Gadgetory

yep we're in a Toyota today but not a Camry in a Camry I seldom get in situations like this where I have a serious concern of taking the painting off the roof let's drive the 2012 Toyota Tacoma 4x4 double cab with the Baja Package and check the tech if I can just get at this Tacoma has two things notable from the outside first of all it's the big boy it's the double cab not just the extended you got a full whole second row in this guy secondly in case you missed the graphics it's the Baja Package it's a $5,000 package so let's see what it includes first of all these very cool wheels great color great alloy design but most importantly they are bead locks see a bead lock wheel is a wheel that clamps the wheel to the tire bead because off-road guys tend to D inflate their tires quite a bit to get a fatter contact patch over irregular surfaces but that means the bead of the tire can separate from the wheel during high cornering stresses or other loads and lose even more pressure and become undriveable also because these are high traction tires sometimes they will grip the ground so much that you'll actually spin the wheel inside the tire not cool so you lock the bead to the wheel additionally we've got Bilstein racing shocks all around this vehicle you see the shock here and then this braided hose goes to an offshore reservoir for additional fluid helps to keep the fluid cool during the violent kind of impacts these shocks may deal with underneath here you can take a look you'll see a catback system it's a better exhaust a louder Sport of your exhaust with a little less back pressure that's a TRD piece and of course you've got the Baja graphics whether that's a good thing or not is up to you okay let you get your tacoma without doing any SI netting of it you're not going to have this head unit this is optional this is part of some package called a J we have a lot of things in here including the engine system but as you'll notice it's a little different interface and different offerings than we've seen on Lexus cars for example you have Bing search here's Pandora streaming now one thing i griped about on this system a while ago is that you only had voice command from this button for bing and all the other apps in Entune you had to fiddled with the interface which often locks you out when you're moving they've just announced that they are going to be upgrading the other end to naps to have voice command now by today's standards this is the iPhone of head units and I don't mean that in the most complimentary way what I mean it's kind of small it's a 6.1 inch screen they tell me it doesn't even look that big does it it's a little cramped but the graphics rendering is quite good as Toyota tends to do and I find it the response on things is perfectly fine now the electronics in this car go well beyond navigation and median a few apps and this guy you've got an electronically controlled four-wheel-drive system not every Tacoma has that it's a different trim level but we do have four-wheel drive first of all it all funnels through either a six-speed manual or a 5-speed automatic we have the 5-speed auto now in addition to the gear shift lever here which doesn't have any shiftable nonsense it's kind of old-school well you've got Drive which is fifth four three two or low then over here you have an electronic control for all wheel drive high to high for or if you want to go low for to really get your grunt mode going you just push and turn another electronic button over here to lock the rear diff you've got another one here for a hill descent control in other words this is a very easy to live with all-wheel drive car electronic systems make things happen instead of you having to move big old levers which some all-wheel-drive cars still have and you can screw it up and get a really nasty grinding sound under the hood four litre v6 in the four-wheel drive configuration we've got here the four liter v6 only comes in the big cab versions not in the small cabin believe that guys relegated to the 2.7 liter for that we're not going to discuss here 236 horsepower 266 foot-pounds of torque a real grunting motor I'm not going to talk about zero to sixty who cares in a car like this but the mpg is interesting 1621 in this v6 with all-wheel drive if you got the rear-wheel drive I believe it gets as good as 1924 quite a difference now the base transmission on this vehicle is a six-speed manual however we have the 5-speed automatic which adds a little under 900 bucks given the fact that the powertrain is so electronically controlled in this car I'm not offended by it having an automatic but then again I'm not an off-roader so maybe you are and think I'm an idiot right now okay first on the street all pavement driving like you'll do 90% of the miles in this vehicle it drives like it should it's a whole lot less harsh than you'd expect looking at it from the outside the thing I can't live with every day is what I think is a horrible sounding exhaust note that TRD system to me just sounds like it's got a blown canister it doesn't sound good to me now let's go off-road where I have no idea what I'm doing or what I'm looking for but it sure is fun we have a nice steep short drive hill here nice approaching because I've been on this one before and some other vehicles and lost the chin but this is where the suspension on this vehicle continues to maintain some grace even though I'm hitting some pretty good ruts and whoa big approaches there come on Danny here we go this one now I don't want to put the shiny side down but feels like I'm about to of course I'm not used to this kind of driving in this kind of vehicle I was mentioning earlier about how a lot of off-roaders are going to deflate their tires somewhat to get a more compliant contact patch you can feel that even it I think full pressure right now we're at running standard pressure this is uh this is a very a lot of the compliance of the suspension is coming through the tires these are not exceptionally big diameter wheel that's not the idea on an off-road vehicle and so we have a lot of Skoosh in the actual casing and the sidewall and that's really helping keep things planted because what you don't want in this kind of driving is to be airborne for anymore milliseconds and you have to be okay pricing arctic omus is about high 28 s the way it sits here now I think about 4000 of that though is all-wheel-drive and related equipment so that's a big yes or no on your part 5,000 is the Baja package you either know if you want that or you don't you don't need my advice and finally the steel on this car for 1900 is that package EJ that gets you the in tune system the LCD screen navigation JBL audio HD radio a lot of goodies come in that one for what is basically a steal of a price get that you