taco1999 
1999 Toyota Tacoma Extended Cab SR5 V6 2dr Extended Cab SB
1999 ToyTacomaReview by PJM
 Wow, I bought this Tacoma almost 13 years ago, and I have never put a dime into it except for routine maintenance.  The one exception was the mass air flow sensor.  It was the only part that ever needed replacement due to failure.  It went out about a year after I bought it.  The engine still worked with the blown mass air flow sensor; it just would not accelerate smoothly or quickly.These 3.4 Liter V6 engines are great motors as far as power and reliability.  They are also very smooth, but they do not get good gas mileage by any stretch of the imagination.  Mine gets anywhere between 16-18 miles per gallon depending on where and how I am driving it.  Luckily, this Tacoma is no longer needed as a commuter rig.  This is good since both my wife and I live in the Seattle area, and driving a stick shift in the Seattle area is quite miserable.  Seattle traffic is insane.  Now, that I have owned this rig for more than a decade, I can tell you this old Tacoma has been an extremely useful tool for both me and my family.  I am now married, and I am in my late forties, and I also have a fixer upper house, which has constant needs and issues so this old Tacoma is now the house fix it truck.  It runs all of the errands for our house no matter how ugly or simple they are.  It is funny how I bought this Tacoma more than a decade ago to have a sport truck with the sole intent to go exploring trails and go fishing, and then life started happening.  Other than the occasional trail run on a logging road, it does not seen much fun time anymore.  It has, however, been used as a truck to move things, and help my friends move things more times than I can count.  It is always used at least once every other weekend for some kind of work.  Okay, so let me tell you some of the bad things about it, which there are not a whole lot.  The seats are not at all comfortable.  Our Tacoma has the split bench seat, which is not the least bit comfortable especially when we have to drive any kind of distance.  The suspension is also very tight and hard.  Even if we drive it over a small bump, it still kicks you in the kidney and in the ass.  Part of this is due to the fact the seats don't have a lot of support.  It is, however, a truck so it is not exactly built to be comfortable especially since it was built using two decade old technology.  Remember when buying one of these old Tacomas, they are trucks built with twenty plus year old technology so they are no where near as ergonomically friendly or as comfortable as the new generation of pick-up trucks from any of the manufacturers.  They are not even close.  A lot has happened in automotive and truck technology since these rigs were designed more than two decades ago.  Any of the new pick-up trucks from any of the manufacturers built in the last ten years will be a hell of lot more comfortable than one of these first generation Tacomas.  It is not even a close competition.  I will give you some information about our Tacoma.  It is a 1999 SR5 Extra-Cab with the 3.4 Liter V6, and the manual R150F 5-Speed transmission.  It is also a four wheel drive.  Our Tacoma is a bare bone stock SR5 with the only amenities being power steering, power brakes and air conditioning.  Everything else on it is manual.  It has manual windows, door locks and manual locking front hubs that have to be locked in order to use the four wheel drive.  It still has the original stereo system, which works fine.  We had the bed sprayed with Line-X a few years back, which makes hauling dirty crap a lot easier.  Our old Tacoma is straight, but the paint is definitely showing its old age; the paint doesn't have any luster to it anymore.  Now that this Tacoma is almost twenty years old, I pay acute attention to its maintenance.  I follow the Clinton's service manual religiously.  I have always been diligent about maintaining this rig, but now that I am older, and it is older, I pay even closer attention to its maintenance details.  I run full synthetics on all of its lubricants, and I change them out at the appropriate intervals.    At 49, I still love driving it even though I don't drive it much on the freeway or any place fun anymore.  Good Luck to all of you with your purchase.  I hope this review helps you with your decision.  Good Luck Once Again.