The Tacoma offers a comfortable driving position. We found the bucket seats on the uplevel models comfortable, though the seat bottom could be bit longer and have more thigh support. The seats in our SR5 were manually adjustable; lumbar adjustment was provided but there was no adjustment for seat height or the angle of the seat bottom; the power seats available on the new Nissan Frontier have these features. The front seatback on some Tacoma models flips down to form a tray table or to make room for long objects, a nice feature. And big mirrors afford a good view rearward.
The switchgear is easy to operate and everything is where you expect it to be. Big rotary knobs make it easy to adjust cabin temperature even with gloves on; the knobs are electronic, so they're easy to twist. The radio is fully integrated into the upper center stack and it's easy to operate, though the display is nearly impossible to read through polarized sunglasses. CDs sound good through the JBL speakers.
The back seats in the latest generation of crew cabs are far more habitable than those of older trucks. And the rear seat in the Tacoma Double Cab is particularly comfortable for the class, offering good leg room and shoulder room and decent headroom. The seatback is angled back slightly, making it more comfortable. A younger rider should be okay to ride across the state back there and even adults won't complain too much on short trips. The rear windows go all the way down.
The rear seat area in the Double Cab good for carrying cargo as well. The back seat is split 60/40. Flip the seat bottoms forward and fold the two sections down to form a flat platform for gear. It takes two hands to do this and you first have to remove the headrests, a hassle though Toyota has provided a place to store each headrest. The seatbacks are hard, and form a sturdy cargo floor. It's not a bad spot for a dog, better than the bumpy floors in the Nissan and Dodge, but it's a big jump down.
The Access Cab has rear seats, but they're pretty hopeless for humans. It's best used for small cargo that you don't want to put in the bed.
We'd prefer a handbrake lever to the prehistoric pull-out handbrake that comes with manual transmissions. Automatics come with a foot-operated parking brake.
