2020 Toyota Tacoma: What to check before buying

Stalling and sudden loss of power dominate these reports. The truck jerks and bucks as if out of fuel, dies at speeds from parking lots to highways, and can be hard to restart, especially after fueling. Shops usually blame the low-pressure fuel pump. Many owners say a fuel pump recall exists but their VIN is excluded, so they pay for the repair or get turned away when the dealer cannot reproduce the fault. Replacing both high and low pressure pumps does not always cure it. Gasoline odor, rough idle, and long cranking also appear.

Both complaints tie back to the fuel pump. One describes a stall at 35 mph with loss of power steering assist and brakes, plus stored fault codes for the fuel pump and low oil pressure. The other is mostly a recall delay: the owner received notice of campaign 20V682000, but the dealer had no replacement part, and the truck kept hesitating under acceleration at around 16,000 miles while waiting for the repair.

Shudder and hesitation are the common threads. Several reports describe a torque converter lock-up vibration during steady cruising around 30 to 40 mph. Others describe gear hunting, lurching from reverse into drive, RPMs climbing without acceleration, limp mode with no stored codes, and stalling at highway speed. Warm-start trouble shows up too, with long cranking, starter grinding, and a gas smell. Dealers often cannot duplicate the faults. A cylinder head failure at 48,200 miles and a premature manual-transmission throwout bearing failure are also reported.

Brake fluid leaking from the master cylinder into the cab under the steering column is a recurring complaint, and owners say a related recall covers trucks only through 2019. Other reports describe a soft or sinking pedal, a pedal that drops to the floor, a brief loss of power assist, and pulsation from the first miles. Rear brakes keep locking up after repeated drum replacements. One driver needed the parking brake to stop, and others describe near misses. Dealers frequently call the behavior normal or find nothing wrong.

Fuel pump failures spill into this category too, with power loss, a blank instrument cluster, and dealers declining coverage outside the recall. The remaining reports are scattered. They include rodent damage to the engine wiring harness that sets a check engine light, a dead hands-free microphone, battery terminal corrosion causing a no-start, an infotainment screen that turns off and on by itself, and a Qi wireless charging pad that gets extremely hot at around 5,000 miles.

Severe engine failures appear in a small number of reports. They include an engine seizing on the highway at 1400 miles, and a failure at speed with a low oil pressure light, a loud noise, and seized steering. A timing chain cover oil leak at 84,000 miles requires dropping the engine to reach the gasket. Other filings describe brief stalls at highway speed around 5,000 miles that dealers could not find, plus a dead spot when accelerating and slipping engagement after parking on an incline.

False automatic braking is the main pattern. The truck brakes hard or drops 10 to 20 mph with nothing ahead, often while passing a large truck in adaptive cruise, which raises the risk of being rear-ended. At least one report says it happens with forward collision warning switched off. A separate complaint describes cruise control accelerating well past the set speed until disengaged. Another cites a pre-collision system fault traced to the sensor behind the windshield.

Failure to deploy in a crash is the main concern. Three of the four complaints involve a crash, and together they list four injuries. Two describe impacts at 35 mph and 50 mph where no air bags deployed, with injuries including a concussion. Another describes a side curtain air bag deploying at an angle during a low-speed slide into a ditch and causing permanent eye blindness. The remaining report covers SRS and seat belt warning lights that stay on after a seat adjustment.

The rear pre-collision system fails to warn or brake while backing up, according to the clearer of two crash-related complaints, which ends with the truck hitting a parked vehicle in a driveway. The second filing lists two injuries but gives no detail on how the system behaved. With only two reports, no broader pattern is visible, but the backup braking feature should not be treated as a guarantee against low-speed collisions.