Toyota Tacoma

Which Toyota Tacoma years should you avoid?

Going by 8,484 owner complaints filed with NHTSA, the Toyota Tacoma years to avoid are 2011, 2006, 2005, 2008 and 2007.

• 20113.4× the usual share of fires, crashes and deaths for a car of its age (6 fires, 8 crashes, 2 deaths).
• 2006782 complaints, 3.2× a typical Tacoma year, most often about the body and frame.
• 2005707 complaints, 2.9× a typical Tacoma year, most often about the body and frame.
• 20082.6× the usual share of fires, crashes and deaths for a car of its age (6 fires, 48 crashes, 4 deaths).
• 2007541 complaints, 2.2× a typical Tacoma year, most often about the body and frame.

2 more years cleared the same bar; they are marked in the table below.

Better bets: among years old enough for a low count to mean something, the 2020 drew the fewest complaints without an unusual share of serious ones.

Too new to judge: 2025 and 2026. Complaints take a few years to arrive, so a new model year looks better than it is.

How this is worked out: each year is compared with a typical year of the same model, which takes most of the difference in sales out of it, and its share of serious failures is compared with every other car of the same model year, because older cars were complained about differently. A year needs 25 complaints to be judged at all. Complaints are unverified owner reports. Full method →