#2016 stick shift cars manuals#
#2016 stick shift cars driver#
#2016 stick shift cars manual#

Compared with the Colorado, which feels as though it’s trying to emulate a crossover in both style and comfort, the Tacoma remains starkly truckish. The updated Tacoma’s lumberjack handsomeness blends oh-so naturally with the TRD Off-Road model’s locking rear differential, off-road shocks, Kevlar-lined tires, and plastic fender flares (automatic-transmission examples get electronic aids for off-roading). It sounds trite, but the experience is appealingly burly. If you fit in the Tacoma-the cabin’s pinched vertical dimension, fixed seat height, and minimally adjustable steering column limit its adaptability-you’ll understand where we’re coming from when we say there’s just something inalienably right about a stick-shift Toyota truck. The flipside of these flaws are that the high floor affords 9.4 inches of ground clearance, the chassis flex helps keep tires in contact with terra firma over big obstacles and provides engineered-in resilience, and the big tires lend the already soft suspension an extra measure of compliance. Even so, the more involving transmission doesn’t mask the Tacoma’s inherent foibles: The cabin feels somewhat cramped thanks to its high floor and low-mounted seats, some structural flexing can be detected, and the TRD Off-Road model’s knobbier tires deliver subpar grip on-road. This holds doubly true when you consider that the six-speed automatic transmission suffers from finicky programming that can find it hunting for gears. Given how satisfying the Tacoma’s six-speed shifter is to use-well-defined gates, solid engagement, and reasonably tight throws for a unit with a nearly foot-long shift lever-we’d like to see it more widely available within the Tacoma family. MICHAEL SIMARI Stick Me Baby One More Time In the V-6–powered extended-cab or four-door Double Cab TRD Sport and Double Cab–only TRD Off-Road models, the stick has six speeds.

#2016 stick shift cars manual#

On the base Tacoma SR extended-cab 4x4, which uses a 2.7-liter four-cylinder, the manual has five forward ratios.

#2016 stick shift cars manuals#

There are actually two manuals in the Tacoma lineup, and either replaces the six-speed automatic that’s standard on nearly every Tacoma. Toyota puts its manual option right where off-road enthusiasts want it, in select four-wheel-drive Tacoma variants like the TRD Off-Road model tested here-and it even lets you pair the stick with a V-6. The Tacoma’s primary competitor, the Colorado, offers a stick only in the rear-drive, four-cylinder, base-model “Work Truck,” which is as unappealing for everyday use as it sounds. Nissan’s Frontier still can be had with a stick, but that truck is ancient. Industry-wide, from sports cars to economy cars, the trend away from stick shifts continues. Put in marketing terms, everyone knows that rowing a stick, especially with a bed behind you and four-wheel drive under the chassis, is just plain manly. Granted, the updated-for-2016 Toyota lost its first comparison test to the Colorado, but it has an ace up its sleeve: an available manual transmission. The ads are spot-on, but we think they work much better for the square-jawed, ready-for-anything Toyota Tacoma.

#2016 stick shift cars driver#

Chevrolet’s recent advertising for its Colorado mid-size pickup, which courts buyers with the tagline “You know you want a truck,” and features staged focus groups wherein truck-driving men are viewed as more dateable, has zeroed in on the key purchase driver for trucks: their implied machismo.