2023 Toyota Tacoma TRD Off Road Review

hey how's it going YouTube uh I'm TJ from Archer Outdoors today I'm in the middle of the Green Mountains in Central Vermont at Campbell some State Park and I'm going to be doing a review on the 2023 Toyota Tacoma TRD off-road I've had this truck for about a month now I didn't want to do a review when I first got it because I haven't driven it I can't really give any feedback in that sense so I figured I'd wait a little bit I'm gonna go through the whole vehicle and I will be doing some projects in the future I'll make a whole playlist on my channel so make sure you like And subscribe so that you can see all the updates I do I will take videos of each adding a roof rack cold air intake all that kind of stuff so all right let's begin thank you all right so we're going to start with a quick we'll walk around to the entire vehicle um vehicle is pretty short for a truck as you can see the cab is almost centered in the entire vehicle I did get the five foot bed on this model the tires and wheels are pretty sweet on it they got the black and chrome pattern to them just walking around the whole outside here get this cool little TRD 4x4 off-road sticker on the back I did go ahead and get some plate covers for the Tacoma symbol these did not come standard but they were about 15 on Amazon they just stick right on super easy to use now the TRD off-road does come with 16 inch wheels which is pretty sweet so you can get a little bit bigger tire on there they're 265 70 R16s I know some of the other TRD models have the 17 inch with a little smaller tires which may not be as ideal for off-roading you also get this cool grille for the TRD I haven't quite looked into it uh completely yeah but done a little bit of research you can get these orange lights that go in the grill it might be something I might look into in the future the headlights on this are super bright at night standard headlights do have the line across the top so they don't go up they are LED but once the brights are on it is a full beam and they are very helpful really light up the road well all right so if you want to look under the hood all you got to do is come in here there's a little lever right under the dash pops the hood up this truck does love to beep and there's just a small lever on the inside here slide your hand in push to the left and you can lift up the hood all right now I am not necessarily A Car Guy so I'm not going to pretend to know all the details of the engine and everything like that it does come standard with a V6 though the truck does seem a little sluggish if you try to stomp on it anywhere but I haven't had any issues trying to go up any kind of terrain or anything like that here's the air filters air filter system this will be one of the first things I replace every vehicle I own I end up going with the K N Cold Air Intake so make sure you subscribe like my page and look for a video of that in the near future all right so getting into the back of the vehicle the handle right here is pretty easy to use it does not lock automatically when you lock the car for the standard TRD off-road you can get that feature added it's about five or six hundred dollars I believe if you would like to lock it with the key there there's a key that comes with it where you can lock the handle there it also comes standard with a backup camera that is built right next to the handle working our way down we have a plug-in for different styles of trailers if you want to haul any kind of trailer on the truck and it also comes standard with a hitch which is huge some Vehicles don't come standard with them and it's typically like five or six hundred dollars to add that all right so the tailgate is not fully assisted it's pretty easy to bring up and down though I haven't had any issues with that so far all right this truck comes standard with some lights in the bed too these things are super bright I love them I've used them a lot so far at night they light up the entire bed we also have lights on the back of the cab right there that shine down into the bed as well we have a tie down spot on either side of the bed back here use these quite a bit already and we also have some up toward the front of the bed close to the cab on either side as you can see you know you can easily fit a Foot Locker a Yeti cooler anything like that and tie them right down I drove up a pretty nasty Gravel Road on the way up here and I had no issues with anything sliding around now if we want to store our ratchet straps or bungee cords or anything like that this truck comes with this cool little compartment right here personally I just have this little bag where I store everything in there pretty deep and this just locks back in the bed of this also has a 120 volt Outlet in the back going along the side I did get a tonneau cover it's a three-fold by Guido Motors it's not a very expensive one but it does the job perfectly I'm not 100 sure what I'm planning on doing with the whole exterior of the truck yet I'm looking at getting a rack for the back but I do want a tonneau cover still to have some dry storage so if you have any ideas go ahead and comment those below we have these adjustable tie down points as well you do for these is loosen these up and you can push in the side and slide them there are spots where they lock in on either side one of the coolest features I like about this truck is when the vehicle is locked and I have the key fob on me all I have to do is touch the handle and it unlocks the truck for me super cool feature you push that or you touch that and the lights flicker now going to the inside of the vehicle go ahead and start it it does come with a push start all right so the door does have two cup holders this truck has a ton of cup holders all throughout the whole thing the little cubby in the side of the door has some felt material on the bottom um really not a huge fan of that I'm going to look for something I can stick over that I think that that will definitely uh become a problem in the near future uh with cleaning that and getting dirt down in there we have automatic window drops so if I push this all the way down to where it clips window goes all the way down and same thing for the passenger side definitely love that feature the back windows do not do that you have to hold the button down to go all the way down all right so starting from the left side of the dash and working over to the right here's the switch I mentioned earlier for the lights in the bed I am pretty tall person so I do bump this a lot with my knees something to watch out for we also have a button here to turn the traction control on and off as you can see on the dashboard get these little lights that come on for that and here we have a button for the 120 Outlet in the bed all right pretty awesome features all right so to control the lights just flip this forward so we got this is full beams we got our fog lights on here's Auto or off and push forward for brights all right going on the right side of the steering column here this is how you turn on the windshield wiper it is raining a little bit so first thing down second setting third setting and that's all we got all right so the dashboard is pretty awesome uh it's pretty simple which I like I don't like anything that's too detailed and uh complex we have RPMs on the left in our engine temperature we have our little screen in the center and our speedometer on the right which is in miles per hour and kilometers with the gas gauge at the bottom now we do have all these buttons all over the steering wheel we don't have any buttons on the rear side the only thing we have on the bottom right here is the cruise control which you push down to set I'm not moving so it's not going to work right now and we also have vehicle radar so I click this little button and you see on the screen radar ready now going through the screen just use this little toggle right here so starting on the left side we have our speed if we want it distance to empty average fuel economy I had this idling the other night so I don't typically get 14.2 miles per hour I actually average right around 18 for the most part driving around City uh trip distance and time until rest so if you drive too long this will tell you to take a break and nothing on the bottom now on the right here's the lane sensing so if you push this little button at the bottom here it will tell you if you're getting too close to a line on the edge of the road I don't ever use this feature or we have vehicle sensing here in the front all right let me go ahead and turn that back off scrolling down through we have tire pressure roll pitch indicators love this feature so it'll tell you if the truck is going to roll or if it's pitching a lot forward or back as you can see I'm at a little bit of an angle right now so it's telling me I'm about five degrees side to side and here's the back of the top of the menu as we go over no messages and we can adjust our settings to this menu going back down here so we have our volume control in the front right here for the radio if you like to skip a track or go backwards we have our voice control settings right here and phone call settings I use this all the time it's pretty sweet you're driving down the road all you got to do is just hit and call super great feature all right going across the rest of the dashboard here so this dial right here is how you change the vehicle into four wheel drive um not a huge fan of this honestly because it is the same basic circular pattern as the push to start so when I first got this vehicle I find myself coming in here and pushing this a lot um I got used to it it's not that hard to get over it but all you do is you turn the outside here to four High and then again for four low right here we have all of our temperature controls and our hazards hazards are pretty easy just push the button temperature control so this right here is the fan so you just turn that left to right all right different mode so you can see the screen changing right here if it's out of these vents on top feet just feet and defrost as well all right this little off switch I have noticed with the off switch if you turn it off you still get a little bit of air coming out of here I'm not sure what that's all about again not that big of a deal so we have AC if you want to circulate the air through the vehicle and defroster cool thing about this is Once you turn this on each side can have independent settings so if somebody's riding with me and likes a little warmer I like it a little cooler you can change that but if you click this dial sync then they will both change to the same temperature which will go off the driver's side going down here till the bottom you have your ECT power this will give you a little extra power if you push that in use that a few times right here we have the switch for the rear window control so looking back toward the rear window can automatically slide that over love that feature and all you do to do that is you push the bottom of it to open it and pull it back to close it on the right side here we have a USB adapter if you use this USB adapter it will link to the screen which is pretty awesome it's got this little cover to close it this button right here controls the wireless charging so I use this as a spot to keep my sunglasses but if you click this on see the little light and all you got to do is set your phone on there and you can charge your phone that way all the way here to the right we have the classic car charger all right so going up to the screen now the screen is pretty cool you got your home button here you can customize the screen any way you want I believe standard was blue I changed it to Red I like the red red accents of the vehicle um so we have clock I did audio um range in miles per gallon we got our clock up here at the top as well and you can add four preset contacts here on the screen so all you got to do is just click the screen and call it contact up here on the left so we got home we'll return you back to the screen we have menu so we got audio phone apps projection info and setup going down we have audio so we got Bluetooth USB Sirius XM FM AM you can reorder these any way you want and Maps so the bad thing about the TRD off-road is this does not come standard with apps I try to go through and add the map app to the truck and I was unable to do so I called the dealership and asked about that and they said it only comes standard in the TRD Pro if anybody knows a way to add them to the TRD off-road let me know that would be much appreciated if you plug your phone in though through this USB I mentioned a minute ago it will use maps through carplay so you are able to get GPS maps on the screen all right now we have the standard seek track phone and apps over here you've got power volume and tune or scroll all right so getting into the center column now so we have two more cup holders in the front of the center column as I mentioned this truck has a ton of cup holders in it so we have two in the driver's side door two in the passenger side door two in the front of the center column one in the center of the center column and two more in the back of the center column as well now these cup holders right here can fit a variety of different sizes of water bottles cans anything like that so here we got a standard Seltzer and got a little bit of extra room in there and then on the right we have a small Yeti so pull both of those out as you can see you got these little tabs here that will adjust to the different size of drinking apparatus you have and if you have something with a handle you can just reach down grab this whole tab in the middle and pull that right out so it's completely open really love that feature honestly I haven't used it yet but I think it's a really cool idea all right so going back from there so we have the shifter we got Park reverse new uh neutral drive and the shifter if you want to shift your gears while you drive seems like a pretty cool feature if you're off-roading or anything like that we have our emergency brake right here right in front of this single cup holder we have a little um like change area or something like that I've been using it for change you really could use it for anything you want now opening up the center column here we have a little pen holder this thing is pretty spacious as you can see I keep some stuff in here so I have my handgun keeping here I have a extra anchor battery pack a couple loose bills a couple magazines some random wires we got a charger some phone chargers got a lighter another USB charger if I need it and the other cool thing with this is we have a USB c in there as well two more USB slots so definitely love that as I mentioned earlier if you use these USBS I will not connect with the dash but if you use the USB right here your phone will play through carplay pretty cool though so you could have multiple people charging phones and it will not affect the entertainment system yeah all right so moving into the glove box you are able to lock the glove box the truck does come with the key to be able to do that pretty spacious lock box me personally I use these two pouches in here they're pretty cheap Amazon pouches I think they're like fifteen dollars a piece but I can keep some pretty uh useful things in here so on the outside I have a seat belt cutter if I ever get a bad spot um I have a couple chem lights battery powered chem light tourniquet a little Sawyer Water Filter I have a flashlight in this pouch and then a multi-tool in that pouch and getting into the other one this is kind of my navigation pouch so I open this one up I have some matte pens a compass some alcohol wipes a protractor probably don't need the protractor just threw it in there the map pens are awesome if you're traveling and you need to take some quick notes you can write right up on your windshield and then use some alcohol wipes to wipe it off later and I also keep my easy pass and registration in here again each of these pouches were like fifteen dollars so 30 bucks got some pretty cool storage in the glove box they both fit in there great and everything's neat and organized I don't have things flopping around especially while I'm driving down a rough road all right so last thing we're going to cover from the driver's seat here we have the rear view mirror it does tell you your direction up in the top right hand corner so right now I'm facing north you can set it to Auto dim or you can leave it standard if you'd like I always leave that on now we got the visors up here they do come with lights so when you pop this open you got some lights if you need to see at the top up here we have the light adjustments for the lights inside the cab see right there and right there now if the vehicle is not running and you have it in the center mode go back here and flip it on or back off and turn them all on all the time or flip them off now if they're off when you open up the doors and it's dark outside they will not come on we also have a SOS button and then this whole system right here is exactly why you get the TRD off-road alright so this right here is your button to lock in the rear differential you just push that now to use any of these features you do have to have the vehicle in four low so I would turn this all the way to the right or clockwise put it in four low and then we have some different settings on here basically each turn you do does a different amount of terrain anywhere from some mud or sand all the way into big Rocky Talus or anything like that all right passenger side also has the mirror and lights as well all right getting into the passenger side we have the same thing right here I can touch the door handle it will unlock the vehicle open this up cup holders as I mentioned you can also lock or unlock the vehicle from the passenger side you can push this in automatically if you'd like to and we have our window adjustments passenger side also has that felt at the bottom as I was talking about earlier the TRD off-road also has this little protector right here so you're not going to scuff up your paint I do love that feature a lot this also came standard with rubber floor mats they're super easy to clean I cleaned them yesterday all you got to do is pop these little tabs over and this floor mat comes right out you just have carpet underneath pop those back in now I grabbed some Smitty Built seat covers these actually were out of my Jeep so you can see they're a little rough still they were pretty expensive I actually like them a lot so I didn't take them back out the standard seats are super comfortable just wanted to protect them it being a new vehicle seat covers are pretty sweet I could unzip this here I got some storage right there a couple things zipper in the front all right so getting into the passenger side rear door open this up again two cup holders we also have this little tray right here if we want to keep something else felt at the bottom we have window adjustments or you can manually unlock or lock the doors right there now I love the storage area back here so if you lift the back of the seat down or fold it down we do have this compartment back here I keep a tarp and a will be in here in case I get uh stranded somewhere I can keep warm keep some wipes for the inside of the vehicle and a medical bag the seat folds up hides all that stuff perfectly now when the seat is down we do have this hard plastic cover right here which is pretty awesome so as you can see I have my fishing gears some camera stuff a cutting board planning on going fishing today so I have this nice little platform I can keep all this stuff out here now if I move this stuff out of the way here so we get this good platform all I got to do is pull down here and lift the seat back up it is a little tight all right now as you can see the headrests fit into the seat the bottom part of the seat which is pretty awesome all right so if you don't want these things flopping around they just have these little holes they fit right down inside of there great way to store them out of the way and then you just pop them back in there's a little tab on both sides right here to push them back in the vehicle definitely love this feature all right now underneath the seat we do have the storage compartment right here so you just turn this unlocks it and opens up this is where I keep all my tools so I have the tire kit that came with the vehicle I have a Maglite some duct tape a snow brush hiking poles um some flares and jumper cables now I do have a car seat that stays in this vehicle all the time and one thing I was worried about is losing the storage space on that side but the cool thing about this is this pass goes all the way through so I can still store stuff in there and I can just reach under grab it pull that back down lock it and the seat comes back down now one thing with this vehicle is the buckles for the seat belts in the back they do tend to fall down in here so Toyota thinking ahead made these little pockets right here for the buckles so you could just stick all three buckles right in those Pockets you can flip the seat back down and you can just reach in and pull it out of the little pocket right there so you can buckle up absolutely love that feature all right going in the back back here there's these two cup holders as I talked about earlier there is a vent under the driver's side and passenger side seats which will blow hot air back in the back these are the seat covers I was talking about they do have Molly I'm not going to put any pouches on them I don't think that's necessary but they are cool for storing some stuff like I keep some extra pens in the side right there and this zipper pouch keep my manual a little uh Goal Zero solar panel so when I'm out on my Adventures if I need to charge my phone or anything like that I do have that option and I still have the passure right here now this is where I keep my Atlas and fishing and hunting regulation books anything like that super easy to get in and out of they're out of the way and kind of protect them so I'm not going to mess up the pages or anything and lastly we have the driver's side rear area so same thing as the passenger side rear seat we cup holders little area to store things if we need to filled at the bottom window adjustments and lock now as you can see I have a kiddo at home so I do keep a car seat in here all the time the car seat clipped in very easily it took me about five minutes to put this whole thing in one thing with the Tacoma again I'm a big person I'm six foot one so when the whole car seat is in the vehicle I can't put the driver's side seat back all the way it does hit the car seat if that's something you're worried about maybe look at a tundra or something like that but for me I'm six one I'm about 200 pounds and I make it work uh it's really not that big of a deal all right so getting into the gas cap here so all you got to do is open this up there's no button or release on the inside of the vehicle or anything like that just turn the cap comes off really easily I have seen online they make little storage things that go in this area right here to store the cap while you're filling up fuel you don't need that because honestly Just Clips right there and holds the cap just fine take it back out put it in and turn it and you'll hear one click and it's tight pretty easy all right so going under the vehicle to the spare tire the spare tire is right in the back back here very easy to get to there's just a little release in there you pull the tire down right off the back side this does come with the upgraded suspension system as well I've had this on a couple really really rough roads pretty fast actually and I've had zero issues with the suspension I haven't even felt it bottom out yet definitely give the suspension of this vehicle a 10 out of 10.

Channel: ArcherOutdoors

Views: 30,582

Keywords: #Toyota, #Tacoma, #TRD, #Vermont, #Offroad, #Outdoors, #Adventure, #Youtubevideo, #Archeroutdoors, #Subscribe, #Review

Id: YEKFllPJW8Y

Length: 25min 27sec (1527 seconds)

Published: Tue May 23 2023