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REVIEW AND TEST DRIVE
2024 Toyota Tacoma TRD Pro Review and Test Drive
The most expensive and expressive version of Toyota's all-new midsize pickup is also its most off-road capable.
Ron Sessions
I don't know when acrobatic monster trucks started packing sports stadiums with screaming fans or when high-speed, open-desert races became big spectator draws. But right now, brand-new lifted four-wheel-drive pickups with oversized tires and Baja-racing-inspired, long-travel suspensions have joined the lineups of several truckmakers.
That includes Toyota.
With the redesigned 2024 Tacoma TRD Pro, Toyota doubles down on the high-speed-capable, off-road-ready version of its midsize truck, offering a hybrid powertrain and off-road-racing IsoDynamic front seats. It battles similarly positioned rivals from Chevrolet, Ford, GMC, and Jeep for desert-driving and rock-crawling supremacy.
Is the new 2024 Tacoma TRD Pro the real deal, and does it live up to the reputation the truck has built for Toyota over the years? I headed for the wilds of Arizona and California to find out.
Ron Sessions
Toyota's Heroic Off-Roader Isn't Cheap
The 2024 Toyota Tacoma TRD Pro comes exclusively in a crew-cab configuration with a 5-foot cargo bed, a part-time four-wheel drive (4WD), and Toyota's i-Force Max hybrid powertrain. The truck's base price is in the mid-$60,000s, including the destination charge to ship the Tacoma from the Guanajuato, Baja California, Mexico, assembly plant to your local dealership.
For this review, I test-drove two examples of the Tacoma TRD Pro. Part of the driving took place in Southern California, and later I spent a week driving one in Arizona on a mixture of paved roads and off-road trails. The Arizona test truck had one option: a two-tone dark gray and black exterior. The manufacturer's suggested retail price of the test vehicle came to $65,895, including the $1,495 destination charge.
Toyota provided the vehicles for this Tacoma TRD Pro review and paid for airfare, lodging, and meals during the evaluation period.
Ron Sessions
The Tacoma TRD Pro Makes a Big First Impression
The 2024 Toyota Tacoma TRD Pro is hard to ignore. Measuring more than 6 feet from the road to the roof and nearly 18 feet from bumper to bumper, the TRD Pro stands tall and proud on lifted suspension and 33-inch off-road tires.
The truck's front exterior features heritage-inspired styling, fog lamps, a high-clearance front bumper, and a power-dome hood. At the rear, a steel bumper with a hitch receiver, dual exhaust outlets, and frame-mounted recovery hooks convey the TRD Pro's mission.
Inside, the TRD Pro mixes functionality with flash, featuring carbon fiber; contrast stitching; and plenty of good old-fashioned buttons, knobs, and switches.
Ron Sessions
Tacoma TRD Pro: Offering a Front Seat to Adventure
There are no running boards that might run afoul of big rocks or stumps in the wild, so getting into the Tacoma TRD Pro requires a big step up. Once inside, you'll find Iso-Dynamic Performance front seats inspired by Baja racing. They have adjustable integrated suspension systems to improve comfort when driving off-road, helping to reduce sharp vertical and side-to-side jolts when traversing uneven terrain or jumping the truck and landing at high speeds.
Toyota trims the front seats in SofTex artificial leather, and they include heating, ventilation, and eight-way power adjustment. The driver faces a heated tilting and telescoping TRD-themed steering wheel with a red stripe at the 12 o'clock position. That stripe shows when the front wheels are pointed straight ahead, which is good to know when you're airborne.
Ron Sessions
The Tacoma TRD Pro Is an Off-Road Toy That Doesn't Forget Its Truck Utility
Despite its sporty look and off-road tuning, the Tacoma TRD Pro remains a workhorse pickup with four doors, a roomy cargo bed, and a rear seatback that folds down for carrying cargo out of the elements. However, there's no storage underneath the rear seat cushions because the TRD Pro's hybrid propulsion battery lives there.
From what I saw during my time with the truck, Tacoma offers plenty of in-cab storage, including a small shelf on the passenger's side of the dashboard. I was told the cargo bed is 21.2 inches deep and 53 inches wide but only 44.7 inches between the wheel wells.
The truck includes other useful features, such as a deck rail system, four adjustable tie-down hooks, a bed storage box, LED bed lighting, and a 2,400-watt 120-volt power outlet.
Ron Sessions
2024 Toyota Tacoma Offers Useful Everyday Tech Plus a Big Screen
The redesigned 2024 Tacoma has the latest Toyota Audio Multimedia (TAM) infotainment system with a standard 14.0-inch touchscreen.
The truck comes with available Drive Connect, a connected-services plan providing access to a cloud-based navigation system with maps, Google point-of-interest data, and an intelligent digital assistant that can respond to naturally spoken voice requests. Wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto connectivity are available as well.
The TRD Pro's standard 10-speaker JBL premium audio system offers big sound to go with the truck's big personality. One neat feature for tailgating fans is a removable portable Bluetooth speaker, which can operate for six hours when undocked and fully charged.
Ron Sessions
The new truck additionally features advanced technologies such as an optional digital key for your smartphone and a 3D Multi-Terrain Monitor that provides an overhead view and selectable front, rear, and side camera views. During my off-road driving, this feature helped me maneuver the large and tall truck in tight quarters and see better over the hood.
Ron Sessions
Standard Toyota Safety Sense 3.0 Covers All the Basics and Then Some
Every Tacoma TRD Pro has Toyota Safety Sense 3.0 (TSS 3.0). This collection of advanced driver-assistance systems includes the features you expect to find on any new vehicle, plus a technology called Proactive Driving Assist (PDA).
PDA can apply slight steering and braking to help drivers maintain safe distances from other vehicles or objects, even when they're not using TSS 3.0's adaptive cruise control and lane-centering assist. The system was helpful when I encountered an unexpected sharp curve on a rural two-lane highway. It scrubbed off some speed before entering the curve, which was good because just around the corner was a slow-moving farm tractor.
In addition, the Tacoma TRD Pro has front and rear parking sensors and a low-speed automatic braking system. They are helpful given the Tacoma's tall hood and less-than-ideal sight lines.
Regarding crash-test ratings, as of publication, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has not rated the 2024 Tacoma. However, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety names the Tacoma crew cab a Top Safety Pick for the 2024 calendar year.
Ron Sessions
The Tacoma TRD Pro Is Bigger to Better Handle the Most Challenging Terrain
The TRD Pro's i-Force Max powertrain has a turbocharged 2.4-liter four-cylinder gas engine, an electric motor making 48 horsepower integrated into an eight-speed automatic transmission, and a 1.87-kilowatt-hour battery. These components supply up to 326 horsepower at 6,000 rpm and 465 pound-feet of torque starting at 1,700 rpm.
Console controls provide access to the TRD Pro's standard part-time four-wheel-drive system. It includes an electronically controlled two-speed transfer case with shift-on-the-fly capability and an electronic locking rear differential. There is also a switch for the TRD Pro's standard front stabilizer disconnect mechanism, which provides added wheel articulation over challenging terrain.
Moving to the chassis, the TRD Pro features a long-travel double-wishbone front suspension and a coil-spring multilink rear setup with a live rear axle. Fox QS3 2.5-inch internal-bypass shock absorbers with tunable compression settings handle damping duties. At the rear, remote damping fluid reservoirs are designed to help avoid heat buildup on rough terrain, and hydraulic rear bump stops help mitigate hard landings.
On the test-drive, I was told the TRD Pro has quick-ratio electric power steering, ventilated four-wheel-disc brakes with large-diameter front rotors, and grippy 33-inch tall 265/70R-18 Goodyear Wrangler Territory rugged-terrain tires wrapped around black 18-inch alloy wheels. Running clearance measures a generous 11.5 inches. In addition, the TRD Pro can tow up to 6,000 pounds and haul up to 1,680 pounds of payload.
Ron Sessions
The TRD Pro Is as Off-Road-Capable as It Looks
I drove the truck on a pair of challenging off-road courses zig-zagging through the foothills of Southern California's San Ysidro Mountains southeast of San Diego.
The first course was slow and technical, with big elevation changes and sharp turns. I shifted into neutral, chose 4WD Low, and selected the Multi-Terrain Select system's Off-Road mode. Once the truck got moving, the big Goodyears provided seamless traction over the loose dirt on flat sections.
I stopped just short of the first hill's crest to turn on the Multi-View camera to see where the trail went on the other side. I then engaged Downhill Assist Control to help me manage the upcoming steep descent. In other sections of the course with big rocks and overhanging tree limbs, I used Crawl Control, a low-speed off-pavement cruise control that allows the driver to concentrate on steering around obstacles while it manages acceleration and braking duties.
The higher-speed driving course got my blood pumping. Sure, the TRD Pro has lots of wheel travel, a reinforced frame, and Baja-racing-inspired dampers, but catching several feet of air off a blind precipice is all theory until one actually does the deed. That's when that red stripe marking 12 o'clock on the steering wheel pays off. One thing you don't want to do while airborne is try to land with the wheels pointed in any direction but straight.
The return to terra firma proved anticlimactic. Both the well-tuned compression damping of the shocks and the steadying force of the IsoDynamic front seats took the sting out of the landing, which the truck stuck in fine form with no rebounding or squirrelly dynamics.
Ron Sessions
When driving the TRD Pro on the paved roads of civilization, this midsize truck felt larger than expected. Due to the tall hood, the sightlines weren't great, and I had to take it easy to avoid running over the solar accent lamps alongside my driveway. Maneuverability was also a challenge with the TRD Pro's wide turning diameter.
But when used as a daily driver, the truck's power is surprisingly generous and the hybrid powertrain emits an unexpectedly melodic baritone burble. According to my stopwatch, the TRD Pro can accelerate from zero to 60 mph in just over 6 seconds.
At the factory-spec damper settings, the on-road ride is firm but not punishing. The long-travel suspension and IsoDynamic front seats take the edge off vertical impacts, and parking lot speed bumps are but an amusement. Also, the rugged-terrain tires are surprisingly quiet at speed, producing minimal amounts of road sizzle on highway pavement.
When driving the truck gently, I could coax the TRD Pro's trip computer up to an indicated 25 mpg when traveling over flat ground at speeds between 35 and 55 mph. Most of the time, it displayed a number in the 18 to 21 mpg range when keeping pace with traffic flow. Fuel economy sank into the 16 to 18 mpg range when I drove the truck with zest.
Ron Sessions
This Truck Is Baja Born and Baja Ready
If the expansive trails of the desert Southwest are an amusement park, consider the all-new 2024 Toyota Tacoma TRD Pro to be the roller coaster. It's a sturdy truck with gobs of low-end grunt, good towing capacity, and the ability to tackle rugged terrain with relative ease. It should have no trouble competing with the Chevrolet Colorado ZR2, Ford Ranger Raptor, GMC Canyon AT4X, and Jeep Gladiator Mojave.
Written by humans.
Edited by humans.
Ron SessionsRon Sessions is a seasoned vehicle evaluator with more than three decades of experience. He has penned hundreds of road tests for automotive and consumer websites, enthusiast magazines, newsletters, technical journals, and newspapers.
