I understand, however my comment was based on after 11 months and not hydrolocking his motor, he is still upset over the "fact" that Tacoma's will hydrolock in shallow water. .....
I hope I'm not coming off as some kind of blind loyalist to the Toyota Marque. I understand there are many shortcomings with the Tacoma, Toyota's and every other vehicle. I've spent time in the dirt, under a Land Cruiser 70 series, you know, the one's that never break....
You are not coming off that way at all! I sure hope I'm not coming off as anti-toyota either as I'm not. I've never seen a motorbike or an overlanding rig I didn't like in some way. If it weren't for the size of my garage and bank account, I'd probably have quite a few Toyotas, Fords, Unimogs, Rovers, etc.
I certainly don't mean to speak for Sam Odio (The OP) but I can see his website fine and I know a lot of folks can't. so I'll share my perspective from what I can read. I have no horse in this race. I don't think Sam cares too much about the Taco's ability (or lack thereof) to cross water, it's more about Toyota not being straight about it one way or the other. (Sam, forgive and correct me if I'm mistaken here).
The Truck is sold as an "Off Road" package; this implies some increased capacity or capability to take it into reasonable off pavement situations safely without damage. This includes some minor water and hill climb conditions -- nothing extreme, but the kind of stuff that is typical for a disused Canadian forestry road. Toyota apparently has not made an official statement on wading depth, and I think the lack of information is the main complaint. Can it do 20 inches? 2 inches? It's easy to say "Try it and see" but OP took his Taco through a reasonable amount of water -- a big puddle, more or less. This was not a Camel Trophy-esque, put-a-shower-cap-on-your-beard-because-the-water-is-so-deep-type of river crossing. He has a photo on his website that clearly shows the water isn't even over the door sills. Based on THAT info Toyota told him "Nope, extreme use" and they refused to warranty it until he proved that water
did not enter the engine and cause a hyrdrolock.
By deduction, Sam's experience would imply that Toyota feels that fording water that is up to the frame is "extreme use" and therefore, the approved wading depth of the taco has to be....under the frame rails? So less than 10 inches? That doesn't seem very "Off-Road". But again, they don't say. If they published it, at least people would know and be able to compensate accordingly.
I think based on how this incident is described on Sam's website, this is a case where the 4x4 industry as a whole could do a better job of managing expectations of their buyers. I think Toyota's response should have been the same as yours, Nitro. "No way the truck should have locked up in that shallow of water, let's take a look at this". Based on how he describes he drove it, there's no reason a new, functioning truck with an off road package should fail the way his did.
The icing on the cake is that OP bought the Taco specifically for an epic, 3 month trip, and his engine blew on day 2 or 3 if I'm understanding this correctly. To find out about these limitations on Day 2 of a 3 month trip in a 2019 model year vehicle....that's heart wrenching, and that's what happened to Sam. If he had known beforehand about these limitations he may have prepped his rig differently, chosen a different platform, or just modified his route, but he didn't have the chance to do that before it broke on him and he was basically initially told "That's your own fault" by Toyota.
Regardless of the pro or anti-toyota stuff, I think we can agree that any vehicle maker selling a rig as an "off roader" really should publish a full list of off-road relevant specs, and it'd be swell if the industry standardized this stuff the way they have with other specifications like approach angles, payload, etc. That way, as consumers, we can buy the off roader that best meets our needs. Sam's experience is valuable for all of us to know what questions to ask when we go shopping.
For me, I wouldn't buy a base rig that isn't capable of Moderate (5) trails off the lot, described below and taken from:
https://www.dirtopia.com/wiki/4WD_Trail_Rating
Rutted and/or rocky road. No shelves. Rocks up to 12" and water crossings up to 12" with possible currents. Passable mud. Moderate grades to 15 degrees. 6" holes. Side hill to 20 degrees. 4WD required. No width problems.
