Toyota Tacoma Wins Pickuptrucks.com Midsize Shootout

Tim Esterdahl | Jan 26, 2012 | Comments 1

The Pickuptrucks.com shootout has finished and the results are … the Toyota Tacoma is the top midsize truck for 2012. This rigorous test was conducted last month in California.

Toyota Tacoma Wins Pickuptrucks.com Shootout

The Toyota Tacoma is still top dog in the compact truck market according to Pickuptrucks.com

The three-day Shootout consisted of seven trucks facing various test in the high and low deserts outside of Los Angeles, CA. The results of 10 different tests were released last week.

Seven trucks were evaluated according to specific criteria. The seven trucks were, in reverse finishing order:

2011 Ford Ranger XLT
2012 GMC Canyon SLE Z71
2012 Chevy Colorado LT Z71
2012 Suzuki Equator RMZ-4
2012 Honda Ridgeline Sport
2012 Nissan Frontier SV
2012 Toyota Tacoma 4×4 V-6

The Tacoma beat second-place finisher, Nissan Frontier, by 25 points. The Tacoma won five of the eleven events compared to the Frontier, which only won one. The Toyota also finished second or third in most of the remaining events. In spite of the fairly small point spread, the Tacoma won handily according to the judges.

Some of the areas where the Tacoma stood out include the brake testing event, where the truck stopped up to fifteen feet shorter than its competitors, as well as the smooth ride and refined interior. Acceleration was also impressive with the Tacoma 4.0 liter seemingly able to carry more weight than it was tested with and the V6′s torque curve being very close to Chevy’s much larger V8.

Though there were a few things that the judges did not like about the Tacoma, such as a busy control panel, the truck’s strengths vastly outweighed its weaknesses. It was easily the most loaded truck for the money and has continued to improve over the years.