re: Buying a Used Tacoma--best year?

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Manual hubs are the goat. The auto hubs are fragile pos.

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the shift motor can get quirky but they ain’t fragile.

Maybe not as fragile as some other brands, but they are not manual hub tough.

I will never understand why everyone is obsessed with the Tacoma, after the 3.4 it really was not as reliable as what it was made out to be.

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Don’t you have an xterra?

We understand your lack of understand

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Had.

Traded it in at 337k miles.

It had zero mechanical failures. Even towing well past the weight limit all over the US.



Once we loaded the rear of the rzr with camping gear and the bed with tools and fuel, we were right at 7k loaded.

It towed that from idaho to the upper peninsula of michigan and everywhere else.

Edit: one mechanical failure, heater core joint that connects heater core to intake cooling, 23 bucks or so and two hose clamps.

Cool. I’m hoping my Tacoma will make it a good while longer.

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had trucks with both. I never any issues with either.

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I like warn hubs for locking. Aisin hubs for auto.

Aisin hubs are just a bulletproof design.

No that’s not bad miles for a 7-8 yr old vehicle. I’d keep looking personally for a 4wd. It’s like homeowners insurance or a pistol. You may never need it (many never do) but when you do need it you may need it VERY badly. It will cost nothing to speak of. Whatever extra it costs on the front end will come back to you when you sell or trade it later. It will also sell MUCH faster. A Tacoma 4wd is about like money in the bank. It ain’t appreciating any but it’s a solid investment. We’ll cared for examples can run forever

I’d look at the 4cyl since they were more bulletproof than the 6cyl.

‘95-‘04

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Might consider looking at Nissan Frontiers. They have been very reliable as well.

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01-04 bulletproof. Only a knock sensor and a coolant pipe ever fail. Both are under 20 bucks. You can poor man lift by twisting two bolts and buying a set of shackles.

05-11 only bulletproof if the had the radiator replaced for the TSB. Otherwise could have a bad auto trans.

12-18 solid state. Arguably the last simple truck ever built. The equivalent of the 3.4L tacoma but with an extra 100hp and a driveline built for 100hp more than that and 34s.

Frames and driveline of the 05 on are half ton trucks with midsize cabs on them. It's Nissan's alpha platform.

For sheer reliability, I do like a 3.4L tacoma... But the 4.0L nissan motor is the reason you still see SO many frontiers and xterras on the road.

They didn't sell nearly as many. They are all just still out there.

It is a testament to those trucks that we are all talking about looking at 20-year-old vehicles