HaydenHunter
Elite Refuge Member
I wish I had a buck for every time we have debated here on the subject of who makes the best pickup truck. I myself have had very good performance and luck out of numerous brands of trucks both provided as a company vehicle (for 24 years) or bought on my own. I've had a bunch of Chevys, a Toyota and my current 8 year old RAM. Not a really bad one in the bunch, although I never ran any one of them other than my current post-retirement RAM much past 100K on the odometer. Some have been pretty good 4WD all-terrain scooters and / or haulers with the ability of being rid way too hard, put up wet and still surviving. Some (mostly the Chevys) provided a driving experience akin to piloting grandma's couch.
I just got back from a trip to French Polynesia during which I went on a 4WD road / tour climb to one of the higher spots in Bora Bora. Our vehicle was a Toyota Hilux Diesel pickup with manual transmission. The hill up to the vantage point we visited was a couple of miles long and wound through the jungle at up to 40 degree angles. The terrain alternated between crawling over big rocks, broken rocks and, sometimes rutted mud bogs in the flat spots. The road was narrow, frequently off camber and impossible to drive at more than a crawl.
The secret of the truck was it's diesel power and low first gearing. The driver would put it in first, let out the clutch and just let the truck idle / eat it's way up the mountain in low gear. I've rock crawled in big diesels before, but never in a truck this compact and with eight people on board. The driver said the company used to use Range Rovers but parts were too hard to get and they switched to the Hilux trucks and never looked back. Toyota trucks are by far the most commonly seen truck in Tahiti and the Leeward Islands and probably for many good reasons.
I asked the driver how often they checked alignment and brakes on these trucks and he said about every three months. After seeing our truck carry it's load of human passengers over barely navigable roads, I was impressed. My hat's off to Toyota.
The picture of the trail below does not accurately convey the steepness of much of the road we traversed.
I just got back from a trip to French Polynesia during which I went on a 4WD road / tour climb to one of the higher spots in Bora Bora. Our vehicle was a Toyota Hilux Diesel pickup with manual transmission. The hill up to the vantage point we visited was a couple of miles long and wound through the jungle at up to 40 degree angles. The terrain alternated between crawling over big rocks, broken rocks and, sometimes rutted mud bogs in the flat spots. The road was narrow, frequently off camber and impossible to drive at more than a crawl.
The secret of the truck was it's diesel power and low first gearing. The driver would put it in first, let out the clutch and just let the truck idle / eat it's way up the mountain in low gear. I've rock crawled in big diesels before, but never in a truck this compact and with eight people on board. The driver said the company used to use Range Rovers but parts were too hard to get and they switched to the Hilux trucks and never looked back. Toyota trucks are by far the most commonly seen truck in Tahiti and the Leeward Islands and probably for many good reasons.
I asked the driver how often they checked alignment and brakes on these trucks and he said about every three months. After seeing our truck carry it's load of human passengers over barely navigable roads, I was impressed. My hat's off to Toyota.
The picture of the trail below does not accurately convey the steepness of much of the road we traversed.
