When They Say “Off-Road”, Sometimes They Mean It

New Toyota Tacomas come in many forms – SR (base), SR5, Sport, Off-Road, and Pro. They range from $25k-$47k sticker based on how fancy you want to get. If you’ve shopped for a used one you know how absurdly high the prices are for a truck that’s 3 years old with 75k miles on it. Now I think I know why, first-hand.

The TRD Off-Road trim has some fancier stuff like wireless smart phone charging, optional heated seats, and distance-keeping cruise control. But that stuff doesn’t exactly scream “I’m a rock crawler”. What will catch the attention of dirt lovers are things like standard Bilstein shocks, 16″ wheels with lots of tire sidewall, and most definitely the electronically locking rear diff.

One thing that’s new for the 3rd gen Tacoma is Crawl Control which won’t mean much to the seasoned off-roader but us city folk will definitely take note. It basically means: “if you bite off more than you can chew on the trail there’s still a shred of hope you’ll get home”, to which I reply “whoo hooo!”. It’s pretty much cheating. But c’mon you can’t tell me you never used Game Genie on  your NES or the “up up, down down, left right, left right, B A, select start” cheat in Contra. Here’s a link if you have no idea what I’m talking about.

If you turn the knob all the way to the right you’re at level 5 crawl speed which I sort of guess to mean about 5mph. It’s really noisy. There are a lot of whirs, burrrs, and clunks going on while crawl control is doing its thing but it’s incredibly effective. I went up a pretty steep and snowy hill in 4-hi until I was nice and stuck, and instead of backing down I just threw it into 4-lo, diff lock, and crawl number 5 then let the brake off and rode up the rest of the hill on a magic carpet of millennial entitlement. So wrong, you say? Nay, so right.

Overall I came away super impressed with the not-so-gnarly looking stock Goodyear Wrangler ATs. They’re very quiet on the pavement and I imagine they have decently low rolling resistance given this truck is capable of 22mpg hwy out of the box. I was on some very snowy, rocky, and slightly muddy trails today and they held up great! No sign of getting stuck on the flat parts of the trail even when it was pure white snow.

One thing about the Tacoma that makes it more enjoyable to drive on trails is the width – it’s only 75″ wide. Some of the bigger RZRs out there are a full 65″ wide. I was considering a Silverado in looking for a truck as well but I’m glad I went with the Toyota. Silverados are 80″ wide- only an extra 5″ which doesn’t sound like a lot but when you’re trying to fit between two rocks and two hard places the additional width could mean a very scratched up fender or wheel.

The picture below really doesn’t do it justice but this is a very steep, very icy incline that I wasn’t able to get up in 4-lo alone, I got a decent run and it and almost made it over but there was no more go. I backed (slid) down, locked up the rear, and took another stab. This time it was WAY easier to get up. Didn’t use the crawl control this time because you pretty much needed momentum to get up, more than 5mph, anyway.

One bit of warm and fuzzy nostalgia for me is these tilt-o-meters that show what angle you’re at with pitch and roll. Pretty fun toy although usually the “oh crap” meter in your inner ear can tell you if you’re at a dangerous level of tilt yet. Still pretty cool. I learned how to drive in the Arizona desert in a 1987 4Runner with some really cool analogue tilt-o-meters on the dash. These are the old ones from an 80’s 4Runner I found online and it’s a funny coincidence ours had the lovely red interior as well.

These are the new ones in the 2019 Tacoma – it’s too bad they don’t show on the main Infotainment screen for everyone to see but it’s better than not having them.

Overall I give Toyota a ton of credit for still making the Tacoma a very capable off-road vehicle while still making it super comfortable to live with with features like keyless touch entry and starting. I got it up to 108mph on the highway out to the remote desert location. Takes a while to climb up there but overall felt pretty stable. According to forums, the limiter is set at 116mph but I don’t see a reason to go faster than that in a pickup.