Tacoma Manual Transmission | First-time Truck Owner’s Impression

One of my favorite cars that I owned was my 2006 Subaru Legacy. For 18-year-old Ian it was the perfect car. It had a moon-roof, all wheel drive, and the best part was the manual transmission. When it came time to buy our Tacoma TRD Off Road it hadn’t even occurred to me that we could have one with a manual transmission. As far as I knew the Tacoma manual transmission was a rarity. After test driving it, however, I was sold. I’m not an expert by any means, but this review will give you a bit more information to consider if you’re on the fence.

Tacoma Manual Transmission: Nobody’s Speed Queen

The Test Drive

Climbing into the driver’s seat of the Tacoma, the first thing I noticed was the shift pattern labeled on the knob. Reverse is up and to the left of the main H. While taking note, I slipped in the key, depressed the clutch and started the truck. Resistance from the clutch was surprising how good it felt. While requiring a healthy amount of effort to depress it was not fatiguing to sit in idle. Finding the gate to reverse was a little tricky as the detent is rather stiff. I backed out of the parking spot, came to a halt, then shifted into first. I found the release of the clutch almost instantly and pulled out of the dealership’s lot. We went for a quick 5-mile jog that had just one uphill stop. Shifting throughout the rest of the gears was easy and almost boring. Being in Milwaukee, we didn’t have any terrain to test it on.

First month’s performance of the Tacoma’s Manual Transmission

Over the first month of owning the Tacoma I’ve driven it through downtown Milwaukee, in rush-hour traffic, and up to Green Bay and back. Finding the clutch’s release is painless and makes sitting in the morning rush-hour traffic bearable. While cruising in normal traffic and driving in the city is great, the Tacoma manual transmission is not built for speed. Hopping on the freeway can be unnerving on short on-ramps. It almost seemed to struggle to get up to the 70-mph speed limit while 18-wheelers blew past me.

When pulling out or into the driveway at home I’ve found it easy to slip into reverse when trying to put it in first and vice-versa. The gate to reverse is quite stiff and you can easily blow right past it into first. You’ll know when the backup camera doesn’t come on when you think you’re in reverse.

Good:

• Clutch depression
• Shifting ease

Bad:

• Gear ratio

 

Summary

Overall, we are very happy with the Tacoma manual transmission. An issue that we had with our 2014 Jeep Cherokee’s automatic transmission is that the vehicle would sometimes jerk forward when shifting from neutral to first. The guys at the shop kept telling me it was a problem with the computer. I didn’t care what the problem was, but it sure made me angry when they couldn’t do anything about it. Buying a Tacoma manual transmission seemed to do the trick though.

 

If you haven’t read our first impressions of the Tacoma TRD Off Road click here!

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Disclaimer: We’re not professionals or experts on this topic, so all we can do is share our own personal experience in hopes that it helps you in your journey! We always recommend consulting with the pros directly.