Research, buy & sell with confidence

Suntzu purchased this Toyota Tarago used for $24,000 (including all on-road costs) in 2021. Suntzu wouldn’t buy this car again because: “I wouldn’t buy my 2014 Toyota Tarago eight-seater again. I won’t be able to. Because I’ll be dead before I give up this magnificent multipurpose vehicle. The Tarago will never die. I won’t need to replace it because it will never breakdown. It will never wear out. You can wrench the grey plastic shiny steering wheel out of my cold dead hands because this is the most reliable vehicle ever designed by a human being. Dependability is etched into every atom of its existence. Word has it that the CEO of Toyota, Akio Toyoda prefers this vehicle to any other that Toyota has ever made including the legendary AE86, Supra and 1982 KE70 Corolla station wagon. Okay I might have made that last one up, but you take my point.”

How dare you! The pure audacity of asking someone who owns a Toyota Tarago if it’s been reliable. Shame on you for asking!

Would you ask Sir Richard Attenborough to re-record a section of audio for Blue Planet? No you wouldn’t, because he read it perfectly the first time you cretin.

Would you ask John Lennon to re-record Imagine? No you wouldn’t because it was epic.

Not that he could make it to the recording studio these days. I just check the oil and the washer fluid every 70,000 or 80,000km. That’s good enough.

I liberated the Tarago from the life of thankless servitude by an owner who did not appreciate true greatness. Sure, they posted “first to see will buy” and “no test pilots”, so they had an idea that this vehicle was unique and highly capable.

And the owner justifiably didn’t want any random person with their grubby mitts on that quality smooth grey fabric. I didn’t need a test drive anyway.

With only 80,000km on the clock this Tarago is barely run in. 80,000km in a Tarago is equivalent to driving your Korean or European car around the block. It’s like dog years. Except they’re Tarago years.

100,000km in a Tarago is equivalent to less than 5000km driven in your worthless tinny shopping box. In short, the ownership experience has been mind-altering and reaffirmed everything that I believed in. Is there any way I can give this 11 out of 10? I couldn’t seem to turn the slider any higher…

Seriously? Have you been paying attention? It doesn’t matter what the price was. This is the only vehicle I will ever need. And in terms of features, who needs more than the two speaker stereo and a two din unit with a CD player and FM/AM.

All my music is on CD. Only lazy millennials need those streaming services. As long as I can hear Alan Jones and the Golden Tonsils tell me where this country is headed, I don’t need anything else. Suffice to say, the country’s outlook is grim.

The only features it needed was a nice set of matching alloy wheels and an analogue tape player so I can listen to my stack of TDK 90min tapes I recorded off the FM radio. I needed the alloys because one of the plastic wheel covers cracked after some enthusiastic roundabout action with a van full of drunken hens on a busy Saturday night in the Gold Coast.

I got out to recover the errant plastic cover but a shifty looking dude in a brown VT commodore with a petrol cap missing had already pulled over and stolen it, obviously knowing the true value of an OEM Toyota wheel cover from a Tarago of this vintage. Probably already sold on Gumtree to buy petrol for his fuel guzzling abomination.

Talking of Gumtree, that’s where I bought the sweet 17-inch chrome alloys. I don’t normally like diverging from the pure essence of the original OEM look, but I made this exception just to add a bit of pizzazz to the already stylish and timeless design of this third-generation egg – egg is a term endearment for those privileged enough to own any Tarago.

I’m happy with the smiling faces of my passengers. And sometimes their terrified expressions. But that’s not the Tarago’s fault. That’s just me exploring the limits of the used Chinese tyres I bought at the back of the pub years ago which are still going strong with heaps of tread. You and your Michelin Pilot Sport shenanigans rubbish!

Some in the Tarago community were shocked when Toyota upgraded to the CVT gearbox from the faithful four-speed box which had served for many years. I’ll be honest, it took me a while to get over this. To introduce this technobabble wizardry of infinite cones and chains to a vehicle where that shudder from gear-to-gear was synonymous with the egg shape itself.

You knew when you punched the throttle that you were unleashing hell, as the shunt that went through the drivetrain as it kicked down hard, told you that you are good to go for the big overtake. But now there’s nothing but sublime suppleness and sophistication through the gearbox.

And the joy I feel as the tacho locks on 5500rpm permanently as I pin the throttle. Some call this an annoying droning sound. I call this an aural animal spirit of complete happiness and mechanical purity. A technological CVT marvel which should be embraced.

I’ve managed to convert most of the old-timers from the “Aussie Tarago Owners Facebook (over 65 only)” page so that they embrace this new technology wholeheartedly. It took a lot of arguments and judicious use of the CAPS KEY to win them over. And frankly some of them died from old age while I was typing one of my 19 point arguments. Did I mention you have to have a beard to join the FB group?

Fuel economy is fine. I seem to use more fuel the more I drive, that’s an odd one. I don’t touch that E10 though. Can you imagine putting Captain Morgan rum in a high-performance 2.4L four-cylinder engine built for speed, power and reliability? That’s just crazy talk.

If you use E10 you should immediately go and have a cold shower and wake up to yourself. Heathen.

It is impossible to put more features or technology in a vehicle than what is already in a Tarago.

Once you reach perfection there is no capacity to improve. Four wheels, steering wheel, two sliding doors and eight seats is all the technology I will ever need. I guess sometimes it is handy to light up the road at night. I’ll give you that. I don’t like driving late at night because it looks all blurry through my eyeglasses which I purchased used off John Howard when he lost the election.

I suppose it does have ABS braking. But I wouldn’t know because I rarely brake. My passengers prefer it that way and it doesn’t use up the brake pads. Noting that Mavis from meals-on-wheels doesn’t really want to ride with me any more since the last episode when I was doing volunteer deliveries. Let’s not get into that.

Supple, controlled, rides flat(ish) through the corners. Those Aussie engineers really knew what they were doing when they locally tuned the suspension for the 2014 Tarago. The perfect balance. Like Yin and Yang. Not to mention an ideal weight distribution at all times due to its dynamic mass allocation ability or (DMAA).

This is the only vehicle in the world with Toyota’s patented DMAA. I’ll give your real-world example of how DMAA works. If the front wheels are scrabbling like a Chihuahua on a linoleum floor chasing a cat, then ask your third-row passengers to move to the second row and perhaps one in the passenger seat.

That will give you the ideal weight distribution for performance driving. That’s why it’s dynamic. Now with the weight over the front wheels you can smoke virtually anyone at the lights, since first gear is so short in the CVT, the torque multiplication and therefore acceleration is mind-warping. What do you do if all eight seats are full? I don’t know. I only have two friends.

And without that perfect combination of handling and dynamic weight distribution, you wouldn’t get the “excited” reaction of your passengers when you are shooting through a roundabout at 96km/h in the wet. The centre of gravity is also ideal as you can feel it around your ears when you turn at speed.

Every time I drive the Tarago it brings joy my passengers. Anyone who is not exhibiting joy is immediately sent to Toyota Tarago re-education camp, where they re-learn why this Toyota is the greatest vehicle ever created.

For example, its ability to make any song from 1985 to 1998 sound fantastic despite the factory two speaker system. Obviously, you wouldn’t play songs outside of this timeframe because that would be Tarago blasphemy. The look on passenger faces when they slide the door open and pile in? Pure joy.

They know their sitting position is perfect, and excellent visibility means they will never consider throwing up while I’m drifting the Tarago down Brown Mountain on the way to Tathra for the footy trip. You know why it’s called Brown Mountain right?

Research, buy & sell with confidence

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