I have a 2012 Toyota Tacoma Regular Cab 4x4 5 speed MT with the 2.7 4 cyl in it. The truck currently has about 123,000 miles on it.
In general, this has been an awesome truck. I did a 100 K review on the rig about a year ago. https://www.expeditionportal.com/forum/threads/100-k-review-2012-2-7-4x4-regular-cab.170847/.
This truck, is mostly stock. With the exception of solid beefy tires, and an ARE mid rise topper, I have kept things simple. The fact is, I use my truck like a truck, and in this form it does everything that I need it to and then some. Mods add complexity, expense, and the likely hood something is going to break. I very much am a huge fan of simple things. Simple = cheap. Simple = relibial. I think that when one starts getting away from the platform that has thousands of hours of planning, R&D, and eguineering by folks way smarter then I you end up asking for trouble. The simple fact is a stock toyota will do just about anything short of massive mud pits and rock crawling in stock form.
With that being said. From DAY ONE. I, like many of you hated the suspension on this truck. It was soft, undersprung, and in general a weak excuse for a truck suspension. However, I found that if I put my pride away and swallowed a crappy ride the truck still did what I asked it to. Pulling trailers, loading up the back with fire wood and dirt for the garden, exploring thousands of miles of off pavement dirt roads and two tracks. Was it pretty ? Did it work well ? Did it have an awesome ride? NOT AT ALL. I am fairly convinced I lost at least one kidney and several fillings somewhere on the back roads of Idaho, Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, or Montanta. Hell, it could have been on a city street in portland Or, it seems like they are always doing construction over there.
So, from day one owning the truck with less than ten miles on the clock I was looking for a better suspension. As I am sure you all know, the market is flooded with suspension set ups for this truck. Some good, some bad, some great. At the end of the day, I had a hard time finding what I wanted for my truck. Also, not a lot of people have the regular cab 4 cyl 4x4 tacos. There simply was not an excessive amount of examples of folks who lifted their trucks, or upgraded their suspensions. Sure, I was able to find some folks over on Tacomaworld who had done it, but I try to avoid that forum if at all possible.
By the time the truck was around 100 K, I knew I had to do something. I told myself that I would not do anything to the truck till it was paid off and out of warrenty. Around the hundred K mark both of these things happened. My topper weighs somewhere in the neighborhood of 200 lbs. In the winter time I put another 300 lbs of sand in the back for traction. The tacoma got to the point that the topper alone was enough to make the suspension sag and make a sad face. The Sand made the ride pretty poor, and forget a trailer or loading up with fire wood. I knew that I had to do something.
Given all of what I said above, I was not set on an aftermarket system, so for giggles when I was at the dealership in Boise getting an oil change I had a quote drawn up for a new suspension. The service tech was a bit confused when I asked for a price on new leafsprings. I guess he was not used to that request. I of course had little intention of replacing the crap stock springs with the same thing, but i thought hey.... if it is cheap enough... ( I recently went back to school to pursue my second degree and money is a bit tight at the moment ). I admit to laughing loudly at the quote when the service tech brought it out. Toyota wanted close to 750 dollars PER leaf on the rear. So. Close to 1500 dollars for new leafs, and close to another thousand dollars for new shocks all the way around. I told them thanks but no thanks. The dealership did tell me, that what ever I wanted to do, needed to happen soon. The springs were tired, and the front shocks were just about roasted. AKA all of these tings were showing up on the " yellow" fix soon section the dealership likes to give you in a print out after the inspection and oil change.
Enter Boise Spring Works. A small local shop that only works on suspensions. Their thing is building custom suspensions for cars, trucks, and commercial rigs.
I went in to chat with these fine folks after getting a recommendation from a friend. This friend had a first gen Tundra, he drove about 30kk miles per year and on average, I would say he easily had 1,300 LBS in the back of his truck at any given time. ( He used it as a mobil office/ gear and boat hauler for his biz) There was a bed slide, a dully built out custom high rise topper set up, and all the gear he needed to live and work on the road for a few months at a time. I asked him about his suspension after seeing his custom set up and the amount of crap he was hauling around. His truck sat perfectly level.
So, I went to Boise Spring Works and found them to be very helpful. I told them what I was looking for. The short version is this: I wanted my Tacoma to handle better on the road, I wanted my rear suspension to be able to fully support the full payload the truck is rated for ( 1,300 lbs ) and not be riding on the bumptops or squatting. I wanted improved ride and handling off road and be able to also have better towing handling when my hitch weight was maxed out. I realize that this was no short order and I added complexity to the task by saying that I would love to be able to do all of this with out increasing the stock ride height. In short, I wanted a better suspension, I was not looking for a lift, but I understood that in order to get what I was looking for I am sure the height would have to come up a bit. I stated if they did need to bring the hight up, It needed to stay under two inches of lift in the front and I would like to try and level things out as much as I could.
Boise Spring Works was AWESOME in working to meet my needs. The reccomended that I go with a coustom leaf back they would build to fit my needs and blisteen 5100 shocks all the way around. I agreed. As I am sure you all know, there are dozens of shocks on the market. Since I have no current plans to hang two hundred lbs of plate bumper off the front and I was not looking for something to take the woops and potholes at 80MPH in there was no need to go with a heavier duty shock like the OME set ups or a higher end shock like the fox or icon. While those would be sexy and increase my overland cred on the streets, see the broke student stupid enough to go back for a second degree thing I mentioned earlier. BSW steered me towards the 5100 because the front was adjustable, and it would provide a huge improvement over the stock shocks. The 5100 is proven, and reasonable in terms of price and life of the shock. Boise Spring Works quoted me at 1100 dollars out the door. I was sold and booked a time to drop the truck off for the day.
When I got the truck back, I noticed right away the stance of the truck had changed. It is a bit hard to say how much " lift" I walked away with since the stock suspension was so worn out. BSW brough the truck back to stock height and I would say the truck gained 2-3 inches in the back end. they set the front 5100's one inch higher then stock. As mentioned, I run a topper year round, sand in the winter ( about six months long here ) and the rest of the year there is always a few hundred pounds of tools and other gear living in the bed. ( Chain saws, Ax, shovels, HiLift, ropes camping gear etc etc). When I got it back, the truck still had the winter sand bags in the back and it was sitting close to level. BSW built a four or five leaf custom progressive leaf pack. They attached this under the existing leaf spring. the best way to describe it would be a spring sandwich with an added series of leafs that vary in thickness and length. The end product looks very clean. The ride on the truck was improved 100 percent. Sitting a bit higher means a bit more roll on the twists and bends, but it is very well controlled and predictable compared to the stock suspension. Bumps are smooth, no more diving and lurching about when I go over a speed bump. 500-700 LBS in the rear is not noticable, Trailers handle much better. I have not loaded the bed to the 1300 LBS capacity yet, but I have no doubt it will preform flawlessly. The 5100's have excellent road manners and soak up the bumps off road well as long as things are not taken at speed. Out the door price was just under 1200 dollars including a trip to the local tire shop for an alignment after leaving Boise Spring Works.
In general, this has been an awesome truck. I did a 100 K review on the rig about a year ago. https://www.expeditionportal.com/forum/threads/100-k-review-2012-2-7-4x4-regular-cab.170847/.
This truck, is mostly stock. With the exception of solid beefy tires, and an ARE mid rise topper, I have kept things simple. The fact is, I use my truck like a truck, and in this form it does everything that I need it to and then some. Mods add complexity, expense, and the likely hood something is going to break. I very much am a huge fan of simple things. Simple = cheap. Simple = relibial. I think that when one starts getting away from the platform that has thousands of hours of planning, R&D, and eguineering by folks way smarter then I you end up asking for trouble. The simple fact is a stock toyota will do just about anything short of massive mud pits and rock crawling in stock form.
With that being said. From DAY ONE. I, like many of you hated the suspension on this truck. It was soft, undersprung, and in general a weak excuse for a truck suspension. However, I found that if I put my pride away and swallowed a crappy ride the truck still did what I asked it to. Pulling trailers, loading up the back with fire wood and dirt for the garden, exploring thousands of miles of off pavement dirt roads and two tracks. Was it pretty ? Did it work well ? Did it have an awesome ride? NOT AT ALL. I am fairly convinced I lost at least one kidney and several fillings somewhere on the back roads of Idaho, Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, or Montanta. Hell, it could have been on a city street in portland Or, it seems like they are always doing construction over there.
So, from day one owning the truck with less than ten miles on the clock I was looking for a better suspension. As I am sure you all know, the market is flooded with suspension set ups for this truck. Some good, some bad, some great. At the end of the day, I had a hard time finding what I wanted for my truck. Also, not a lot of people have the regular cab 4 cyl 4x4 tacos. There simply was not an excessive amount of examples of folks who lifted their trucks, or upgraded their suspensions. Sure, I was able to find some folks over on Tacomaworld who had done it, but I try to avoid that forum if at all possible.
By the time the truck was around 100 K, I knew I had to do something. I told myself that I would not do anything to the truck till it was paid off and out of warrenty. Around the hundred K mark both of these things happened. My topper weighs somewhere in the neighborhood of 200 lbs. In the winter time I put another 300 lbs of sand in the back for traction. The tacoma got to the point that the topper alone was enough to make the suspension sag and make a sad face. The Sand made the ride pretty poor, and forget a trailer or loading up with fire wood. I knew that I had to do something.
Given all of what I said above, I was not set on an aftermarket system, so for giggles when I was at the dealership in Boise getting an oil change I had a quote drawn up for a new suspension. The service tech was a bit confused when I asked for a price on new leafsprings. I guess he was not used to that request. I of course had little intention of replacing the crap stock springs with the same thing, but i thought hey.... if it is cheap enough... ( I recently went back to school to pursue my second degree and money is a bit tight at the moment ). I admit to laughing loudly at the quote when the service tech brought it out. Toyota wanted close to 750 dollars PER leaf on the rear. So. Close to 1500 dollars for new leafs, and close to another thousand dollars for new shocks all the way around. I told them thanks but no thanks. The dealership did tell me, that what ever I wanted to do, needed to happen soon. The springs were tired, and the front shocks were just about roasted. AKA all of these tings were showing up on the " yellow" fix soon section the dealership likes to give you in a print out after the inspection and oil change.
Enter Boise Spring Works. A small local shop that only works on suspensions. Their thing is building custom suspensions for cars, trucks, and commercial rigs.
I went in to chat with these fine folks after getting a recommendation from a friend. This friend had a first gen Tundra, he drove about 30kk miles per year and on average, I would say he easily had 1,300 LBS in the back of his truck at any given time. ( He used it as a mobil office/ gear and boat hauler for his biz) There was a bed slide, a dully built out custom high rise topper set up, and all the gear he needed to live and work on the road for a few months at a time. I asked him about his suspension after seeing his custom set up and the amount of crap he was hauling around. His truck sat perfectly level.
So, I went to Boise Spring Works and found them to be very helpful. I told them what I was looking for. The short version is this: I wanted my Tacoma to handle better on the road, I wanted my rear suspension to be able to fully support the full payload the truck is rated for ( 1,300 lbs ) and not be riding on the bumptops or squatting. I wanted improved ride and handling off road and be able to also have better towing handling when my hitch weight was maxed out. I realize that this was no short order and I added complexity to the task by saying that I would love to be able to do all of this with out increasing the stock ride height. In short, I wanted a better suspension, I was not looking for a lift, but I understood that in order to get what I was looking for I am sure the height would have to come up a bit. I stated if they did need to bring the hight up, It needed to stay under two inches of lift in the front and I would like to try and level things out as much as I could.
Boise Spring Works was AWESOME in working to meet my needs. The reccomended that I go with a coustom leaf back they would build to fit my needs and blisteen 5100 shocks all the way around. I agreed. As I am sure you all know, there are dozens of shocks on the market. Since I have no current plans to hang two hundred lbs of plate bumper off the front and I was not looking for something to take the woops and potholes at 80MPH in there was no need to go with a heavier duty shock like the OME set ups or a higher end shock like the fox or icon. While those would be sexy and increase my overland cred on the streets, see the broke student stupid enough to go back for a second degree thing I mentioned earlier. BSW steered me towards the 5100 because the front was adjustable, and it would provide a huge improvement over the stock shocks. The 5100 is proven, and reasonable in terms of price and life of the shock. Boise Spring Works quoted me at 1100 dollars out the door. I was sold and booked a time to drop the truck off for the day.
When I got the truck back, I noticed right away the stance of the truck had changed. It is a bit hard to say how much " lift" I walked away with since the stock suspension was so worn out. BSW brough the truck back to stock height and I would say the truck gained 2-3 inches in the back end. they set the front 5100's one inch higher then stock. As mentioned, I run a topper year round, sand in the winter ( about six months long here ) and the rest of the year there is always a few hundred pounds of tools and other gear living in the bed. ( Chain saws, Ax, shovels, HiLift, ropes camping gear etc etc). When I got it back, the truck still had the winter sand bags in the back and it was sitting close to level. BSW built a four or five leaf custom progressive leaf pack. They attached this under the existing leaf spring. the best way to describe it would be a spring sandwich with an added series of leafs that vary in thickness and length. The end product looks very clean. The ride on the truck was improved 100 percent. Sitting a bit higher means a bit more roll on the twists and bends, but it is very well controlled and predictable compared to the stock suspension. Bumps are smooth, no more diving and lurching about when I go over a speed bump. 500-700 LBS in the rear is not noticable, Trailers handle much better. I have not loaded the bed to the 1300 LBS capacity yet, but I have no doubt it will preform flawlessly. The 5100's have excellent road manners and soak up the bumps off road well as long as things are not taken at speed. Out the door price was just under 1200 dollars including a trip to the local tire shop for an alignment after leaving Boise Spring Works.
