2006 Toyota Tacoma - Dirt Bike Hauler Truck - Dirt Rider Magazine

A 4000-mile test of the 2006 Toyota Tacoma: The most popular truck in motocross, supercross, arenacross...I was pulling into Los Angeles when my eyes really started to sweat. My last 12 hours in the saddle had seen three states, six gas stations and more highway patrolmen than a border crossing under terrorist alert orange (or blue or purple...whatever's bad). It was then that my most sensitive of sensory organs (my brain and my bum) became numb in chorus. As much as I wanted to pull off to the side of the road and throw rocks at the highway, I didn't. I had almost completed a Northwestern loop that left me with a worn-out credit card, an affinity for bottled Frappuccinos and a kinship with the open road. I wasn't going to quit now, not with L.A.'s skyline beckoning me to the finish line.So instead of giving up, I used the last stretch of traffic-dense miles to recollect what I learned about the 2006 Toyota Tacoma Double Cab PreRunner 4x2 V6 Long Box through our 18 tanks of fuel. This is what I came up with.My first thought was about how much I see these trucks. With top-level sponsor rights on all the high-profile motocross, supercross and arenacross racing series, Toyota has made its presence known inside the pits and atop the podiums over the last year. It's hard to miss the company's marketing campaigns and support inside our sport. From its commercials during opening ceremonies to the company's revolutionary privateer projects through the Toyota Motocross Athlete Program (www.toyotacross.com), Toyota is, without a doubt, the official truck of our sport.Besides that, the Toyota's family of compact trucks also has a reputation of being simplistic, reliable and economical. My family had a Toyota truck, albeit an '85 model, that lasted through the high-school careers of three boys, including a lot of jumping, floating, sinking and rolling tests completed by each of the aforementioned youths. It wasn't the most comfortable vehicle, and it rode sort of like a tank, but what it lacked in suppleness, it more than made up for in durability and dependability. When I jumped into the new-car-smelling '06 Tacoma and took off down a California freeway two weeks prior, I knew I was the perfect guy to test this truck.I was immediately a little surprised that the new Tacoma doesn't ride like a Cadillac, or even a full-size truck, for that matter. It keeps the little-truck feel of rigidity and, when unloaded, transmits rough-highway chop directly to the steering wheel. The PreRunner designation on our test vehicle denotes beefier suspension, wheels and tires for off-road use while retaining the fuel efficiency and weight savings of the two-wheel-drive power train. Having four-wheel-drive is somewhat silly in Southern California, where the sun shines 300 days a year. And this is a major reason why there's a PreRunner package in existence. It gives you the more aggressive stance and similar suspension of a larger 4x4 but without the added weight (or cost) of the 4x4 system. This boosts gas mileage but, in our opinion, reduces the ride quality. That is, until the truck is loaded a little.With two bikes and a day's worth of riding gear in the back, the truck smooths out nicely on the rough sections of highway, but it's not nearly that hard to improve the ride. Just throw a buddy in the passenger seat and you'll notice an improvement. Off-road, specifically on our commutes to and from remote riding areas, the truck's ride was immaculate. The truck likes being loaded, and it'll take dirt over pavement any day. Want even more comfort? Fill all the seats.Our test model came in Toyota's Double Cab layout, and the interior room was spacious to say the least. The rear seats are comfortable and offer foldaway capabilities to increase dry storage space. Headroom and legroom in the back are on par with most full-size trucks and put the majority of compacts to shame. The convenience of having the full-size rear seat is similar to that of running water and throwaway air filters. On my road trip, I loaded two gear bags, a suitcase, a cooler and sleeping gear (bag and pillow) in the back and could still recline the driver's seat enough to catch some z's in a rest area or two. The front seating area and cockpit is roomy and comfortable as well. The dash, door panels, center console, seats and trim throughout the interior feature a cool mix of materials, textures and patterns. Styles go from metal brushing to golf-ball dimples and everything in between. Numerous cubbyholes abound inside of the cabin, ensuring secure storage for your cell phone, notepad and bottle of chain lube. Guess how many drink holders the Tacoma has. Give up? Five! How good is that? Overall, when compared with the last body style offered by Toyota, the interior of the '06 Tacoma is plush-tastic and roomy as heck. The only complaint comes when trying to access the large, lower map pockets in the doors when you're driving down the road. You pretty much have to dislocate your elbow to reach in. Other than that, the creature comforts of the interior make for a grand on-the-road den.

Toyota's 236-horsepower, 4.0L DOHC V-6 engine was sporty and powerful. However, I was honestly expecting a little more from a truck with so much cargo capacity. Accelerating on freeway entrances and out of parking lots, the truck isn't hesitant, just sort of relaxed and boring. And while cruising, as I did for days, the motor becomes taxed on hills and the five-speed automatic transmission downshifts often to keep up with the cruise control. Fuel economy was just OK. I ran over 240 gallons through the truck and never hit the 22-mpg highway mark as promised on the sticker. My fuel consumption average was 17.09 mpg with 90 percent highway use. The fuel efficiency dropped most when driving head-on through hurricane-force winds across Wyoming and when I decided to pump in some 85-octane fuel when the lower price couldn't be resisted. The truck's range is great, though, with the fuel light coming on at around 360 miles. I managed to stretch it to 375 miles on one tank, but I wouldn't advise it as I'm sure I was running on fumes.Toyota offers the Double Cab Tacoma in two bed configurations. Ours had the longer of the two, with more than 6 feet of bed length. This made for a great bike-hauling platform and kept the rear tires off the tailgate for the most part. We've seen some tailgate denting and tweaking issues on the shorter bed-equipped Tacomas from loaded bikes' rear tires slamming on the tailgate over bumps. We're glad our truck had a long bed, and any motocrosser should take this into consideration when buying compact trucks. Two bikes, riding gear, chairs, a box of parts and all my other goodies easily fit in the confines of the bed. The cargo area itself is completely composite, meaning the bed isn't made out of steel at all and will never rust. It also has a nonskid coating that, while better than plain steel beds of the past, isn't nearly as grippy as an aftermarket spray-on coating and could be a bit thicker. Tiedown options are sort of weak for the bike-hauling crowd. The perimeter rail system utilizes movable tiedown points that will hold a bike securely under tension but bend unnervingly with the load. Two bikes is plain scary, as the D-shaped anchors look like they're going to peel right out of the bed. A friendly Tacoma owner I was chatting with suggested we take the standard, bed-mounted floor D-rings in the back of the bed and move them into the front and fasten them with the existing bed-mounting bolts. It looked to work perfectly, but since this truck was only on loan to us, we resisted breaking out the tools. Other cool things in the bed are a couple of secret storage bins that hold a quart of oil or a fanny tool pack perfectly and a 120-volt electrical plug that's hard-wired into the truck and powered through an internal inverter. It powered my laptop while we did some bike radar tests and proved very useful.The outside appearance of the truck is quite nice to us motorheads. With a great stance and off-road attitude, the vehicle looks as hard-core as any compact truck out there. I was bummed, however, when I discovered that the hood scoop was a dummy and not, in fact, connected to some sort of air-induction super-charger.I'm a compact truck driver, and I've owned and driven my fair share of full-size, four-wheel-drive behemoths as well. The new breed of Tacomas offer a good balance between the two. You get a roomy, comfortable and family-friendly interior with the added benefit of fitting in the garage door and those tight parking lot spaces. After my adventure with the little truck from Toyota, I was sad to see it go. But I shouldn't really worry. I'll run into plenty of these trucks around the pits of American motocross and supercross and arenacross and...