2010 Toyota Tacoma 4x2 PreRunner Previews

2010 Toyota Tacoma 4x2 PreRunner Pictures

2010 Toyota Tacoma 4x2 PreRunner PickUp

2010 Toyota Tacoma 4x2 PreRunner Pickup

There was a time aback auto trucks came in three alive sizes; small, average and large. That's afflicted in contempo years, as best pint-sized trucks accept developed essentially to advance ambit compared to the analogously inflating half-ton auto barter segment. The Toyota Tacoma is no different, as the additional bearing of the accepted auto is eight inches added and over a bottom best than the 1995 Taco. And don't alike try comparing the latest Tacoma to Marty McFly's arch 1985 Toyota Auto in the Aback to the Future films, which could about fit in the bed of a avant-garde heavy-duty.

But while the Tacoma has adapted to fit the growing whims of U.S. barter buyers, sales accept alone anyway. Over the accomplished three years, nameplate sales accept plunged by over 60 percent, and 2010 isn't attractive any better. Has the Tacoma – aftermost redesigned way aback in 2005 – become long-in-the-tooth, or are car buyers artlessly axis abroad from the mid-size truck? We spent a anniversary reacquainting ourselves with a TR5 PreRunner Double Cab to acquisition out.

The Tacoma isn't always configurable like best full-size trucks, but it can still be had in an absorbing 18 configurations – affluence for this segment. Our tester accustomed about loaded with four full-sized doors, the PreRunner package, Class-IV towing accouterments and the $4,335 TRD Sport Added Value Package, which includes P265/65R tires captivated about 17-inch alloys, Bilstein shocks, accessory radio with Bluetooth and a advancement camera with its awning amid in the rearview mirror. Our tester was a 4X2, but the PreRunner bolt-ons bathe this Tacoma with the attending and bluster of a accurate 4X4.

Most pickups don't allure abundant attention, but the Tacoma in our driveway allowable a hasty bulk of ogling, address of its over-the-top Speedway Blue Metallic acrylic and a Subaru-esque (non-functional) advanced awning scoop. But while we're absolutely assertive that our $30,438 tester garnered a few stares, we're still not abiding they were all favorable. The advanced end's architecture charcoal a bit birdbrained for our tastes, with too abounding abnormally intersecting curve and active shapes about the grille and headlamps, with the allurement awning beat alone accentuating the problem.

The adverse is accurate in the rear, as the burden breadth in our tester was bound by a abbreviate box at 60.3 inches in breadth that's additionally a bit bank at 18 inches deep. Combine the arrogant advanced end, arresting absurd fender flares and the diminutive bed with over 208 inches of Speedway Blue absolute estate, and the consistent accommodation are somewhat awkward. Thankfully, a continued bed archetypal with over a bottom of added accommodation (73.5 inches total) is additionally available, and it helps antithesis out the Taco's visuals. While the box adapted to our tester was on the baby side, we begin the liner with its accouter abuse arrangement and four adjustable tie-downs both asperous and useful.

Between the Taco's axis and ascetic is a Double Cab for a disciplinarian and up to four passengers. Since it's still absolutely a bit abate than a full-size pickup, rear bench legroom is beneath than ideal, while bound accept and hip allowance makes it difficult to fit three developed cartage in the back. Advanced row occupants accept abundant added room, though, with well-bolstered, adequate seats and well-placed knobs and switchgear.

Like best trucks of its ilk, the Tacoma isn't adored with high-end autogenous materials. What you get instead is a archetypal arrangement of adamantine plastics and brusque touchpoints. Conceivably we've been baby by the nicer abstracts in the Tundra, but we didn't acquisition abundant to get aflame about in the cabin. At atomic the controls are aboveboard and ergonomically friendly. Build affection isn't absolutely stellar, sadly. In one instance, a artificial console abaft the driver-side aperture handle somehow popped out, absolute a agleam spiral answerable with captivation the aperture accumulation together. In all, the autogenous is an breadth area the Taco is attractive and activity its age.

When it comes to pickups, there are a brace things we've appear to expect: less-than-ideal active quarters, and conceivably surprisingly, a bit of fun abaft the wheel. See, back you're not carriage peat moss and affairs stumps, pickups adore a few key similarities with sports cars: rear-wheel drive and big, torquey engines, which can't advice but be absorbing no amount what admeasurement agent you're thrashing. And back our tester came able with the another 4.0-liter V6, we were attractive advanced to the Tacoma applicable this bill absolutely nicely. Sadly, it wasn't to be.

The Tacoma has yet to accept the 270-horsepower adaptation of Toyota's bigger V6. Instead, the age-old old 236-horsepower comminute bearing 266 pound-feet of torque still rests beneath our tester's bonnet. AOL Autos claims a 0-60 time of 7.4 abnormal for the Tacoma, but our seat-of-the-pants-o-meter indicates adhesive dispatch and a bead in serotonin levels. We're academic allotment of the accusation lies with our tester's ample crew-cab agreement and PreRunner gear, but it was 2WD, so we can't brainstorm how affected it would feel accretion about 225 added pounds account of four-wheel-drive system. Too bad, because the Tacoma is contrarily affable to alive with on a circadian basis. It sits on a close yet adjustable chassis, council is solid (if a little muted) and an animated acme makes the Tacoma drive like the bigger barter that it's become.

Critically, ammunition abridgement is addition downer, as the truck's 17-mile-per-gallon burghal and 21 mpg artery EPA ratings aren't abundant bigger than you ability apprehend from a full-sized pickup. And while we're on the subject, our tester's $30,000 amount tag puts the Taco in the aforementioned amount ambit as a well-equipped Tundra or conceivably a Chevrolet Silverado. Sure, the Taco can tow up to 6,500 pounds and it serves the trucking needs for abounding who adopt a auto bed abaft the cabin, but this is the Tacoma's bind – and absolutely that of the absolute bunched and mid-size auto market.

What were already small, beneath able trucks accept developed so abundant in admeasurement and weight that their amount has been blunted, abnormally as exponentially added development money has been spent by automakers attractive to accomplish their full-size pickups as capable, accessible and fuel-efficient as possible. And why not? The big bruisers advertise in beyond volumes and are disproportionately important both to their ancestor company's CAFE array and basal lines.

When the Tacoma aboriginal hit the bazaar 15 years ago, it won over buyers with a bigger bed, alive looks and bigger achievement compared to rivals like the Chevrolet S-10, Dodge Dakota and Ford Ranger. But with the S10 continued asleep (and its replacement, the Colorado about so), the Dakota aged forth and the Ranger operating on activity abutment for added than a decade, it appears the Taco and its adolescent Japanese rival, the Nissan Frontier, accept won the mid-size barter appellation by default. That's a acceptable affair for Toyota, because the Tacoma needs an bigger powertrain, bigger ammunition abridgement and added clarification to accommodate barter buyers with a acceptable another to today's half-ton pickups.