Over the last three months of winter - which I suppose we're still sort of in, but we're soon to come out the other side - the Tacoma has been doing great. This time of year, it lives down in Las Vegas, so there's relatively little I can do from a maintenance perspective. As such, this Rig Review focuses on things that are working (or not), but doesn't really address any of them with fixes.
In that time, we squeezed in four adventures (and a couple other family vacations to more... civilized accommodations). While that might be fewer trips than some reviews, they were longer than normal, so it was still 18 nights in the desert, a great way to escape the dreary dampness of the Pacific Northwest winter.
So, let's get into the details:
TL;DR - The new 5th gear is gutless, but it does seem to have improved my gas mileage significantly. Maybe.
Can installing this save you gas money?
TL;DR - The Exped Megamat for the RTT continues to be one of my most "worth it" purchases, and Exped (the company) stood behind it - years after my initial purchase - when it developed a slow leak.
Worth every penny.
TL;DR - The Kenda Klever RT tires have great traction, but I'm ditching them (and returning to S/T Maxx) once they wear out.
Flat spots.
TL;DR - My Northstar 24F batteries have been great, but after 5 years, they are both dying. I need to start figuring out what I'm going to do next.
No green lights, no bueno.
Seemingly solved from previous Rig Reviews
With the Tacoma away from home, nothing got solved.
Unchanged / Still an issue from previous Rig Reviews
There are some things that have been featured in Rig Reviews that are - as yet - unchanged from when I originally reviewed them. Rather than highlight those things again, I'll simply link to them here.
- Skid plate attachment could be better
- The Sequoia wheels and Kenda Klever RT tires aren't as great as I'd hoped.
- The jury is still out on whether the 5th gear swap was worthwhile (still collecting data).
- Mice in the cab. We haven't had any more mice, but I haven't made any changes, so I'm not ready to call it solved just yet.
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I have given up on AGM batteries, went through a bunch and they don't seem to last in my usage. My 2000 Cruiser off, keep things alive current will drain a battery in 3 to 4 weeks. And AGM seem to suffer more from being taken down to a low charge. So I have gone back to regular batteries. When I park the Cruiser for more that a week I hook up a charger. I have a marine cigarette lighter jack in my front fender, and charger now has a cigarette lighter plug on it. Also kind of handy with a USB charger plug in it, as it is always on, for charging stuff on the hood.
Yeah, I'm wondering about going back to a lead-acid for the starting battery (to save a bit of money), and LiFePo for the house battery (just for the fun of building out a new system). My truck doesn't draw down quite as much as the LC sounds like it does, but when it's in storage, they don't have it on a charger, so I'm sure that's not great for it... given the 2-4 weeks between visits/trips.
I like that external charger. I have something internally for charging at home, where I can just plug in my CTEK charger and keep both batteries topped off, but external would be even more convenient.
For accessories, things like a winch I've been using an Optima Yellowtop D35 deep cycle AGM battery which is holding up well and is said to about 3X as long as a similar flooded battery.
Can you say--Fabric softener sheets? cut in half and put 6-8 in the cab, anywhere in or out. Something similar is a farm tractor cab mouse repellent--
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