Mid-sized muscle
Updates, enhancements abound in latest Tacoma
Toyota has updated, optimized and advanced its popular Tacoma on virtually all fronts, helping to reinforce the machine’s leading position in the Canadian mid-size truck segment. For the all-new 2016 model, the updated appearance remains uniquely Tacoma. It’s slim and muscular as pickups go, but with more accenting, sculpting, a deeper hood scoop, and more personality conveyed via the fascias with redesigned lamps and grilles. The prominent ‘TACOMA’ stamping on the tailgate, and taller box-sides, further freshen the look to one that’s improved and more striking, but still immediately Tacoma.
Under the skin, a new frame structure is similar in shape and dimension to last year’s model, though the latest Tacoma frame includes reinforcements, bracing, and the use of light and strong high-tensile steel toward added strength and rigidity. Mass optimization and safety benefit, though the stiffer frame also gives engineers a better basis from which to fine-tune suspension characteristics. In this case, more wheel travel was enabled alongside a quieter and more comfortable ride.
High-tensile steel is utilized in Tacoma’s body as well. The body is stiffer, stronger and safer, and reduced body deflection on rough surfaces means less air moving through the cabin on bumpy roads, which results in a quieter ride.
All said, the added stiffness and re-calibrated suspension means that shoppers coming out of a few-year-old Tacoma can expect notably lower noise levels at speed, less road and suspension noise on rough surfaces, and a reduction in the rigid and jouncy ride characteristic of older Tacoma models on rough surfaces. Overall ride quality and sound levels, even on rough surfaces, are notably improved.
Another under-the-skin upgrade is Ta- coma’s new top-level engine. A new 3.5 litre unit, running the high-efficiency Atkinson cycle and both direct and port fuel injection, provides 268 horses, or some 32 better than the former, bigger four-litre V6. Torque output remains the same.
The new V6 is available with automatic or manual transmission options, and proves more willing to pull at all revs, makes you question whether it’s running at idle, operates in near silence unless opened up, and pulls with impressive punch when requested. Where the old four-litre started getting wheezy around 4,000 revs, the new powerplant pulls pleasantly, right to redline, when called upon for passing or merging.
Tacoma’s new engine promises to use less fuel than the outgoing unit, too, though consumption figures failed to impress on my watch, since the engine hadn’t yet completed break-in.
Likely, Tacoma’s new interior is its strongest asset. The dated interfaces, boring shapes and aged controls have been yanked. The dashboard is no longer all beige and grey and drab and miserable looking. A prominent high-tech and premium visual theme is apparent instead, with plenty of glossy accents, digital readouts, a full-colour display screen in the new instrument cluster, and the use of contrasting colours, textures and materials throughout the cockpit for a sense of complexity.
Overall ride quality and sound levels, even on rough surfaces, are notably
improved.
— see TACOMA, page 34