Toyota has had a hit on its hands with the Tacoma pickup truck for quite a few years. It's one of the best-selling vehicles in the Toyota lineup and one of the most popular pickups of its size. The Tacoma showed up in North America in 1995, replacing the Toyota Pickup (nicknamed the Hilux), though Toyota's first truck was the Stout, first sold here in 1964. Five years after the Tacoma arrived, Toyota added another truck to its lineup, the bigger, heavier Tundra. It's even crept into my own family; my son owns a beloved 2022 Toyota Tacoma TRD.
While there are some annual tweaks and updates to each vehicle in the Toyota lineup, major updates don't occur that often. By industry count, the 2024 Toyota Tacoma is the first model year of the fourth generation of the truck, and it's an update that's overdue. When Toyota offered me a 2024 Toyota Tacoma TRD Off-Road 4x4 Double Cab for a week, I was psyched. Better yet, the loan overlapped with when my son was in town with his own Tacoma, so we had a chance to compare them and I had the benefit of his comments and observations about the updated design. This one was in Blue Crush Metallic:
From the heavy-duty tires to the aggressive and forward-leaning front grill to the fender flares over the wheels, there's lots appealing about this truck. The tinted back windows are also a nice touch, but if you look at the door sizes, you'll notice that the back doors are rather surprisingly small. Later, when I talk about rear legroom - or lack thereof - the door size will come back into the conversation. For now, I'll just observe that this is undoubtedly one of the nicest looking trucks in its class.
Swinging into the vehicle, one element dominates the entire dashboard:
Yes, that's one big darn infotainment screen! In fact, it's a 14-inch screen, about the size of my laptop. And at the risk of upsetting you, dear reader, it's a bit too big, dominating not just the dashboard but inexorably drawing your eyes to it while driving. Fortunately, you can't pull up a movie on the screen but with the busy Tacoma ("Taco") modder community, it wouldn't surprise me if someone's published a hack to show how you can circumvent any safety lockouts. That's not really a Toyota problem, though, so I'll just say that it's impressively big in person, Tesla-size big.
Unlike the Tesla design, however, the big screen doesn't eliminate any buttons. In fact, the Tacoma continues to have plenty of buttons, dials, and switches to help the driver control all aspects of their vehicle. To get a sense of just how many there are, this is the Apollo-like button panel by the driver's left knee:
Amazingly, three of them aren't even in use! Notice also the headlight tilt adjustment on the top left; it's the first time I've seen one of those in a truck and it's a great idea, particularly if you're off-road or have your truck at an odd pitch due to an attached trailer. A push button to lower the tailgate is nice, but maybe a bit over-the-top for the average truck owner. Then again, with the price tag of modern trucks, this one included, it ain't teenage farmhands buying these vehicles but people who want the benefits of a small pickup while still having a reasonably luxurious experience.
This Tacoma is an "Off-Road 4x4" model so the many controls include lots of off-road and towing features:
It's ready to tow too, with a capacity of 6,000 pounds and a payload limit in its 5.5-foot bed of 1,700 pounds. Plenty for even an enthusiastic Costco run! More realistically, the average jet ski weighs about 450 pounds, so two of them plus a trailer would have a curb weight of 1200 pounds. Easily towed with the Tacoma's peppy i-Force 2.4L 4-cylinder turbocharged engine and 8-speed automatic transmission.
I found the drive experience to be very good with this Tacoma TRD Double Cab. There's a bit of hesitation from a stop if you need to accelerate quickly, but that's true of most internal combustion engines. Now this truck with a Toyota hybrid engine, or even as a full EV? That'd be something to drive! But the 2.4L engine never let me down with my highway, mountain, and suburban driving adventures. Fuel efficiency? Well... the EPA numbers are 19/23 and that's about spot-on as I got 20.8 mpg across a few hundred miles. Not terrible, but not great either, and when you're towing the aforementioned jet skis? Ya better hope that gas prices are down on that adventure...
Speaking of buttons, the steering wheel controls were easy to figure out and allowed me to avoid staring at the ginormous infotainment screen while zipping down the highway:
This is also one of the most symmetric steering wheel control layouts I've seen in any vehicle from any manufacturer.
The main gauge display is beautifully redesigned in this new generation of Tacoma too, even to the sleek contour lines of a topographic map as the background:
It has a redundant speed display with the right gauge, the illuminated indicator, and the actual speed in digital form centered on the display. Immediately to the left is the current speed limit, so you can see I was going 23mph in a 20 zone. Oops. There are also lots of other informational displays, mostly on the infotainment screen. Look back at the dashboard picture I included earlier and you'll see a bar graph showing my fuel consumption history. With all the onboard computers, our modern vehicles run on data just as much as they run on gasoline or electricity, so I'm a big fan of being able to analyze and learn from all of that data.
Before we step out of the vehicle, there was one thing that I would never have stumbled across without my son's guidance: The JBL removable center speaker (sorry, "JBL Flex Portable Speaker"):
It's a really fun idea: You leave the speaker in the dashboard as the center channel audio (more or less hidden behind the infotainment screen), but if you want, you can pop it out and use it as a connected speaker for your tailgating or even utilize it as a Bluetooth speaker with your favorite mobile device.
Now, let's get to one of the most frustrating limitations of the 2024 Toyota Tacoma Double Cab: The rear seat has ridiculously little legroom:
The above complete lack of legroom is with the driver's seat not all the way back: When I pushed it fully back, as I like to drive as a tall driver (I'm 6'3"), there wasn't even enough space to slip a slim messenger bag, let alone adult or even teenage legs. There's an obvious trade-off between overall vehicle length, truck bed length, and space for the rear passengers, but a vehicle with the moniker "Double Cab" should allow people to sit in the backseat without endlessly whinging about being jammed in.
The rear liftgate is fully automatic, though it's not obvious in the above photo. You can open and close it remotely, from a button on the dashboard, even with buttons stealthily integrated into the rear taillights. Quite handy. There's also a 120V power outlet on the right interior edge:
The cover identifies this as 120V 400W / 150W, possibly the difference being whether the truck is running or not. If you know the higher and lower power please add a comment explaining it for the benefit of other readers. Either way, it's perfect for plugging in a cooler or some power equipment at the job site.
After my week of driving the Tacoma, I really liked it quite a bit. This is a great redesign of an already well-designed truck, with a much needed refresh of the dashboard and controls. The subtle details of the topo map lines on the main gauge and the rugged molding on a lot of the plastics were on point, and the drive experience was very good, and felt safe and confident even at high speeds. The real weak spot of the truck, however, is that rear legroom. If you're a taller driver, you'll be shocked the first time you open the rear door to let someone in. That's manageable, but why should you have to move the driver and front passenger's seats up more than is comfortable to ensure that the rear passengers can sit? A Tacoma "Plus" where they push out the entire bed ten inches and use that to extend the cab would be an amazing option. Maybe part of the fifth generation of the Tacoma? Anyway, if you're in the market for a smaller truck, there's no question that the Tacoma should be on your shortlist.
2024 Toyota Tacoma TRD Off-Road 4x4 Double Cab, powered by the i-Force 2.4L 4-Cylinder Turbocharged Engine and 8-Speed Automatic Transmission. BASE PRICE: $42,900.00. Options: TRD Off-Road Premium Package, Stabilizer Disconnect Mechanism, Bed Mat, Ball Mount, Mini-Tie-Down, Tailgate Insert. AS DRIVEN: $54,829.00.
Disclosure: Toyota loaned me the Tacoma for a week in return for this candid write-up and review. This article originally appeared on PlanetDave.com with the title 2024 Toyota Tacoma TRD 4x4 Double Cab: Finally, An Upgrade.
