So recently I had the opportunity to hook up with another youtuber, a fella named Tyler. He runs a YouTube channel called Independence Overland and I followed him since the very beginning. He does great storytelling, he does great product reviews, and he does a great job with the camera, basically. And recently he had posted that he was going down to Kentucky to pick up his brand new 2024 Tacoma trail Hunter and I reached out to him and said, hey, brother, I’m in the area. What are the up, what are the odds that we can sit down and do a walkthrough of this truck and give your first impressions after driving it for 1200 miles and owning it for a little bit over a week? Fortunately, he was, he was good with this, so I hooked up with him.

We took the truck out in the desert, we ran it through its paces, and then Tyler was cool enough to show us absolutely everything involved, everything that he had learned. And bear in mind, he spent a lot of time talking to the Toyota engineers all along the pathway of this truck actually being built and presented to the people. So without further ado, let’s meet Tyler. Independence overland, a channel that if you’re not following it now, you should be following it afterwards. Here we go. All right, guys, I am here with Tyler from Independence Overland. Tyler, I appreciate you coming, all of, thank you.

I found Tyler’s channel years ago when I was looking for or I had just gotten an Alucab and he did a phenomenal video on it that nobody was really watching. So I mirrored the video with his permission and slowly but surely his channel’s growing. But he does some of the best storytelling, some of the best visual graphics, and some of the best editing that I could only wish to do. And even with all that, he still went and got himself a trail hunter. Yeah, and I gotta say real quick on that, the reason got this trail hunter, I have to say, is because when you mirrored that video, it gave me inspiration that I didn’t have before.

I’ve always loved video, but I never took it seriously until you sent me that email and you told me I needed to pursue it. And I swear to God that changed my life and I’ll never forget it. Seriously, I really appreciate that. That’s awesome. Well, I was just calling it like I saw it. Yeah, because you remember at the time my editing was clip, clip, clip. I didn’t know. You know, now I actually try. When you’re single and you have kids, learning anything new with technology is difficult. So two laptops, ones we’re editing, one showing you how to edit, at any rate.

So tell me about this. What made you decide to let go of your tried and true FJ cruiser that I’ve watched you over the years do epic, epic road trips in? What made you decide to let go of an suv and then pick up a four a pickup truck? First and foremost, I still have the FJ. My wife will not let me get rid of it. She’s like, no good woman. That’s a good woman. I’ve had it for 15 years. So the reason I wanted this is because filming, as you know, you run out of space, and I’ve got her and I’ve got the dog.

And so I wanted to get into a spot, especially with living in Colorado. I wanted a way to get away from the elements in the colder months because we have such short seasons here. So I wanted a truck so I could build something on the back of this thing eventually and have a space where I can have some heat just for those months where it’s getting a little bit colder and then keeping out of the bugs and keeping out of the wind and stuff like that. So that was my main thing. I’m not excited about using an open bed for a while because the dust we were talking earlier, all the dust that gets all over everything, but this truck is going to have a major transformation over the next six months.

And so I’m just kind of working towards that. And this is the foundation. Let me interject real quick. I just got a sneak preview that box rockets drew up for you, and it’s insane. It’s, I mean, it’s, it’s. Dude, it’s insane. People keep telling me in the comments when I mentioned this, this is gonna be a very unique tacoma. And they’re just like, oh, he’s gonna do this or that. This is gonna be, I promise you, a very unique tacoma, and I will absolutely back you up on that. That. It is, it is envious. Yeah, it is an envious vehicle.

So from the factory, like, the reason I wanted the trail hunters, because a couple years ago I was doing videos on. I thought, I thought a couple years ago I was doing videos where I thought Toyota was getting boring. And you got jeep that’s doing the gladiators with the Rubicon package. You got Ford that’s doing the broncos. And Toyota wasn’t doing anything. They were doing the pros, but they really weren’t separating them enough. And so when they came out with this, I’m kind of eating my words. They finally came out with something that I was asking for.

I personally wanted. It’s got a snorkel from the factory, so I’m not, like, voiding a warranty or ruining resale value. It’s got 33s from the factory, sway bar disconnected. It’s got a huge rear end. It’s got tons of power. And so I know these things are expensive, and a lot of people are intimidated by the four cylinder, but for me, I wanted to embrace the new technology. But you say people are intimidated by the price you paid. Exactly what I paid for a used 2019 TRD Pro with no miles. And it was just. I did buy it right at the tail end of the pandemic.

So it was basically, take it or don’t, you know, I was buying a used truck that was actually more than a brand new truck. But, I mean, when you told me the price for this, just the way it stands, I think you got your money’s worth, man. I think this is pretty insane. Yeah. For everything you get on this. And I did pay about $66,000, and that includes the roof rack, or the roof rack was an add on, so it would have been a little bit cheaper, but I couldn’t get that taken off. But the trail hunter package on these and the new four runners are going to have the snorkel, and it’s got basically everything.

If you want a TRD, off road premium, some of the features you’re gonna have to chase, as this has absolutely everything for the off roader, so. Okay, so. So, yeah, on the trail hunters, some of the things that I was really into was that while we like modifying things, it is nice when something just comes from the factory with a bunch of off road modifications, because this is a brand new vehicle, so it’s gonna take a while for some of that to come from the aftermarket. So it’s got rock rails, a steel rear bumper, like I said, the sway bar, disconnect, a rear locker, unfortunately, not a front locker, and then the snorkel, and then this bedroom rack, which some people like the look of it, some people don’t.

It can convert into a full roof or a bed rack system, but it’s really expensive from Toyota. I think you can do better going aftermarket on that. And then it’s got the front light bar and then the factory fog lights that are from Ridgid, and they turn yellow, amber and white. And so that’s everything. That’s beautiful. Yeah. And then it’s. Oh, yeah, the air compressor. It’s got an air compressor built into it, and so you can automatically air everything up and down, it will air down for you. And then. And I think that’s most of the major features of the truck.

But anyway. Yeah, so I’ll read that. But those are some substantial features. So right out of the factory, you’ve already got a snorkel. So you don’t have to worry about either a paying somebody to drill a hole in the side of your truck or be trying it yourself, because it’s scary as hell doing it. So that’s already straight from the factory. They’ve already given you some, actually, auxiliary lights that are you. That are usable. Good call. 33 inch tires, rock rails, and, I mean, this is a. The rack that’s up there that blows away that stupid basket on the TRd pros.

Yup, the same. It’s the same one that the FJ had. It was the most useless thing in the world. It looks dumb. Yeah, it does. This actually looks badass. And it’s usable. Yeah, it’s got some solid rails up here. This is a very different thing. But one thing I have noticed is the back has like a plastic fairing, which at about 80 miles an hour, vibrates really hard. But I’m okay with that because this roof rack is not going to be staying on very long anyway. Right. Just for anybody that might be looking at one of these, this roof rack does make some noise at about 80 miles an hour.

Okay, well, the front liners, the front runner, slimline two did as well. So. Yeah, it’s a thing. It’s a thing. Okay, so how about this? How is this comparatively to the FJ? Dude, power wise, it is such an improvement over that. And again, I know that people are die hard v six fans, but the power on this, it doesn’t shift going up. Veil passes. You know, these things are screaming with that transmission at five speed and third gear dropping into the wrong, wrong gear. Yeah. When you needed to go up right, this thing shifts so well.

It’s got so much power, you really don’t even fully boost all the time. And then you’ll see that hybrid motor kick in, because it does have a gauge, if you choose to watch it. And so, because I was telling you, it has 465 pound feet of torque. So it’s like v eight. It’s really like a diesel. 326 hp with 465 pound feet of torque. So some people compare the hybrid to the non hybrid. The hybrid is not that much faster. But for the stuff we do, big tires, carrying tons of weight, it’s going to excel in that kind of stuff.

And that’s why I was so excited about these. So when you’re driving up the pass, you got eight speeds and this thing really never shifts over like 3000. If you really dig into it, you’ll get 3500 out of it. But your peak torques at 1700 revolutions per minute, you get all of that power to 1700 revolutions per minute all the way through the power band. So you really. The engine doesn’t really need to work very hard. It’s pretty amazing, man. It’s a different experience driving this compared to the one Grfe that you and I both have.

So we took this down. We took this down. Whatever the name of that pass was. I forget what it was already. We just took it down a trail. Yeah. How is this noise wise? How does it feel going down the trail? Because the trail wasn’t all that difficult. But there was a lot of ups and downs, a lot of ruts, a lot of whoop de doos and such. How did it feel? How is it. You said, you told me originally this has sound deadening. Yeah. So this thing has active noise cancellation. Kind of like Bose headphones have built into them.

That is crazy. So when you guys hear this snorkel, it sounds really good and it sounds like it would be obnoxious. But when you have the window down, you can hear it. But once you roll it up, you, like, can’t hear it. It is the most bizarre thing. And this is acoustic glass, so this is going to cancel some of that out. And these premium models have more sound deadening built into the truck than the lower trims. So it is a very quiet experience on the inside. You’re saying sound deadening like the stuff that I put in my truck? Yeah.

So they’ll actually put more of that in no glass as well as active noise cancellation that goes through the stereo in some way or another. I’m not sure. That’s crazy. Yeah, it is crazy. That’s crazy. It’s so quiet. Like, my wife was thrilled by that. Just because the FJ is a screamer as. Right? Right? Yep. So what’s under the hood? So this is a 2.4 cylinder turbocharged engine. And they did some stuff. And again, people are scared of the four cylinders. The. The chief engineer, Sheldon, talks about how they put a three inch cooling pipe on it.

The cooling system has a three inch pipe that circulates it. It’s basically an industrial grade cooling system on this thing. And when you really look at some of that, you can see how beefy it is. And we’ll pop the hood here in a second, but yeah, it’s just a little four cylinder. And then sandwich between the engine and transmission is a hybrid motor. So everything works just like a traditional truck would. It doesn’t have electric motors at the front of the rear. It’s right between the engine and transmission. And that gives you 150 pound feet more of torque.

And then sometimes at low speeds, it’ll kick into hybrid mode and you’ll be full hybrid. Oh, see, you already got me thinking. I’ve already got dual transfer cases. It’s like, how can we put that motor into a regular truck? You know what I mean? But that’s crazy. Did they, are there any warnings about, you know, water crossings, things like that? Because I’ve seen you ford a lot of rivers over the years, so I will be more scared like the one I did in Arkansas. I would be scared of doing something that deep up over the headlights.

Yep. You’re not supposed to get the battery wet. But as far as I understand from the engineers is the fording depth is no different between the hybrid and the non hybrid. They went through the, they went through their paces to make sure that this thing would perform the way I would imagine they did. Yes. That’s the beauty. It took them this long to get this far. Yeah, but like we were saying earlier, they watch what other manufacturers do for transmissions and other drive, driveline activities. And watch it for ten years. Yeah. To see if it’s going to fail.

And then they’ll actually make it bigger and better, which is what this appears to be at this point right now. Yeah, I mean, this is crazy. It’s crazy. And it’s just strikingly badass looking just from the factory. Yeah. The muscular lines on this thing. It is such a good looking truck. The lights where. I mean, they even labeled the lights. Yeah. I mean, because they know they have to market. They’re like, yeah, you can take them out if you want, but you’re gonna lose the tag. I mean, this thing is insane. The interior on this, it’s amazing.

It is such a different. And I’ve heard some feedback on that where people are like, it’s got a very plastic interior. My FJ cruiser is nothing but plastic, and it has held up incredibly well. So I don’t know where people are coming from that they thought the last generation had like steel interior or something. But, uh, I drove an 80 series brother. Yeah, the entire interior was plastic. Yeah. Even back then. And that trucks sticker price for a 97, I had the original sticker for it was $75,000.97. Wow, that’s great. I didn’t know that it was plastic, dude.

I didn’t either. That’s crazy. But yeah, I saw the interior in this. This is pretty serious. You want to. Want to take a walk through there? Yeah, let’s do it. Okay. Yeah. So this is all push button now. So I’m not sure I’m necessarily want to do that. Or maybe I was leaving that so I can show some of the stuff. And she’s running. And she’s running. Yeah. And so it’ll run like this for just a second. I know. It looks good, doesn’t it? It looks good. And then this is all soft touch on these models.

And then this is obviously the soft tech seats. And then you get a little bit of storage right here. So this is a JBL speaker built into it. And this is part of the stereo system. So you can take this out and listen to music and stuff. Are you kidding me? They gave you a Bluetooth speaker you can remove. And what’s cool about it is this is the first solid state technology in a battery that Toyota has put out. And they had JBL produce. So the only reason it can sit up in the dash and take that heat is because of the solid state.

That is insane. Because yesterday for the first time, I had somebody offer me a 3000 watt solid state and I’m like, I don’t even know what that means. I started looking into it last night. And then you hit. Yeah, so I’m. I don’t. If people are complaining about the interior, they don’t drive a Toyota because I’m looking at this right now. It’s next. Toyota has successfully defeated a lot of the aftermarket already because you’re not going to get a better shifter knob. Right. And then. Yeah, so you have the wireless charging right here. They put USB C’s here.

On the back of the center console’s got USB C’s as well as 120 volts. And that’s a 2400 watt inverter built into the hybrids. The non hybrids don’t have that. You’ve got a 2400 watt access behind the console right here and in the bed. Wow. Yeah, it is nice. So there’s a lot of work that’s already done here. Yeah, you can just focus on the gravy, right? Yeah, the good parts and then little things like when I put a camper on the back of this thing. This is a digital. There’s a camera there. When you go into the views here, you have different views.

Wow. And so it’s drawing a picture. So when you’re off roading, it’ll even show. It’ll show under the truck. We have to be, I think, in drive break here. Yeah. So it’ll. It takes footage as you drive. Yeah. My dad’s Caddy has this tech. It is crazy. So when you’re off roading and you can see where your tires are, normally this gets filled in, and it really helps whenever you’re by yourself, trying to spot yourself. Absolutely. I’ve had to put a drone up every once in a while because I just couldn’t see where I was going.

And, yeah, if I followed up, it was a wrap. But, I mean, this is just. People are complaining about this. This is beautiful. By my standards. This is a luxury truck. No, this is a Cadillac. This is Alexis. I mean, this is above and beyond. Ventilated seats. Everything’s electric, both passenger and driver’s side. It’s got a built in brake controller. It’s got the sway bar disconnect. It’s got the locker, it’s got the camera views. This is all of your four wheel drive selection, which, like, we’re talking about earlier, I prefer a manual selector, but as far as electronic goes, this is pretty cool.

It’s got the crawl control that shows up on the digital display here. Yeah. And shows you all your information. Now, this is. This is what we were talking about. I got a 2019, instead of buying a branch spanking new one, which I could have because I was afraid of the fly by wire. And this is the same system that Dodge has been using for a decade. Yeah. And then Toyota is finally comfortable enough to use it because it’s. It’s worked. Yeah. And Toyota’s always late to the game. I know. And people are still, Toyota drivers are still like, we don’t like that.

You and I don’t like that. Right. But being that the other manufacturers did it 15 years ago makes me feel better because the technology has just come so far, and they’re just now jumping on board. So, to some extent, it’s tried and true. So ventilated seats, heated seats, heated. Heated steering wheel, independent climate controls in this thing. Obviously, the 14 inch screen, which is nice for whenever you’re pulling up. Like, I got on x maps on the screen right now. It’s bigger than my screen, and I put it in. Yeah. And it’s one of those things that I thought was gonna be obnoxious.

And now that I have it, I’m like, this is so nice to have whenever you’re off road, being able to see where you’re actually going, what you’re actually doing. That USB C is actually the one for the monitor, which is kind of interesting. I don’t know why they did that. These two pull that monitor because that monitor come out. No, it cannot. No way. Nope. I don’t understand that. Yeah, so it could just be a charger. Well, so these two are chargers. And this one is for. If you actually want to use your maps plugged in direct.

I don’t know why they chose to do it there instead of down here, but they did. And then what else? Yeah, so this also has auxiliary switches built into it. There’s aux switches from the factory. There’s one up front, there’s one here in the cab, and there’s one in the bed. And then that you can add to. That you can add to. It comes with a pigtails from the factory. Are you kidding me? So you just plug it in at those points, and it shows you where those points are, and you just run your wiring. I’m starting to think the Toyota just waited for me to finish building that truck, and they were like, hey, you know what? Let’s.

Let’s go even better. And they give you pigtails and auxiliary switches. Ready? That’s beautiful. I know. We’ve wait for that for years. For years. And, uh. Yeah, and so I’ve got my inverter switch over here, and then all of my lights and stuff like that. The light bar 20, I think it’s a 20,000 lumen light bar from ridgid. And then the fog light switch here, you control your fog lights, but the button even lights up white or amber to let you know which mode you’re in. That’s really good to know. And it’s just one of those small things that’s really nice.

And then the one thing that you would not be used to that was intimidating to me. My wife’s rav four has it, but this has the lane assist. So when you’re doing a long road trip, because the electric steering and it keeps you in the lane. Yeah. It takes a lot of the driving fatigue off of you. The one thing you do lose on the. On the hybrids is there’s no under seat storage. But that’s all coming out soon anyway. Okay. Okay. Yeah, that’s coming out. Yeah. In the next. I’m gonna leave this with goose gear here in Grand Junction.

And this is gonna be the prototype vehicle for the hybrid system, for the hybrid tacoma. So this is. The seats are coming out right away because that space I already miss. And having some seat back storage is something I really need. And then just having a place for all my camera stuff. That was one of my primary things of upgrading to this vehicle is having more of an organized cab compared to the jake is just the way the door layout and stuff is. So I’ve seen this before. I thought it was all prototypes. Why didn’t they put a cover on this? So what the engineer was claiming was that the amount of development that goes into making a cover for this versus making this as far as producing the vehicle goes, you get more out of that for sound deadening.

And the covers were actually originally designed for sound deadening versus making the engine just look pretty. And so this is more functional is what they said. Oh, well, then that makes sense, because over the years, to me, covers were just. Don’t work on this. I know, complicated. Yeah. It’s like, dude, just pull it off. You know what I mean? So in my FJ, it’s got two little 10. Then it kind of swivels up. Yours is, I guess yours is probably charger. Oh, right. Yeah. So metal. What am I looking at here? So that’s the hybrid inverter system.

So that’s 288 volts, I think is what it is. So that’s the thing that’s interesting about this powertrain. So this does not have an alternator. All of your power is produced from that hybrid motor. So I’m not sure what the actual amperage is. The new Tacomas have 100. The non hybrids have 180 amp alternator. This should be able to match that, if not exceed that. I would imagine it would exceed that, but I’m not sure exactly what that number is. I’ve been asking the engineers and I’m hoping to have that answer for people before too long.

But, yeah, so your hybrid motor, like, you get regenerative braking. Basically when you’re going down a mountain pass, you’re charging that battery up. And so anyway, that’s converted to twelve volt. And then it goes back behind the seat. The twelve volt battery is back there as well. And so it does have. Usually it just starts off the hybrid motor. But you do have a traditional starter in the event. At least I know the tundras do. I’m pretty sure this one does as well as like a backup. Because you can jump start this off at 12 volts.

So you’ve only had it for a week. Yeah. So I still got a lot to learn, that’s all. But you know, more than most. But it’s got a huge air filter. Pretty impressive air filter. Yeah. I was saying that the TRD Pro is a flat, which is okay, but a conical is what you want because there’s more surface area, you know, and that’s what you’ve got. So that’s a pretty nice setup. And it’s factory straight to no snorkel. You can’t ask for better. No, they designed it in there. Yep. You’re not using hose clamps or caulking or any other thing, you know.

And then. Yeah. As far as, like, the. How they plumb this thing, like, these huge coolant lines and stuff, it does give me confidence that I’m not gonna have to worry about this thing overheating, because that’s what a lot of people are worried about. Look at those brake lines. Very nicely done, Toyota. Very nicely done. Yep. And part of this system is for that cruise control mode I was talking about, because if somebody pulls in front of you, it will automatically break. I mean, even if you’re going through a town. And this is, again, this is nothing new to a lot of people, but it’s.

It’s new to me because it’s a brand new truck. But, um. But if you’re going through town, you’re going from 70. Somebody slows down, there’s a stop sign. It goes all the way to stop. They take off again. It takes off for you. You don’t even touch the pedals. It’s. It’s something to get used to, but it’s. I don’t know when your legs killing you because you’ve been trying to hold it in front of that brake for miles at a time, it’s. It takes some fatigue off. But this is crazy. This is crazy. I mean, it’s.

It looks to be very well done. I mean, it’s. This is. When you open the hood, you’re expecting to see presentation. Yeah, well, they did that and everywhere else. Yeah. Right here is the engine. Right. It is what it is. Don’t mess with it. Okay. I’ll tell you what. That trail hunter with the hybrid motor has got a lot of power. He just got on the highway and hit it and got right up to 80 miles an hour would seem pretty easy. And he’s telling me the new transmission in this thing actually shifts like a transmission supposed to.

I guess it took Toyota a while, but what are you gonna do? Yeah. You said you’ve got a massive drivetrain in this thing. Oh, yeah. The drive shaft is, like, this big around. This has the Land Cruiser, 80 series, 9.5 rear end, which is indestructible. Yeah. I never blew up my rear end. I couldn’t. And I tried. I tried. Yep. I’ve got in the FJ, too. Yep. And this because you’re a four runner fan, the front of this vehicle. The front looks a little bit different on the. On the actual front end of the vehicle. But everything else, from what I understand, the interior and everything is exactly the same.

Right, right. This is. You did a lot of research on this. You do due diligence, correct? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I flipped a quarter, bought a four runner zero. Yeah. I’ve been. I’ve been waiting. I just looked at my first email to a salesman a couple years ago, because I actually had a guy in the industry leaking me information about these a couple years ago. Yeah. In 2022, that I was following up on these. So I waited two years. Just patient, just saving money, waiting for this thing to come out. What are your plans, if any, for suspension? Are you gonna leave it the way it sets now? Yeah, because it comes with the old man emu.

It’s a pretty big shock to two and a half or maybe even a three. It’s an old main emo arb collaboration, I’m noticing, because they’re both labeled on there. So these are like the BP 51 sdHe. It’s similar to it. I believe. It’s a little bit under that, but it’s tuned specifically for this truck, so I don’t think you get as much lift. It is lifted compared to the off road models. But. But I don’t think it’s quite a BP 51. It’s not fully adjustable. Right, right. But it does have piggybacks on the rear. And so will this be able to handle what you’re planning on doing? I think the shocks will be able to, because it’s got massive shocks.

But I think I will probably have to swap out the springs. But I’m not entirely sure yet. It does ride really nice, so I’m assuming those springs are gonna be a little soft. All right, well, springs make a difference, and if you need springs, David Otero at Dobinson. Dobbinson’s what I use in the FDA. Me, too. Same, same, same. Yeah. They’re awesome. Yep. This is insane, man. So we’re cooking out here in the hill. We found this little cubbyhole of. Took us a while, a little cubbyhole of shade, like you said, trying to find shade in the deserts.

Not easy. Not very easy. Let’s take a look at the back here, because there’s a lot going on that you wouldn’t imagine that would be in the back of a pickup. And this is all temporary. Yeah. You’ve got a secret plan yet to be revealed, but this is pretty nasty for what it is. So you want to give us a. Sure. Yeah. It’s got an arb steel bumper back here, and then it’s got, obviously, some serious recovery points on the back here. This is the part of the frame I was talking about. They kind of cut it weird way.

Right, right. Supposed to be incredibly strong. This is more similar to the hilux than it’s been in a very long time. Yep. So I’m stoked about that part. The electronic tailgate, which is a pretty nice feature. I mean, honestly, I’m not bothered by old trucks and just lowering it, but I can see how this is gonna be really nice for some people. Let me ask you, do you have to have the key fob on you for that to drop down? Okay. And then also, the benefit is that when you lock your truck, it’ll also lock the tailgate.

Cool. So, compared to older styles, then you actually get a little more security there. And then the air compressor. This is a trail hunter specific thing. The pros don’t come with this. So this has presets in. It’s got, like, seven or eight presets. It’s got, like, a road, and then you can program pretty much all of them. And so this will air your tires up and air your tires down. It comes with, like, a little hose kit and then, like, a little kit so you can blow off the dust on your truck. So it plugs in right there? Yep, it just plugs in.

Then you press start, and then I don’t have the power on right now. It’s all good, but it’ll just show the presets, and you just choose which one put on the tire and press start, and it’ll just do its thing. And I’m gonna guess because Arb worked in partnership with Toyota, this is the first, right? Yeah, Toyota worked in partnership with ARB. I’m gonna guess that that pumps got some serious juice to it. So it has serious juice. But this is actually not an Arb compressor. What? Yeah. I asked the engine at the expo a couple weeks ago, and they said, no, it’s not an Arb compressor.

I was very surprised, too, because they build the racks. What? Yeah. I know it’s weird, but this is a Toyota compressor. Oh. And they said that it’s a single piston, but they were claiming that it should be about as fast as the tool. The dual piston arb compressor. So anyway, that’s a Toyota single piston compressor. Yes. So they said they. They were claiming that this is about as fast as the dual compressor from Arb is. So time will tell. I’ve only used it a couple times, but it does seem like it does perform pretty well. But I mean, air compressors in general, at the elevation I live at, are usually pretty slow anyway.

Cause they’re compressing. Right, right. Thin air, but yeah. So I’ll have to give it a little more time before I can make a judgment call. It looks like there’s an access panel right below it for the compressor. Yeah. So that’s where the compressor mounts. I want to pull it out. I don’t know. It’s going to be since they bed line this thing, which was an add on that I didn’t want, but it was part of the package, so. But I would like to pull that out just to look at the compressor and see what it looks like.

I would just exacto knife it at any rate. Yeah. And then back here, I guess I should say it’s got a USB C port for charging stuff. For two of them. It’s got a baby. Put a USB port back there. Yeah, there’s two USB C ports back here. And then there’s 112 volts socket. But I have to say that this doesn’t pole for like a refrigerator. It doesn’t stay on. It’s only with the vehicle. So you still need to have a battery, like a little battery pack. But this does have a pure sine inverter on this side, which is 2400 watt, like we were talking about earlier.

And for guys like us, I mean, you do the same thing I do. Laptops, cameras, all those things. You don’t want to run dirty. It could be a complete hokum. Yeah, but pure sine wave protects electronics, and they put one in here. That’s a. That’s a 2400 massive. Yeah, mine’s got. Mine’s got a factory inverter in there, and I think it’s like a 400, right? You know what I mean? It’s ridiculous. Yeah. It’s not enough. They have made some serious changes. This is insane. Okay, one thing you didn’t point out earlier, I like the factory tie downs.

I love the fact that Arb built a serious bump. I mean, it’s factory, but already it’s. It’s done. Yeah. Unless you’re super worried about your approach, your. Your departure angle. You know, like, I mean, you’re not you’re not gonna be rock crawling, right? I built that thing so it could rock crawl, and I rarely do it, but I do do it, you know what I mean? Because I’m getting that done. Serious stuff. I do. So the, the inverters, you have access to the 2400 from outside and inside? Yep. That’s crazy. It’s very nice. Is that a power rear window? It is.

So you can vent it out? Yeah, it’s just like one of those small features for whenever there’s a turbulence going on because the dog wants her window down or something. You can open that real easy. It seems like they took every small feature that made really good sense and then some other ones that you never even thought of. Yeah, because I’m still thinking about that solid state JBl that is sold. I’ll take it. You know what I mean? Well, it’s only two wheel drive. I don’t care. I don’t care. Solid state battery. You said that you could, from Toyota, you could get a larger rack, so you could put a rooftop tent up here if you wanted to, but, I mean, you could actually mount one on top of the truck just the way it stands now.

Am I wrong? Yeah, I think you probably could. It’s only got three cross rails up here, and I don’t know how much weight this plastic section can take. I wish they would done this in aluminum. I don’t know why they cheaped out right there, because that’s where all the noise comes from. I was just gonna say, I guarantee you that’s the noise. Those holes right there? Yep. Yeah. And so I noticed in Arkansas or Missouri that it was even louder. I think the dense, the more dense air was making it even louder. And, I mean, it just sounded like a subwoofer was mounted to the top of the truck.

It’s pretty annoying, but. Oh, that’s the kind of noise you’re getting. Is it inside? Really? Yeah, it was pretty intense. Even on a live stream that I did, people were like, what is that noise? No kidding. Yeah. And, uh, but it was definitely from up here. And while she was driving, I even got in the backseat on the highway and I reached my hand through this window to touch it, to feel that it was vibrating. So I’m positive that that’s what it was. And then. Yeah, so if you do the full rack, this portion is still utilized and then it extends, but.

Right. It’s like a $2,500 rack. It’s pretty expensive. That seems a bit excessive, but Toyota is just embracing the overland markup because everyone else is. Yeah. And if they can roll somebody’s payments a little higher to get them into a rack from the factory, and it’s got a lifetime or a Toyota warranty, so. So I’m sure for a lot of people, that makes sense. Yep. But, um, so, in. In the rear end, you’ve got the. If memory serves, you’ve got the Land Cruiser 80 series, 9.5, which is a massive rear end for a truck this size.

Yeah. And I think the reason they did that is, I mean, obviously, it’s going to be more durable, but I think they had to, because the amount of torque that this is putting out, I would suspect. Yeah. And, I mean, I don’t know. I don’t know what the numbers are, but you’re either exactly with me, or you’ve exceeded me. And I’m a v six, supercharged. You’re a 4.0. Yep. It’s that secret little hybrid thing you got going on there. Yeah. And even the non hybrids have quite a bit of power. I forget the exact torque number.

I think it’s, like, around 310 or something like that. But, uh, yeah, 465 pound feet of torque. And, I mean, that’s just going to perform so well for once. This thing’s built in heavy. It’s. Right, right. And like I was telling you earlier, I don’t believe that we were on camera, the descent off road guys, they built a new Land cruiser with the same powertrain, put 38s on it, and they said that you can tell that the efficiency is gone, but the truck still has power. When you’re driving up a mountain pass, they’re like, it’s it.

You don’t really lose it like you used to with the older trucks. 35s on a stock forerunner TRD, pro climbing Imogene ain’t happening. Yeah. Putting 37s on. It’s absolutely not happening. You know what I mean? I had to go to 488s, but, um, that’s pretty phenomenal. Here’s one thing that we don’t want to gloss overdevelop. Let’s talk about the doors. Okay. So I was just. I was going to edit this in, but let’s go through this. Because you’re a videographer and a Toyota guy. What are we looking at here? I mean, this is. This looks like the aftermarket things that I did to my truck.

I know, right? And so this is one of the things that really attracted me to these is the organization, because, obviously, we have molle panel attachments all over the door here. I like that they gave us a little bit of storage in here. And you can buy pieces to make this solid if you don’t want to have that, just kind of clips on. But for, like, you and I, we’ve got camera stuff everywhere. And I can. I can stash little microphones here or something like that. I can put a bag there and it just makes. Yeah, stuff like that is great.

Something you want to get to quickly. Yep. Or a camera. Some of those quick latching camera pieces you could put on there. Right, right. And so I’ve got. I’ve got plans. I got to figure. Figure it out. Now that I have the truck, I got to mess around and figure out how to make it work best. But I’m going to utilize those. Wait, you see the waterfall of aftermarket? Oh, I know. It’s never even thought of. And this is exciting. I got into a fifth gen at the end of the fifth generation. You know what I’m saying? And I did that for a reason, because I knew every aftermarket, I knew what I was going to do.

Yep. And I knew everything I needed would be available. This is just beautiful. This is Cadillac. This is high end luxury car interior. I mean, it’s literally. And people complained about it, which I find odd. Yeah, I know. That’s how I felt about it. In one of the. In with the trail hunter, you get like the soft touch up here. And that’s where, when you’re doing these long drives, your arms sit. Sure. So that’s why I wanted that. The off road models don’t come with this. I think they come with this. But either way, this has got a trail hunter specific interior with the orange and the gray and everything.

And they, I mean, they had no problem putting labels on everything. Oh, yeah. Trail hunter. Trail hunter shooting inside the headlights. But, I mean, it’s tastefully done. It’s not stupid. You know, it’s not like 392 hemi on the side. Yeah. No offense, but still, what else we got here? So something else on the bed, I got to say, is that it does have these scene lights. So I haven’t really gotten to use these at camp, but this works with your doors and stuff. And you can just turn those on. And it’s basically a big floodlight that shines out.

It’s the same thing as the two rigids I had pretty much. See, they’re already there. They thought it through. They’ve been watching us. Yeah, they’ve been watching us. That was the delay. They really thought about this. I’ll tell you what they really thought about it. Oh, yeah. And I forgot to mention, on the back bumper, it’s got two spots, actually, for a high lift jack to go so it doesn’t slide out. Really? Because I’ve got a c four bumper, and there’s no place for a high lift jack, strangely enough. Yeah, right here. You slide it in there.

Wow. And then it won’t shift on you. Right. Just a small little detail. People are scared to death. The high lifts, that right there makes it a much safer tool. High lift is like an ex girlfriend, you know what I mean? They’re fun to have around. You can use them when you got them, but they will try to kill you at some point, so just use caution. So I guess some things, now that we’re out here, I’m thinking about it. Things that I don’t care for. On it. The fuel tank is three gallons smaller than it used to be.

Even though it’s more efficient, it’s smaller, but I’ll fix that with a long range America tank eventually. As soon as they have one. Yeah, but you just told me you get 27 miles to the gallon. Yeah, sometimes like 55, 60. Yeah, but 20 miles to the gallon is twice the size gas. That’s fair. I’ll still upgrade it, but. But that’s one thing where it’s like, he could have given us a little bit more. And then I think the 18 inch wheels, it’s kind of a weird one. I think they should have done a 17, but I’m surprised they didn’t.

I’ve heard that, too. I’ve heard that from other guys that got the Toyota. Something about the. You got to run for power brakes. That’s all I know. That’s why I’ve got 17s. But otherwise, how are the brakings? So the brakes on these are, you’ve got your base tacoma, then you have the off road. There’s one inner. Like, there’s the base brake system. Then there’s the upgraded package that the off road gets. And then the hybrids get an even bigger system. And I’m pretty sure that’s why they did the 18s. From what I understand, you can still fit a 17, but Toyota probably has some sort of a requirement for cooling those brakes, right? That’s part of it.

So I’m not sure if I could even fit a 17 on the factory brakes. But they’re supposed to be pretty, pretty good brakes. It’s a big brake package. I would imagine they’re phenomenal. Because Toyota’s factory brakes are serious. They last a long time. They last a long time. I’m probably still, if I can’t fit a 17 on here, I am looking to put power brake on it to get more tire. I got it. I got a guy for you. Yeah, the one. Yep. Yep. He’s the man. Yep. Again, forget it. This might be a prototype vehicle for the new power brake system.

Hell yes. And. But yeah. So I do want to upgrade those just for more sidewall on the tire. And then really, I think all in all, that pretty much sums up the major features of this thing. Like I said, soon the back seats are coming out because I’ve already got stacks of camera gear back here. Well, here’s the thing. For everybody that’s watching this on my channel, you need to go subscribe to his channel because what he’s doing to this, first of all, hasn’t been done by anybody else yet. Right. And it’s phenomenal. It’s gonna be cool.

It’s phenomenal. So subscribe to Independence Overland because he does the same thing I does. I does. He just does it better, you know? So I guess in conclusion, after driving the truck on the highway, after taking it out in the desert and running it through a few trails, and after looking over everything, I’m still old school, so I’d have to wait and see how this entire thing works out. It’s an awful lot of electronics. I’d like to see how it works underwater, etcetera. But Toyota’s got a stellar reputation as far as building specific vehicles for specific tasks, and Toyotas are Toyotas for a reason.

I’m not sure why they put such non aggressive tires on it. It doesn’t seem to make any sense to me. But again, I’m sure they have their reasons, but what Tyler is going to do to this truck has never been done before, and I’ve already seen a prototype of it, and it’s phenomenal. It’s absolutely awesome. So I got to thank Tyler for his time because we spent an entire day doing this. It was 110 degrees out. My cameras were overheating. I lost some footage. It happens. At any rate, if you enjoyed this video, make sure you subscribe to my channel as well as independence overland.

There’ll be a link below. Hit the subscribe button, hit the little notification bell next to it, and leave a comment below and I will try to return the favor. I am out.
[tr:tra].

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