The 2020 Toyota Tacoma TRD Pro Goes Where Few Trucks Can

KONTAK PERKASA FUTURES - If you take nothing else away from this review of the 2020 Toyota Tacoma, please let this sink in: The trails we traversed during three days of hardcore off-roading in Utah and Colorado were typically populated by heavily-modified trucks (primarily Jeep Wranglers, Toyota FJs, and the like) with big lifts, wheels, bumpers, and multiple suspension upgrades. We were doing everything those mean machines were over the same terrain—sometimes even more—in showroom-stock Tacomas and 4Runners in TRD Off-Road and TRD Pro trim.

KONTAK PERKASA FUTURES - We rolled across some of the best trails the southwest has to offer, from Hell’s Revenge in Moab, Utah, to Ouray, Colorado. And for the grand finale, we joined a flotilla of decked-out FJ Cruisers on the FJ Summit run to Engineer’s Pass, culminating with a photo op at Odom Point, Colorado, some 12,800 feet above sea level.

By now you may be asking yourself what Toyota did to the 2020 Tacoma to make it perform so well under those harsh conditions. The answer? Not much. As with other Toyota models, the Tacoma finally gets Apple CarPlay and Android Auto compatibility (with Amazon Alexa thrown in as an added bonus). Grilles and taillights have been modified, and some trims get new wheels. All models except the SR and 4-cylinder SR5 get a new 10-way power driver’s seat, which greatly improves the Tacoma’s driving position. One nifty new detail is the sequential front turn signals. The whole light illuminates, then goes dark from the inside out—an ingenious way to get around the Fed’s stodgy lighting standards.

Given our agenda, we were most intrigued with the Tacoma’s Multi-Terrain Monitor, new for the TRD trims. It’s a set of cameras that show both sides of the vehicle as well as what’s under the nose. It comes in handy when you’re on inclines so steep that the windshield shows only sky. It’s better than no camera at all, but we wish the monitor’s resolution was higher; it indicates the presence of the trail but reveals little detail about its composition. In other words, it helped us avoid driving off the edge of a cliff—frighteningly easy to do on our route—but picking a good line still required getting out of the truck to take a gander.

Our time on the trails reminded us that significant off-road chops were already baked into the 2020 Tacoma. Its live rear axle offers plenty of articulation, and there were only a couple of brief occasions when we found ourselves with fewer than four tires touching the pavement. The Tacoma’s 3.5-liter V-6 with 278 horsepower offers all the off-idle torque we needed, even in the thin mountain air. The skid plates are plenty durable, something we discovered when our co-driver misinterpreted our spotter’s hand signals on Hell’s Revenge. And while the TRD Pros have the added benefit of slightly-increased front clearance and all-terrain tires, the TRD Off-Road trucks were just as capable despite their more street-friendly rubber.

Size matters over terrain this treacherous, and the Tacoma’s narrow width gave us some breathing room on the cliff-edge portions of Engineer Pass. (We felt bad for the poor sap who decided to try the climb in his F-150.) And despite a somewhat long wheelbase—at 127.4 inches it’s nearly a foot and a half longer than the 4Runner—the turning circle still felt very tidy. In fact, we were able to negotiate some tight switchbacks in a single turn, whereas the heavily-modified Wrangler Unlimited ahead of us had to back-and-fill.

Source : automobilemag.com