i'm mark williams for pickup trucks . com and we're here in Southern
California conducting our mid-sized shootout where we're taking seven pickup
trucks over the course of three days and putting them through a battery of tests
the seven trucks in our tests are the 2012 chevy colorado the 2011 ford ranger
the 2012 GMC canyon the 2012 honda ridgeline the 2012 nissan frontier the
2012 suzuki equator and the 2012
toyota tacoma
day one starts at the dyno to get horsepower and torque numbers at the
rear wheels we move right into our fuel economy run 200 miles around some of the
harshest most difficult pavement roads in Southern California day to four by
four day we get a chance to do hill climbing and running through the high
deserts above Los Angeles day three is at the speedway you get a chance to do
zero to 60 and 62 0 brake testing both loaded and unloaded at maximum payload
let's check out the top three trucks coming in third is the 2012 honda
ridgeline which came to our competition with an all new sport package that
included a new blacked out front wheel unique wheels and tires and several new
interior trim pieces from the outset of our test the ridgeline impressed our
test drivers with its strong fuel economy winning that specific events
with a combined average of twenty point nine miles per gallon
even though it was one of the heaviest vehicles in our test
not surprisingly the ridgeline was a driver favorite on pavement because of
its full-time all-wheel drive and quick 3.5 liter v6
however where the ridgeline did have trouble was directly related to the
off-road portion of our test off the pavement the four-wheel independent
suspension
lack of a transfer case limited its overall capability
likewise having the smallest engine providing the least amount of torque in
our dyno testing didn't help either but we don't want to leave you with the
wrong impression here at thirty thousand dollars
the ridgeline provides a strong value choice especially if you don't need
serious four-by-four capability
coming in second place is the 2012 nissan frontier our test unit came to us
in sv four by four trim packaging
interestingly the frontier was the stealth competitor in our tests not
standing out in any of our 10 tests but always garnering solid praise and strong
scores from our objective tests and our test drivers in fact the frontier did
not win a single event but came in second or third in more than half of
them some of the frontiers highlights include having the second-best payload
capacity the highest gross combined weight rating and the highest towing
capacity clearly nissan has a good strong platform here but we also really
like the gods of power that comes from the four liter v6 only the Colorado's 5
3 litre v8 could beat it 0 to 60 performance on the track and that was
only by one one-hundredth of a second where the frontier fell short against
other competitors was when we directly compare the interior styling comfort and
material choices but a twenty-nine thousand dollars we found our friends
here to be a great value especially if you need your truck to work like a truck
and winning pickup trucks dot-coms 2012 mid-sized shootout was the 2012 toyota
tacoma fully dressed out and all the TRD four-by-four accessories
the tacoma was a strong competitor from the very beginning of our test either
winning or ranking a top-three finish and all the two of our 10 events to be
specific the tacoma ranked first and empty and loaded breaking both our
off-road events as well as our value and expert impression sections
although not the heaviest of our competitors the tacoma had the most
solid chassis field both on and off road
the tacoma was our most expensive player at over thirty four thousand dollars but
our judges were unanimous and choosing the 2012
toyota tacoma pickup trucks dot-coms mid-sized shootout champion for more
information specs and data check out pickup trucks com
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exadata check out pickup truck . com
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