2024 trailhunter reviews

Greetings.
I've been away for some time now, was starting to look at the trailhunter, was hoping for guidance to some reviews, or general insights as to how their track record has gone thus far. Curious also about hybrid insight regarding cold weather concerns on battery heath(?)... I'm in -10° to -32° Colorado for about 6 weeks now.

A collective thank you to the audience for any feedback.

 

The battery just acts as a fuel tank of sorts for the electric motor between the engine and transmission. That motor is there to increase HP and (mainly) torque. It improves mileage by 1-2 MPG or so, but it's not a Prius or Tesla, where the battery is a major concern. All batteries suffer a bit from severe cold, but the gas engine is the major system on a Tacoma. There's a separate system to heat and cool the battery.

The major Trailhunter gripe is the snorkel. If you're thinking about buying one, you should drive it and see how it sounds with the passenger window open.

 

That tightened up some of what my brain was slacking, thanks... I had seen a couple gripes about snorkel... I'm about 4 hours away from nearest big dealership, trying to time it for test drive is complicated.
thanks for those points.

 

Get a RAM 2500

 

There's no shortage of snorkel sound videos on YouTube. You should get a pretty good idea of what it'll sound like. All the air to the engine gets sucked in right by the window, and the plastic tube seems to act as a resonance chamber.

Snorkel's have a purpose - fording water. The tail pipe should also raised (see the pic of the HMMWV with fording kit below), but it's not nearly as critical.

Fording means diffs and various cases need drained and filled with fresh oil, but I'm not sure I'd want to entertain submerging that electric motor - and I doubt Toyota endorses (or warranties?) fording at snorkel depth - which makes the Trailhunter's snorkel just there for show (and aggravation, for some people).

 

It's not a snorkel. I forget what they call it but it is a higher mounted air intake for avoiding road dust.

 

I agree.

Having spent considerable time in places where it's referred to as "moon dust", that not-snorkel doesn't avoid that either.

It's for show.

 

Dusty as heck on my roads, know i don't NEED it... More in it for the OME kit, interior, 6' bed. I always burn a lot of bread on aftermarket, thinking if you built up a trd off road the same way, it'd be more money, is some rationale.

 

First question is whether or not you really want the hybrid. If you do, and want a 6' bed; you're pretty much limited to the Trailhunter. If you don't, you have a lot of options if you want to load it up with aftermarket stuff.

Trailhunter is $63k. Bare TRD OR with 6' bed is $43. (The SR5 with 6' bed is $41k.) Then you can pick the $20k of aftermarket upgrades you want and still be within the same budget. That's a lot of goodies that you get to pick instead of what Toyota picked for you.

 

Depreciation of a 63K TH starts at 63K and goes down. Depreciation of 43K OR with 20K of goodies starts a 43K and goes down at the same rate as TH.

 

You passed the math test, but failed reading comprehension and context.

The OP said “I always burn a lot of bread on aftermarket”. Modding a lower trim was his suggestion.

 

OP already acknowledged it's the more expensive way to get the same thing. Just using your numbers to drive the point home.

 

You must not have a Trailhunter. If the electric motor improves the gas mileage then the Trailhunter must have truly appalling gas mileage without it. The gas mileage is, if you read all the forums, by far the largest gripe with the Trailhunters. Mine averages 15.1 MPG after 14k miles, and 10k of that is bone stock. If you can stomach that kind of gas mileage, everything else about the truck is pretty good- it's quieter than all the previous gens (aside from the snorkel noise, which is noticeable, but not as bad as everyone here is making out.) It really does have a lot of power, and tows campers and boats better than any Tacoma I've owned. The rear quarter panels are shaped weird and catch rocks, leading to peppered paint over time. They add a bunch of protective film on the truck, but not in this location, unfortunately. Not much space in the back seats, but manageable unless everyone you carry is overweight. Overall, I'm ambivalent about it. I might have been better off getting a non-hybrid 2024 and adding on some of the trailhunter perks- it seems the non-hybrids are getting much better gas mileage, but it's hard to tell if that is becuase of all the add-ons on the trailhunter.

 

FFS. Does anybody bother to read what's written, or do they just rush to "acktchually..."

 

I think there are 5 Trailhunters (only 33 fill-ups) over on Fuelly and they are averaging 16.5 ish, so your experience is in the balllpark of others. Current owners of the Land Cruiser with the same powertrain are also experiencing disappointing MPG from what i can gather. Maybe the hybrid can be carefully nursed to its claimed MPG numbers, but these are not within the realm of normal driving habits for most.

 

Thanks all...
Hadn't seen the crumby MPG #'s yet, good to know...
Maybe the SR5, and do it my way, is better call.
Appreciate the input.

 

If you lift an SR5 - note that the front prop shafts are different than the off-roady trims and will likely need swapped as well.

 

The stance/lift differences are another thing I'm fuzzy on findings. Is the off road ~ +1" while TH and PRO are ~ +1.5" higher than SR's ?

 

Can't vouch for the specific numbers, but yes. The off-roady trims (OR, TH, PRO, etc...) are higher. 3 different shock applications. Bilstein, OME and Fox. The different prop-shafts account for the increase.

There's a different thread with the shaft popping out of the sleeve due to (IIRC) a 2.5" lifted SR5.

 

10-4
prop shafts aka cv axles ?