Yeah, it's a good truck. Maintenance is easy but rarely needed. It rides well on the road, great offroad. It's light, so you'll get places the heavy full-size trucks won't. It's smaller, so you have a better turning radius in the woods. I have the V6, and with 30x9.5R15 Michelin LTX tires it gets around 21-22mpg on the road (mostly highway). Bigger/heavier tires will decrease that gas mileage to some extent, and you won't want to go larger than 32x11.5R15 without regearing ($$$). The biggest you can go without doing some sort of lift is 31x10.5R15. My thoughts on cab models: Standard cabis ok, but I like having the space behind the seats in my xtra cab to put stuff I don't want in the bed (though people don't fit there very easily). I would have gotten the double cab, but I don't need it to holdpeople very often, and you sacrifice 2' of bed length to get it. With the 2005+ models you can have your cake and eat it too...they make a double cab longbed so you don't lose the bed space. I have a hard tonneau cover on it now that I'm in the process of getting rid of to get a cap. The bed is too shallow to fit a good cooler (any of the ones rated forholding ice more than an afternoon) with the tonneau cover on top.

The TRD package gives you stiffer springs and the electronic locking rear differential. The stiffer springs won't matter a whole lot, but the e-locker is worth it. Otherwise you just have open differentials and if you lose traction with 1 front wheel and 1 rear wheel you're not going anywhere. With the e-locker engaged, you would have to lose traction to both rear wheels as well as one of the front wheels (front diff is open whether you have the TRD package or not). I wish I had it...but you can't just go back and add a few wires if you don't have it. The locker is specific to the rear end, so I would have to buy a whole axle with housing, plus the wiring...or get an aftermarket locker (ie no-slip, lock-rite, ARB, etc). My situation right now doesn't require the tough off-roading I did the past few years, so I'm going to hold off on getting a locker until it looks like I'll be getting back offroad frequently.