4th Dec 2019, 21:38

Look - If I really wanted to go blow a ton of money on a Ford Raptor I would. If I were in the market to get an actual serious offroad vehicle, it wouldn't be one of those anyway because they are more or less toys. If I really wanted a "real" off road vehicle that will take the abuse AND not break down, I wouldn't buy a Raptor. I would instead buy a Toyota J70 truck, importing it from a Japanese exporter.

Not familiar? Well these have been sold all over most of the undeveloped world for decades. They were literally engineered to crawl all over rugged landscapes, often in places that lack paved roads or in some cases - no roads at all. These thing would run circles around any of those Raptors.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Land_Cruiser_(J70)

I get that there has been this back and forth debate concerning American versus Japanese trucks. But there is a reason why Tacomas and other Toyotas keep their values, whereas the stuff from the Big 3 does not: Because you can buy a Toyota truck and automatically assume and usually be correct that it will simply run... and run and run for years with no major issues. With the big three? Not saying they make a bad product, but their reliability is really hit and miss.

In fact, and since others have been bringing up unrelated cars and trucks, and since this was my original review, I'll mentioned that a few years ago I decided to take a chance on American cars and bought a Chevy Volt. Initially I was very happy with the car, but now that the car has hit the 130,000 mile mark the thing has been having one annoying problem after another: First it was a faulty switch in the coolant system... and then a faulty valve in the battery cooling system... and then a faulty airbag sensor light... and then random stress cracks in the expensive tail light lens. Each time it's a literal pain because you need a lift to get to most of what I mentioned and so far this has rung up to almost $3,000 in repairs. So there you have it. This is EXACTLY why so many people over time have gotten burned by the likes of GM, Ford and Chrysler: Because for whatever reason they can't get their acts together, skimp on their quality where it counts or otherwise don't really work out the kinks before the products hit the market. As such I will never trust buying one of their products. I have NEVER had such issues with any of the Toyotas I've owned. And even if I do need to say - replace a water pump or alternator... it's super easy to do, as in the engineers actually placed stuff where a backyard mechanic can easily access it.

And you can call my Tacoma a "toy" all you want. I can guarantee I use my "toy" as a truck way more than 90% of the folks I see driving these huge shiny looking trucks I see driving around on the freeway with some ridiculous looking rims and "scary" looking stickers...

4th Dec 2019, 22:00

Not every one on here owns a Tacoma. Yet we see it come up on reviews all over Car Survey with a Merc thrown in.

5th Dec 2019, 00:07

"many other two seater domestics"?

Are you talking used or new? Because unless Dodge drags the Viper model back out of the grave yet again, your choice in new domestics would be limited to just one (Ford GT)... hardly "many".