- A 2024 Toyota Tacoma TRD Off-Road is the latest addition to Edmunds' long-term test fleet.
- How does it stack up to the competition? Is the TRD Off-Road trim too expensive or worth the extra money?
- We've got a year to answer these questions and more.
We're Testing a 2024 Toyota Tacoma TRD Off-Road for a Whole Year
We have a lot of plans for this very orange pickup
The introduction of the 2024 Toyota Tacoma was met with plenty of fanfare, but our initial impressions left us with a few questions. Thankfully, we've now get an entire year and 20,000-plus miles of testing in our future to find out everything we (and you) want to know.
In the interest of full disclosure, while we often buy our long-term cars, Toyota lent us this bright orange beastie for our test.
Even though the TRD Off-Road is now available with Toyota's i-Force Max hybrid powertrain — which makes 326 horsepower and 465 lb-ft of torque — Toyota told us we'd have to wait a while for that. In the end we went with the standard turbocharged 2.4-liter four-cylinder that cranks out 278 hp and 317 lb-ft.
Honestly, that's fine with us, because that means our Tacoma TRD Off-Road compares more fairly to the two other midsize trucks we have in our long-term fleet: the Ford Ranger FX4 and Chevy Colorado Z71. Over the course of the next year we'll be testing all three to determine which is the best to live with day to day.
The TRD Off-Road comes with a wide variety of optional extras that vary from off-road specific to comfort-specific. Our truck has all of them. A heated steering wheel, heated and ventilated seats, and a 360-degree view camera should help make the truck more livable on the daily. When we're off the beaten path, a disconnecting stabilizer bar, locking rear differential, crawl control, and several off-road driving modes should make it more capable when the going gets dirty.
All that comes at a hefty price, though. Our Tacoma costs a whopping $55,240 as-tested. That makes it considerably more expensive than both the Colorado and the Ranger in our fleet. The Tacoma already falls behind the other two in our ratings. But perhaps the next year of testing will change our minds.
Edmunds says
We're stoked to effectively put this Tacoma through a yearlong comparison test against two of its key rivals.
Photography by Keith Buglewicz