truck have their own spe specific suspension tuning they change spring rates and damber tuning to fit the profile of the truck so for example the TRD sport well does not get the monot tubes off of this has more sportily tuned Springs and dampers to make sure the vehicle feels a little bit more Nimble this tiity off-road which according to Toyota in the past was one of their most popular trim levels gets the billstein monotube dampers with piggyback canisters in the rear this truck was specifically tuned to be that heavier off-road truck while still maintaining its onroad capability while being built at a price point when you move up to the TRD Pro and the TRD Trail Hunter you get another level of sophistication when it comes to dampers and you get unique upper control arms you get forged upper control arms in the front for obviously greater strength and better suspension geometry to deal with Rebound in the TRD Pro you get Fox dampers which are adjustable and then in the TRD Trail Hunter you get old man emu shocks the primary difference is the purpose of the driving character of both vehicles the TRD Pro which I have driven off-road and can jump is for that baja high-speed off-road truck driver someone who wants to jump through the truck bfo rally driver and the trail Hunter is built for somebody who's planning on doing slower off-roading with a heavily Laden vehicle it's for that overlanding crowd the idea is this truck is going to be loaded full of your crap possibly a tent in the back and you're going off-road at lower speeds but the truck is going to be absolutely maxed out with crap Toyota is working with their suppliers like old man emu and fox to build the best possible package for the vehicle let's talk about the next part of this which is how they set up lockers and sway bars so basically as soon as you get up to the TRD models you get electronic locking rout differential in the case of the TRD off-road you can get an optional disconnecting front sway bar which helps with articulation that obviously carries over to the other higher TRD models and let's talk about drivetrain next and this is the most controversial part of this truck the reason why people were upset is in the past you got a V6 a 3.5 L was a ubiquitous Toyota engine everybody had hearts for it everybody knew how to work on it problem with that engine is twofold by modern power standards it does not make a lot of power and it is not fuel efficient both of those are issues both for Cafe standards and trying to keep up with the other competitors in this class in the past the ranger was a garbage can now it's actually quite good the Colorado is pretty decent the frontier is continuing to be the Old Reliable truck and it makes a decent amount of power the old 3.5 just didn't cut it and to be fair to the 2.4 4cylinder options you you can get this as either a I force or I force Max that means either this is going to be a hybrid drive train or a pure turbocharged 4 cylinder the 24 makes either 270 horsepower in the case of the sixspeed manual or 278 if you get the automatic which is an eight-speed automatic far superior to the old six-speed found in the regular Tacoma and the manual is honestly largely similar feeling or you can get this as a hybrid which only comes as an 8-speed automatic the advantage of this hybrid is that electric motor there's a very small nickel metal hydride battery less than 2 kwatt hours it's going to be reliable it's a Toyota drivetrain blah blah blah but you get a lot of power out of it the electric motor makes an additional 48 horsepower over the regular 2.4 L and that has more torque more torque down low you feel it pulling this truck through everything that's one of the things that you want in a truck like this you want a low down a lot of low down torque now the last thing I'm going to talk about the one thing that this did have a problem with early on is it snapped an axle with tfl and that's due to to Toyota's two off-road electronic control units it has multi-train select and crawl control the way tfl snapped their front axle was with multi-terrain select I spoke to Sheldon about this and I know this was quite a paino for his team credit to them they address it pretty quickly essentially they had an issue with their software early on and what they mean by that was it wasn't entirely ID proove according to Toyota essentially tfl put their truck in a mode in MTS that was never supposed to be in they were driving in an ice conditioned mode but they had it in rock mode so the truck assumed that it would it had a lot of grip when it didn't so it sent a lot of torque to one single axle and it snapped it so knowing that what Toyota did is they reprogrammed the software in these trucks to never let you be in a position where you could accidentally break the truck regardless of the mode you are in they had to further idiot proof the truck's electronic systems it's teething plane of an early truck but I've been assured that that is no longer a problem so that said I think it's time for Mark and I to go take this for a quick drive I'm glad you brought a black forest cake for this drive Mark we're going to talk about the new Tacoma and instead of overdriving this thing I'm actually going to have you experience what this vehicle is like in the real world we're in a TRD off-road not a TRD Pro the TRD models the sport on the off-road are apparently the primary sellers for Toyota and the Tacoma so they view most of their customers buying obviously we talked about in the interior segment and I talked about in the shop first things first the engine this is a controversial bit of this truck you talk about it all the time how you don't like four cylinders in big vehicles but I have spent time in all of the trucks in this class now everything from the frontier which is basically now taking the place of the Ulta being the only V6 natur naturally aspirated truck you can buy to the new ranger to the Colorado and we spent time in the Gladiator and basically everything else in between what I think this truck does really well is this drivetrain Toyota's mastered the four cyinder the 4-cylinder hybrid so let's take this the base 4 cylinder you forgot about the ridg line oh forgive me it's got a V6 I I hate to be that guy it's not a real truck it's unibody can't tow doesn't have a big payload and no one's off-roading a front-wheel drive based truck yeah I think they are I think you're wrong about that all right but this four-cylinder compared to the V6 while it makes the same amount of horsepower it makes far more torque it's like 60 ft-lbs extra the old truck made like 260 this makes 317 0 to 60 something you didn't talk about in the shop this is 0 to 60 in 7 Seconds which for a big four-wheel drive truck is fine compared to the old truck it's over half a second quicker the real world no one's doing 0 to 60 runs what you really care about is going you know 30 to 50 or 60 to 80 you need to pass someone on the highway you need to merge yeah that's where the 8-speed automatic which the majority of these trucks sold where this four POA really comes in torqus more readily available your passing power is more immediate it downshifts quicker it doesn't gear hunt and the fuel economy aspect of it is I mean it's not a lot better it's like 10 to 133% so 1 to two miles per gallon but you combine that with the better torque delivery and smoother gearbox I think the drivetrain as much as I hate to say it is better than the V6 if you're just coming out if you're not a Toyota fan Fanboy right you're not the four runner bro you're not all the off-roaders and the Tacoma people and you look at this generation of truck objectively and you drove the old one to the new one there's no planet that you would be like oh I like the old truck better everything you just said from refinement all the way around from drivve drain chassis interior everything's better on this truck you can't even argue it but the thing is Toyota Fanboys and Toyota people that love these types of products it's more than just about the new stuff what they want is tried and true what they want is the fact that they're still going to have this truck 25 years from now with assuming it's not going to rot out so that that's the X Factor here that's why people are complaining about it so much is they don't care so much about refinement as they do is this thing going to work I think I talked about it in the shop and I spent as I referenced this video a lot of time with the chief engineer Sheldon on this thing and they are you it's an American team this is one of the few Toyota products along with the Camry that is actually designed here in the United States right by an American customer an American engineer and they're well aware of why people like Tacomas and their thing is they're doing everything they can to ensure that it's reliable to have used things in decades not quarters like a lot of American brands they really have a Long View of this stuff and if you have a little bit of faith in the brand which to be fair I think they've earned it at this Point yes there's some problems with the tundra yes they have recalls but they do seem to actually care about their product and you know the grand scheme of what it is I I'll give them the benefit of the doubt in that regards and then when you drive this thing and you know most of the time again Tacomas are not really Fleet purchase Vehicles so for people who buy them for their own personal work or lifestyle stuff versus the really the the two competitors that I think most people are going to CR drop this with other than the frontier which you're buying the frontier if you don't buy anything I'm saying you just want a B6 naturally aspirated old school truck are the Colorado and the ranger longterm as I hate to say that in this Toyota product than a GM I mean do you agree or disagree I don't know I know you're really digging into that cake I'm more interested in my black forest cake I'll be honest one thing I will say is I don't necessarily know that that's going to be true but what I will say is because and I I know you mentioned this in the shop they are doubling down on this engine family right these engines and this V6 yeah it's going to be around forever so there's going to be 6 billion parts for it so even if there are problems with it it's it has to be fixed like it has to be fixed away you'll be able to get parts for this in 15 years yeah and I I think that's that's the big difference is yeah okay maybe it won't have the ultimate reliability of the old one but you will have the knowhow and the parts and the supply chain and everything goes along with keeping this thing on the road for a long time and the same thing goes for the hybrid if you choose to get the hybrid variant the I force Max you get slightly better fuel economy makes even more power and Toyota has been doing hybrids for 20 years now and they've done a good job yeah and their battery packs for Priuses today if you need to go get them replaced how small the battery pack is in this vehicle are not hyp expensive and your day-to-day driving character of that vehicle is really good the torque fill the electric motor further deletes any of the weird turbocharged power delivery of this drivetrain which honestly no truck is fast off the line to begin with and I think this four poer because the torque is delivered so low is really good so Mark with that I think it's time for us to head in the final thoughts and for you to go to the hospital final thoughts on the Toyota Tacoma once again huge thanks to Bridgestone our financial sponsor and of course Sheldon the chief engineer of the toy Tacoma who spent so much time with us over the years so what do I think about the truck well I will say the midsize truck is no longer all that cheap as tests the vehicle behind us is like over $50,000 but this is objectively a better truck than the generation before and every metric you could possibly really measure gets better fuel economy it's better to drive it's more comfortable the engine's more powerful you can still get it as a manual and these trucks are highly configurable you can get a base model or you can go all the way up to nearly $70,000 TRD Pro the truck we have behind us is the TRD off-road I will say if you are looking for a midsize truck and you can live with it in the confines what this thing can do what it can tell how much it costs I think it is probably the best midsize to actually live with the Interior Space is really really nice it's comfortable the drivetrain smooth have a strong feelings can be very reliable and historically toy Tacomas have very very strong residuals if you're looking to actually live with a midsize truck this is definitely one of the better ones so that thanks for watching hope to see you soon\n"