1st gen vs 2nd gen tacoma

[ToyTaco04]

I know this has been asked everywhere a million times, this is a little different.
I'm looking for someone who works on their own vehicles and has owned a 1st gen and a 2nd gen.

I have a 04 Tacoma double cab with 250k reasonably trouble free miles. Love this truck but I needed a new truck with a longer bed and less beat up looking.

I bought a 2009 tundra with 70k miles and I hate it. Its already having more problems then my Tacoma ever has. Air injection broke, leaking radiator, leaking water pump, rusted out exhaust, various plastic pieces, and heat shields came loose/fell off, transmission slips/thumps, the chip in one of the keys is breaking so it will sometimes shutoff/stall the engine on startup, pieces of foam blow out of the air vents, and engine is burning rich with very poor gas mileage.

Also, it's a huge pain to work on compared to my Tacoma oil changes harder, transmission fluid change is a huge pain, everything is just more complicated and more time consuming to take apart or put back together. I hate working on it or just doing regular maintenance. Changing the spark plugs was not too bad.

I'm getting rid of the tundra and I'm trying to decide between a 2nd gen or a good condition 1st gen. I drove a 2nd gen for 1 day and I liked it. From a mechanical standpoint will the complexity and ease of repair be just like buying a mini version of my Tundra? That's what I'm afraid of.

Btw is this a new forum? I just found it and hadn't heard of it before.

 

[Crawdad]

I know this has been asked everywhere a million times, this is a little different.
I'm looking for someone who works on their own vehicles and has owned a 1st gen and a 2nd gen.

I have a 04 Tacoma double cab with 250k reasonably trouble free miles. Love this truck but I needed a new truck with a longer bed and less beat up looking.

I bought a 2009 tundra with 70k miles and I hate it. Its already having more problems then my Tacoma ever has. Air injection broke, leaking radiator, leaking water pump, rusted out exhaust, various plastic pieces, and heat shields came loose/fell off, transmission slips/thumps, the chip in one of the keys is breaking so it will sometimes shutoff/stall the engine on startup, pieces of foam blow out of the air vents, and engine is burning rich with very poor gas mileage.

Also, it's a huge pain to work on compared to my Tacoma oil changes harder, transmission fluid change is a huge pain, everything is just more complicated and more time consuming to take apart or put back together. I hate working on it or just doing regular maintenance. Changing the spark plugs was not too bad.

I'm getting rid of the tundra and I'm trying to decide between a 2nd gen or a good condition 1st gen. I drove a 2nd gen for 1 day and I liked it. From a mechanical standpoint will the complexity and ease of repair be just like buying a mini version of my Tundra? That's what I'm afraid of.

Btw is this a new forum? I just found it and hadn't heard of it before.

I'm not terribly sure what you're asking here but I had an 02 Tacoma, v6 and 2 2nd gens and now a turd gen and pretty much do all of my own work with the exception of gearing, I road trip to Dad's for that. Haha
Personally I think the 2nd gens may be a tad easier to work on overall than the 1st gens if anything, and this turd gen is even roomier than those.
I think you may have better luck finding a good deal on a nice 2nd gen than a nice 1st gen also, they'll probably be about the same price. Haha
I ended up with a new 17 manual because it wasn't much price difference from a 15 manual with 65000 miles on it... 0_o

 

[ToyTaco04]

I'll try to be more clear. On my 1st gen, I can swap out the alternator, power steering, starter, serpentine and accessory belts, CV axles, struts, leaf springs, spark plugs/coil packs, o2 sensor, brakes, etc after work in my driveway with a jack and basic tools. Oil, trans, diff, and transfer fluids are all easy to change too.

I'm wondering if I could do the same with a 2nd gen as easily. I'm looking to buy a truck and run it to at least 300k miles.

The Tundra has expensive chipped keys that demobilize the engine, annoying canister oil filter instead of spin-on, a "sealed" transmission with a bunch of steps to change the fluid, TPMS that you need a computer to reset, expensive air injection system that commonly fails, plus everything seems more difficult to get to.

I'm sure there are even more things I'm not thinking of. Plus all the stuff that has broken that I mentioned above in the first post. Oh, the electric door locks commonly break too as did mine.

The 1st gen has none of these "advancements" and extra crap.

The carefully road driven Tundra with less than half the miles feels more cheaply made and has more stuff breaking, coming loose, and falling off than my heavily abused 250k mile Tacoma that has been jumped, rolled, overloaded, bounced off rocks, and in deep water.

I've never worked on a 2nd gen and I'm afraid of essentially buying a miniature version of my tundra with more unneeded gizmos, more things to break, more difficult to work on and in general built less tough.

You mention space but there is more to it than just having extra room to turn a wrench.

 

[kp.taco]

I'll try to be more clear. On my 1st gen, I can swap out the alternator, power steering, starter, serpentine and accessory belts, CV axles, struts, leaf springs, spark plugs/coil packs, o2 sensor, brakes, etc after work in my driveway with a jack and basic tools. Oil, trans, diff, and transfer fluids are all easy to change too.

I'm wondering if I could do the same with a 2nd gen as easily. I'm looking to buy a truck and run it to at least 300k miles.

The Tundra has expensive chipped keys that demobilize the engine, annoying canister oil filter instead of spin-on, a "sealed" transmission with a bunch of steps to change the fluid, TPMS that you need a computer to reset, expensive air injection system that commonly fails, plus everything seems more difficult to get to.

I'm sure there are even more things I'm not thinking of. Plus all the stuff that has broken that I mentioned above in the first post. Oh, the electric door locks commonly break too as did mine.

The 1st gen has none of these "advancements" and extra crap.

The carefully road driven Tundra with less than half the miles feels more cheaply made and has more stuff breaking, coming loose, and falling off than my heavily abused 250k mile Tacoma that has been jumped, rolled, overloaded, bounced off rocks, and in deep water.

I've never worked on a 2nd gen and I'm afraid of essentially buying a miniature version of my tundra with more unneeded gizmos, more things to break, more difficult to work on and in general built less tough.

You mention space but there is more to it than just having extra room to turn a wrench.

The 2nd gen taco will also have a sealed trans with no dip stick. The oil filter is spin on.. For what it's worth I realy like my 09 tacoma and it's a solid beast of a truck. A friend of mine has a 1st gen it's also a good truck just smaller and not as many bells&whistles.. And yes the 2nd gen has a chip in the key