Are you saying that YOU dont stereotype? It's human nature. MY opinion is worth just as much as the next guys. Just because you dont like it doesnt mean you have to agree with it. This is a public forum.

Please keep personal attacks and racial connotations out of it. I wasnt going there.

Why dont you add something to the thread (maybe your opinion) instead of attacking me personally for MY opinion. I thought personal attacks were against forum rules, no?

 

hey why don't you guys start a literary jousting thread and then the rest of us can talk about trucks and not about who is more edumacated or who can insult the other without the other knowing it was an insult.

 

no kidding...these guys are taking this waaaaay too seriously!

 

So, a lot of people on here seem to look down on the new Tacoma or Toyota's because of it's "so called" poor quality. If you had to buy a NEW truck, no other option, you have to buy a NEW truck to live your daily life then what would you buy. Lets talk compact/midsize and 1/2 ton only. I don't want to get into the HD market as currently Toyota offers no vehicle to compete.

There's no wrong answer. This is simply your opinion and we all know everyone on here has one.


Simply put, state your choice and why.

 

You're absolutely right.
I made remarks in my last post that kind of contradict themselves.
I apologize for throwing this thread way off-topic and getting as
animated as I did about things. dirtoyboy, you have a PM.

 

interesting.

 

i did and would buy again over and over the new TACOMA it is the best all around truck made Reliability,safety,comfort,convience,and oh did i mention it is bad a$$ off road.

 

Dirt,


Do You think the new Toyotas are as good as the older ones?


thanks Kiwi

 

well i do. Actually i think they are better, the body and interior i would agree are not the same quality but engine and driveline parts are better my new tacoma has Spicer drive shafts that is Sweet. Plus that new 4.0 is the most amazing v6 i have ever driven. power, reliability and dare i say gas mileage. i average about 23mpg pretty for that big of a truck and that much power.

 

Thanks, Nix....proof that people can agree to disagree....

My real intent in making that generalization was to conjure up some discussion about work ethic, workmanship and cultural differences between Japan and US.... I would imagine that many Americans view American auto workers as the way I described; it's really not my personal belief....I'm a little more educated than that



kinda backfired, I guess. Sorry to Nix and anyone else I offended

anyways, I would buy a new tacoma in a heartbeat

 

Kiwi;

Thanks... Driving the thing is a high... an exhiliration I haven't had since my second Gold Wing. At my age, that is saying something.

The thing is, what is difficult to get out of a simple test drive, is the handling. Tracking, cornering is amazing. The guys that designed this truck are geniuses.

As to climbing... I took it down our "generator road", which is where we have the hydro system... as a test. Coming back up, which is a challenge for anything but my ATV (small rocks make it easy to slip without lockers), complete with slippery mud... I stopped. Something I don't even do on the ATV.

Result was: almost no slip. Just smooth acceleration. This was in standard mode, "D", no switch to the AT-Lock system. No locking into first gear.

As I said... the guy(s) who designed this 4wd system are geniuses.

'Nuff said... this is Toyota forum.. (love my Toyotas).

 

The old tacos are more work friendly that the new ones, i miss the metal beds on them. Also i miss the diesel ones here in the states. Back in el salvador my father still have a 1975 toyota dyna engine bu10 diesel running strong, he welded the chassis like 10 times(due to overload) but the rest of the truck still running fine. I miss the toyotas diesel, the only option here is the conversion but thats a big project.

 

How are they more work friendly?

Lets see, they had a metal bed that will have the paint chipped, scratched, and scraped. A metal bed that can eventually rust as a result of paint damage. A metal bed that can dent and bend.

Not only that, but a metal bed that is NARROWER, which further limits the width of what will fit in it.

I had a '06 Kawasaki Brute Force 750 4 wheeler, with aftermarket tires and wheels on it. With the wheels sticking out further than stock, in order for me to carry it in my '06, the front wheels and tires had to be wedged in between the wheel wells. It was a bit hard to load because of that, but it did fit.

The Brute contacted the wheel wells pretty hard. But because they are NOT METAL, I didn't worry about it. It did make marks on the inside of the wheel wells (only cosmetic), but there is no actual damage, no paint to scratch, no metal to rust because of scratched paint, and no metal to bend.

I've even carried the Brute 850 miles to Kentucky, with no bed damage. Several times.

I wonder if I could have even carried my Brute in an older Tacoma with a narrower bed, and if it could have been carried, would there have been any bed damage as a result?

As far as being work friendly, mine has a couple of storage compartments AND an inverter powered 120 volt AC receptacle that I can (and have) plugged power tools into. Then there's also the adjustable tie down points inside the bed rail that I have used.

In fact, in March of last year, I was in Kentucky with my Brute and damaged the engine. It wouldn't run, so I had to move one of the bed rail tie downs to the front of the bed, hook the Brute's winch cable to it, and winch it up the ramp and into the bed. Could I have done that with an older Tacoma, especially without BENDING the front of the bed?

Did the older metal-bed Tacomas have any of those features and advantages?

Okay, so show me how the older Tacomas were more work friendly.

 

Figured I would chime in on this. I've been driving Toyota 4x4 pickups for the last 21 years. I have owned at least one of every body style smaller truck they make (no t-100's or tundras) and I've also had 2 FJ40's. I still and always will have my 79. In 2005 I started getting sick of taking of the snowplow off my 89 pickup (which I still have) to go to work on snowy days. So I traded in my 04 RSX daily driver for my 05 2.7 access cab 4x4. It was comfortable, had decent power, and actually got 23-24MPG on the highway. I was a very happy camper. At around 15k miles the stock tires just weren't cutting it, so I replaced them. No big deal. At about 50k miles the shocks were toast. So I put Bilsteins in, no big deal, would have done it anyway. At about the same time I had to spend an entire day grinding rust off the frame to paint it with rust bullet. It was in worse shape than my 89 with 200k on it. At 72k I started hearing a pretty major groaning from the front end. So after some investigation I discovered it needed BOTH front wheel bearings. So I was a little shocked but of course I fixed it. Then a few months later the alternator went at about 75k miles. And last spring at about 90k the A/C compressor seized. I haven't fixed the A/C compressor yet mostly due to the fact I hardly drive this thing in the summer. My 25 year old mustang has icy cold A/C and my FJ40 has a soft top. I still like my Tacoma. It's been paid for for a few years now and it still runs and drives nice. But it's nowhere near the build quality nor does it have the longevity of the older trucks. If I had the time to build myself another truck to keep forever I would probably build a 94-95 SR5 extracab with a 3.4 swap, a few inches of lift, 32's etc. But that wouldn't get the mileage of my tacoma, and it would be pain getting my daughter in her car seat without the second set of doors. So the tacoma has to do. And it does just fine, but I am always wondering what's going to break next. Honestly my 185k mile 25 year old Ford has been more reliable. And that's kinda sad. I still think it's better than anything else out there available new but to say they are overall better than the older trucks is not the case in my experience.

 

^ my 2 cents is the same, body styles with the 3.4 and 2.7 for either truck/4Runner and down are the way to go imo. Not a fan of the newer stuff and I too believe their quality has gone down.

 

well the composite bed the new ones i dont think they will do well with a extreme conditions that this trucks are used around the world, i dont know if for the rest of the world get the same composite bed. imagine this composite beds with 30-40 peoples on them or with cows, bulls in them. here in the states we dont abuse them like people do around the world. i like the new bed is just i dont trust them for extreme conditions.

 

30-40 people?

Tell me, how would you get 30-40 people in a truck bed anyway? Even an adult cow wouldn't likely fit because they are too long. So that's a moot point, since that many people won't fit, and neither will cows.

Even a full size Ford/Chevy/Dodge longbed isn't big enough for 30-40 people. Not to mention the fact that at a (conservative) average of 150 pounds per person, 30-40 people is 4500-6000 pounds. Even a full size 1 ton heavy duty truck would have trouble with that much weight in the bed.

And see my comments in my last post about the 4 wheeler I had that barely fit. Me jamming the front wheels between the wheel wells is more abuse to the bed than is typical, yet the bed has held up just fine.

Also see my comments on how the Toyota bed won't dent, bend, or rust like a steel bed will.

Regardless, what people do in the rest of the world is a moot point for a very large majority of us on here because we are in the USA/Canada.

The only problem I had with my bed is that things slide around on the slick surface. I wish Toyota had coated the bottom of the bed with something to keep things from sliding.

I installed a cheap rubber bed mat in mine to stop the sliding.

 

my 05 Tacoma, purchased new now has 58K miles and never an issue besides a bad battery. I had a fist gen Tacoma before my second gen and feel that they are both good trucks.

 

What happens when you do manage to break the composite bed? How much is that going to cost to replace vs the possibility of repair of a metal bed.

 

That's a good question, so I went out and looked at mine, as well as went to a Toyota OEM parts website and looked at an exploded diagram along with prices.

If I were to damage the inner box assembly of my '06 (bed floor, inner bed wall, etc.), that looks to be fairly easily replaceable. It looks like the bed just bolts together.

The price for the inner box assembly (bottom, front, both sides all as one molded-together unit) for my '06 is $1075.08 from the first (and only) website I checked. There might be a better price, but I didn't check further.

Again, that's the whole inner bed, which included the bottom, front, and sides molded together as one unit.

On the last year of the previous generation ('04), the inner bed bottom, inner sides, and front all come separately. So I priced all of those parts together (since the '05+ are one unit). The total for the equivalent parts for an '04 is $1719.12.

So the '05+ inner bed is almost $700 cheaper just for the equivalent parts.

One advantage of the '04 and older is that just individual inner bed parts (floor, side, front) can be replaced. The floor is $317.56, the front $232.44, the sides $584.56 each.

BUT keep in mind that the '04 and older steel bed parts have to be welded together, as well as painted. Add the cost and time up to the parts to weld and paint the '04 and older, and that further increases the cost over an '05+.

So to summarize, on the '05+ the inner bed is cheaper and easier to fix.