Well, golly, T-Cro, you just hit one of my hot buttons. I'll cut and paste this rant from several years ago with a few of my opinions on Toyota trucks. As always with opinions, most people won't agree with me, but here are my thoughts for what they are worth:
I have a 1990 Toyota Hi-Lux truck (they didn't call them Tacomas then), 4x4 X-cab, 3.0 V-6, 5-speed manual. It only has 360,000 miles on it and it has been the best vehicle I ever owned.
New Toyotas are not in any way comparable to the older vehicles, in my humble opinion.
In February 2007 I bought a brand new Tacoma (actually not yet built, I had to wait for it), 4x4, X-Cab, trailer package, TRD Off-Road suspension package, premium sound system, 4.0 V-6, 6-speed manual, electric rear locker. I paid a little under $28,000 for it. Biggest piece o'crap I ever had, and that includes the 1976 FIAT 124 Spyder.
This forum doesn’t have enough bandwidth to list all the shortcomings I found in that vehicle (I can’t really call it a truck, it was more like a tall Camry with a LOT of trunk space), but here are some that come easily to mind:
I am 6'1" and the ergonomics were terrible for me. Very limited (as in dangerously so) visibility, shifter too far forward, not enough room under the panel for all three pedals plus my feet, gas, brake, and clutch. Gearing is all wrong, first gear is way too low, (out of six speeds, only the even ones were usable, the odds just didn’t match any driving speed/RPM combo I could find) annoying exhaust rumble at all RPMs, paint thin and easily damaged by tree sap and fingernails, the roof dented when I leaned on it gently while washing it, light grey interior showed every finger-print and speck of dirt, lousy sound from the premium system, acceleration hesitation/stumble. The brake system would allow the pedal to go clear to the floor if I held pressure on it for say three minutes. I nearly rolled backwards into another car while waiting for a red light on Cherry Street in Seattle, a very steep hill. Dealer mechanic said, "Yeah, that's because of how the ABS works." WTF?
?? I duplicated that by holding the pedal on another truck at another dealer and it did the same thing.
Mechanic's line on each and every problem I had was "They all do that."
I could go on and on. Go to
www.toyotanation.com and you'll find a lot of stories about cracked/broken plastic beds, loose fenders, bent/broken tailgates, etc. The best fuel mileage I ever got was 16MPG. I will say the only good thing about that vehicle was the suspension, the TRD Off-Road package. Outstanding. It would do 60 MPH all day on our Washington State logging roads, IF you could get the computer to allow you to put it into 4WD, which was a hit-or-miss proposition. Low-range? Well, maybe on a good day, if you held your nose right and wore the correct color hat, but not when you really need it. I HATE electronic 4WD controls, and that's my only complaint with my GMC. There was nothing wrong with the old Johnson-bar manual transfer case on my old Toyota Hi-Lux, shift-on-the-fly up to 55 MPH, still works perfectly after all these years.
I kept that P.O.S. Taco for 5 months and 6,000 miles, at which time it started burning oil. I didn’t want to get into a warranty fight with Toyota over a new engine in a truck I didn't like anyway ("You didn’t break it in right", yadday, yadda, yadda). One bright sunny Saturday, I drove it to the local GMC dealer, tossed the keys to the first salesman who came out and said, "I ain't driving that piece o'crap home. What else ya got?" What they had was a slightly used (25,000 miles) 2006 GMC Sierra 4x4 X-cab, trailer package, rear locker, heavy-duty off-road suspension, 5.3 aluminum LS series block V8, Bose stereo (not that great, but better than the Taco), heated leather seats, all for $400 less than I paid for the Taco. I LOVE this GMC truck. The GMC gets 17 MPG around town and a solid 20 MPG on the highway if I keep it under 65.
But like all things, your experience will be different. My sister has a 2006 2WD X-Cab Taco with the 4-cylinder engine and automatic tranny, and she loves it. Go figure.
Maybe the 2012's are different than the 2007 that I had, and you aren't me, so who knows how much is comparable for you as compared to my situation. I never towed anything with that Taco, but I talked to people who felt it was a little light in the rear and a bit squirrelly due to the lightweight plastic bed. But no two people have the same opinions about towing, either so who knows.
