2008 Toyota Tacoma 4-Cylinder 5-Speed Manual Review

[00:03] truck. 2008 Toyota Tacoma base model single cab four-cylinder manual transmission cloth interior with wind-up windows. Shove

[00:16] interior with wind-up windows. Shove both of your break clean chapped hands both of your break clean chapped hands down your pants because this is peak down your pants because this is peak truck. Attention manosphere men of 2026.

[00:30] When you tire of your house payment trucks and your lifted kits with spaced and offset wheels which grind your wheel bearings like espresso beans, when you

[00:42] can no longer justify every repair being four figures and the first number is always two, you will drain the dextrous out of your nether's, put on a baseball out of your nether's, put on a baseball cap which proclaims nothing. You will

[00:57] read books for the love of learning. You will leave women alone at Weis Markets will leave women alone at Weis Markets and you will buy a simple pickup truck. and you will buy a simple pickup truck. Toyota Tacoma, the anti-brodozer.

[01:12] More than any other vehicle on the road, you should be able to beat the hell out of your pickup truck because the entire concept is rooted in work. And look, I'm not saying you need to be hauling plywood every single day for this little

[01:29] lugger to justify itself, but the 2008 Tacoma is the last truck you should be getting for aesthetics. Because being attractive is so far from the point you have to take a connecting flight to get to it. Today's episode of Regular Car

[01:44] Reviews is sponsored once again by Factor. Factor are fresh, never frozen meals, dietitian approved, and they ship right to your door in a Today I'm going to open the package with a bread knife. In an insulated box with cool packs

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[03:19] That gets you 50% off your first box plus free breakfast for a year. Thank you Factor for sticking with Regular Car Reviews all these years. And now, back to a little pickup truck. Plain black plastic bumpers, stamped

[03:35] Plain black plastic bumpers, stamped steel wheels with plastic center caps, steel wheels with plastic center caps, no truck bed light, a manual sliding cab window, seven blank switch covers. Crank my windows.

[03:52] blank switch covers. Crank my windows. The value of a 2008 Tacoma is that whatever technological sophistication it could have had was obviously less important than just making something that worked. The second generation had

[04:06] frame rust issues that were significant enough to become the subject of a class action lawsuit, but even taking this into consideration, these trucks into consideration, these trucks continue to hold value. Obviously, a

[04:19] regular cab won't fetch as high a price as other configurations, but a good condition example can easily go for over $9,000. Hell, when these were new in 2008, you could get out the door with a base model

[04:33] two-wheel drive like this for under $16,000. And now in 2026, good condition four-door, [snorts] which means crew cab, V6 models with four-wheel drive also go for $16,000 on

[04:49] the used market with 180,000 miles. But this truck and its motor can potentially climb above 300,000 miles with no issues, just general maintenance. So,

[05:03] who cares about appearances? Aesthetics don't mean anything if you're actually serious about using your pickup truck. Or if they do, then they're a distant distant second to durability. Your manhood is at stake. They are coming for

[05:19] manhood is at stake. They are coming for you and your man card. Liberal genders, you and your man card. Liberal genders, therapists, stand your ground at Kocourek Chevrolet. Dodge, Plymouth, Jeep, Chevy, and Chevy again. New,

[05:31] pre-owned, certified and truck. 72, 105, 210. Tricentennial monthly leases. You don't have to change at Kocourek Chevrolet. Cummins, Duramax, trumbulloni sandwiches. Wheel and tire packages added automatically. And if YOU

[05:47] DON'T WANT THEM, our sales professionals will call you Facebook Marketplace. It never breaks and sips fuel. Your persona is the ONLY

[06:02] and sips fuel. Your persona is the ONLY CURRENCY YOU HAVE IN THIS WORLD. Lower CURRENCY YOU HAVE IN THIS WORLD. Lower your costs AT KOCOUREK CHEVROLET. Modern truck design and the marketing that accompanies it cuts to the insecure

[06:15] child inside every average American male. But the second generation Toyota Tacoma defies all that. Manufactured from 2004

[06:27] to 2015 and offered as a two-door single cab, a four-door extended cab, or a four-door crew cab, the second gen Tacoma was the ultimate tradesman's psychologically good. Every switch, spring, cam, gasket,

[06:45] fastener was perfect. And here's why. Here's the lure of what Toyota was doing back then. Now, of course, automotive manufacturers don't in-house produce manufacturers don't in-house produce every single part in a vehicle. They

[06:59] outsource. But here's what Toyota did that was different. Most manufacturers, when they get a shipment, accept that a few parts in the lot of thousands and thousands and crates and crates of, let's say, wiper motors. Most

[07:13] manufacturers accept that some of them will have problems. Some of them have been mis-manufactured. But the lore goes that Toyota, if they found one bad wiper that Toyota, if they found one bad wiper motor in an entire conex container full

[07:27] of wiper motors, they sent the entire container back and said, "Do it again." They were that ruthless about quality control. Now, no

[07:39] manufacturer is perfect, but that's where the durability and the reputation for quality came from. They held their suppliers to the same standard that they

[07:52] suppliers to the same standard that they held to themselves. 2008 Toyota Tacoma. Killing this thing is harder than finding a video on the hub without any finding a video on the hub without any swears. And under the hood is no V8, not

[08:04] swears. And under the hood is no V8, not even a V6. This is a humble four-cylinder. This is the 2.7 L four-cylinder 2TR-FE. four-cylinder 2TR-FE. It makes 159 horsepower at 5,200 RPM and

[08:17] 180 foot-pounds of torque at 3,800 RPM. And it's paired with the glorious R155 five-speed [snorts] manual transmission. It clicks into gear. It almost feels sporty. Fuel economy is anywhere from 17 to 26 miles

[08:34] per gallon on the highway. That's good, but it's only marginally better than the V6 option. But if you're buying a pickup truck for fuel economy, you're probably to school in a Budweiser shirt and then gets surprised when they're sent home to

[08:47] change. If a Cummins is for a guy who's never seen his kids without court supervision, then the Tacoma is a truck for the type of guy who does gardening and electrical work off the clock. Hell, he it isn't even his job, but he hears

[09:01] your dishwasher is on the fritz and he's offering you his Saturday. He's like a superhero whose origin story is getting bit by a radioactive journeyman carpenter. I'm going to mispronounce his name, but Chequito Capotic

[09:14] was the chief designer for this truck and also Toyota's heavy-duty industry division, Hino or Hino, handled the majority of its development. Hino, the

[09:26] same company that makes the H6. You may know it as the Penske rental truck. know it as the Penske rental truck. Those abused road manatees that were built to endure neglect for their entire lives at the hands of clueless drivers

[09:41] lives at the hands of clueless drivers and piled-up compulsive gamblers. That and piled-up compulsive gamblers. That company knelt down and helped build this little pickup. And in 2016, when customers sued Toyota over frame rust,

[09:55] Toyota settled and agreed to pay for free inspections and free replacements free inspections and free replacements of every truck frame of every Toyota of every truck frame of every Toyota that was manufactured from 2005 to 2010.

[10:09] That's how committed Toyota was to playing fair. After litigation, of course. That was the only major problem with these trucks and Toyota took the L because it was the right thing to do.

[10:21] But back to this divine little engine, the unsung 2TR-FE. The bore and stroke are identical. It's a square-style engine. It uses regular octane fuel. The block is iron and the cylinder head is aluminum. It has double

[10:35] cams on the top of the head with four valves per cylinder. Variable valve timing appeared on these engines in 2015 and made another 12 horsepower and a bit there for fuel economy. Now, I know what you're thinking. A naturally aspirated

[10:50] four-cylinder truck is going to be slow. It's not. You know, okay, you're right. This is still a Toyota double overhead cam four-cylinder engine. You put revs in it, it'll move.

[11:04] this. This is honestly not slow. 70 miles an hour by the end of the off-ramp. Yeah, [snorts] I know there's nothing in the bed, but this is from the era of

[11:19] four-banger Ford Raptors and anemic Chevy S10s, which were gutless. So, how 2TR-FE is a large displacement for a four-cylinder. Most four-cylinders are 2

[11:33] L, some are 2.5, but this is a 2.7 and that extra 200 cc of displacement does make a difference, especially because this model is two-wheel drive only. The truck weighs less because there's no transfer case or half shafts

[11:48] going to the front wheels. And it's stick-shift, so you can wind up this little double cam engine and the engine wants to sing. You actually do have to more than you think you'd have to for a truck, but take it up to five that take

[12:01] it up to 6,000 rpm for every gear change if you want, it'll love it. And this is a poverty spec trim. No electric motors in the doors, no fog lights, no heavy leather seats, no rear seats for that matter, nothing to hold this little

[12:16] 2TR-FE back. >> Have you never experienced the masculine intimacy of riding three abreast in a stick-shift truck? Well, buy a stick-shift truck? Well, buy a second-gen single cab Tacoma. Who's

[12:30] getting transmission gooned? Who's straddling the shifter? Relax. Let it happen. [clears throat] >> [sighs and gasps] >> [sighs and gasps] >> Let go your ego and let me move your

[12:44] >> [gasps] >> 2008 Toyota Tacoma. If it were its own country, its top import would be red flannel shirts. Oh, wait, taco. For the man whose favorite song is the first 22 seconds of "White Room" by Cream. The

[13:00] quickest way to a man's heart is through the arteries, but the second quickest is through utility. Be useful in a guy's life and he'll love you forever. Our volunteer Chase bought this from an elderly man who could no longer drive it

[13:13] elderly man who could no longer drive it and the elderly man kissed it goodbye. He kissed his truck goodbye. It had been a part of his life and by all accounts a good part of it. Useless cars don't bring you to tears when they're carted

[13:27] creatures by nature. Maybe sentimentality has some kind of evolutionary benefit, like memory preventing grief from overpowering us or easier gives us something to be happy about even when life is overwhelming in

[13:44] every other aspect. But at base level, I think sentimentality compels us to take care of the people and the things that matter to us and that extends to the vehicles we drive. You always hear that these types of trucks will run forever

[13:58] with the right maintenance, but I'd still argue that we would perform that maintenance to save ourselves trouble down the line. It still has to be down the line. It still has to be motivated by some sort of innate care.

[14:10] That sentimentality-driven care creates the conditions for those warm nostalgic feelings that make our lives feel more richly lived because now we're remembering the good times we had with our truck rather than all the times it

[14:24] left us stranded on the turnpike. People think nostalgia is all about the good things that happened, but it's really about all the bad things that didn't. If you feel sentimental value toward your truck, you'll take care of your truck

[14:37] and because you took care of the truck, you'll have better memories of it. But it also speaks to the engineering of Toyota trucks because your diligent maintenance will be rewarded, unlike General Motors, which goes,

[14:53] another?" Or Ford going, "Those were some good cam phasers. I'll have some more, please." Or Dodge "That was a good fuel pump. >> [clears throat]

[15:07] >> See you next month." This taco will be a good truck, even if you're the kind of person who only wants to drive an American-presenting truck. But if it can inspire the sort of feelings that make you want to take care

[15:20] of it, then it's going to pay you back tenfold. And this is true of any car or truck. It's why in the early days of regular car reviews, before our default answer to "What kind of car should I get?"

[15:32] was Toyota Corolla. Before I would always say that, I would say, "Whatever Because sometimes we get what we want without a deeper critical thought. We just buy it and expect the car or truck is going to give and give and give and

[15:46] return. But then parts start to fail, you're in and out of the shop. And you got the car you wanted, but because it never inspired you to take care of it, it paid you back in the

[16:00] same way. Maybe that's the lesson here. Cars want to function. They want to deliver for you, but they need your attention to do that. And while some cars are created equal, not all of them inspire the same sort of sentimentality

[16:14] that would keep them on the road at all. And the two-wheel drive four-cylinder single cab manual transmission Tacoma inspires sentimentality because it is everything modern trucks are not. The Tacoma is small, quiet, humble, simple,

[16:31] demure even, if you want to use that word again, friendly, empathetic, empathetic. It's built to care about you, the human. That's why it's not going to bankrupt you with high maintenance stemming from

[16:46] expensive labor because every component of this engine, gearbox, rear end, suspension, fuel system, fuel tank is easy to access. So, maintenance costs if this truck is going to be low. Mechanics are happy to work on it because it's not

[17:01] a pain in their ass. During these years, these years of our Lord, the regressive 20s, we tend to look back at the 2000s, the recession years, and think, "Wow, we were building trucks

[17:15] to survive fiscal downturns, not just surf from one stock dip and rise to the next or to the next quarterly report and next." These Fruitiger era era trucks from

[17:29] Toyota still charge on as if we are all still burning mix CDs and printing out MapQuest directions. And these rays of hope will carry you and your stuff into the next sunrise, which is coming. This is 2026 and these

[17:47] are the bonfire years of our twisted country in North America, but the 2020s will end. And these little stick-shift Tacomas will be your loyal guide dogs through these dark days. There is a prosperous

[18:03] future waiting for us all and good work and and honesty and kindness will take us there. And suck my weirdly circumcised dick if you think I'm being sentimental. I got my right hand gripping the stick-shift with new

[18:18] sincerity and I have four bags of cement in the bed and it's snowing and my truck is two-wheel drive and I'll be fine and you'll be fine. We'll be fine. Buy these simple machines and you'll prosper. There's still good

[18:31] in this world and you're looking at it. See you next Monday. Oh, hey, and before you go, going. We're giving away a Ford Focus RS. Yeah,

[18:47] We're giving away a Ford Focus RS. Yeah, the 350 horsepower and torque hot hatch, another relic from a previous decade, the kind of car that may never be made the kind of car that may never be made again. Also stick-shift, also fun, and

[18:59] also the type of vehicle that cares about the human inside and wants the human inside to be happy. Go to fandanem.com/regularcars. you're automatically entered to win. You have my thanks. You have Nick's thanks.

[19:13] And everybody who wants to see RCR thrive and continue defying all slot enter this giveaway. It's the best way to help us and someone's going to win this car. Anyway, you mean a lot to me and I can't wait to keep making videos

[19:26] for you. Thank you. Have a great week and I'll see you next Monday with the and I'll see you next Monday with the next video.