There’s a new Toyota Tacoma in the world finally, an event that hasn’t happened since 2015, a gap as long as two presidential terms, or how long it takes for Venus to return to the same spot in the night sky. I had to look that up. I’m just saying it’s been a while, and this truck is a big deal, and based on the pictures we’ve all been seeing, I’m going to guess there’s one particular one that has everyone choking on the twin metaphorical meatballs of confusion and what-the-hell-am-I-looking-at: the seats. Well, specifically the back of the front seats, which seem, at first glance, to be looking back at you. What’s going on here?
Here, let’s take a good look at these things:
First of all, I can’t think of another time that we’ve written an article about car seats and focused on the back of the seats, as seen from the second row, but here we are. Each seat has a robust-looking perimeter-type frame on the back, with a pair of angled struts in the middle, each topped with a knob and a small gauge. If we look closer at the knob and gauge, we can see that the knob is labeled AIR and the gauge is a pressure gauge:
What we’re looking at here are seats that have their own supplemental suspension system, which Toyota calls IsoDynamic Performance Seats, and describes like this:
Debuting exclusively on the new TRD Pro is a segment-first IsoDynamic Performance Seat that helps provide a smooth, confidence-inspiring ride for those in the driver and front passenger seats. The goal of this patent-pending feature is to stabilize the driver’s field of vision to improve focus, comfort, and reduce fatigue while on rugged trails. The IsoDynamic Performance Seat uses an air-over-oil shock absorber system allowing for vertical and lateral seat movement simultaneously to dampen body movement and stabilize the head and neck to keep alignment with the spine. This dampening effect is tunable based on body mass and occupant preference and can be bypassed, if desired, via levers on the seatbacks.
[Mercedes’ Note: Those black dials are actually valve stems. What you do is take a manual air pump and adjust the air pressure in the shocks for the kind of off-roading you’re doing and your weight. The air pressure also changes damping. The whole rig is supposed to prevent you from being totally beaten up off-road.
I’ve been told that while this seat will not move in huge movements like the air seat of a semi-tractor, it will have the ability to move about slightly to soften the blows of off-roading and harsh roads. Speaking with an engineer, they told me if you put a camera on the back window, you would see the seat move vertically and laterally to stabilize the occupant. Of course, if you just want a seat, you can turn the fancy shocks off.]
So, it seems the purpose of these IsoDynamic seats, aside from making sure your isos have enough dynamism, isn’t so much for comfort or safety or anything like that, but to basically keep your head, which houses your eyes (check and see, they should be a couple inches above where you keep your tongue) steady, making sure your field of vision is rock-steady while the rest of the truck around you bounces all over the place.
I think the goal is to achieve something similar to what chickens are capable of when they drive their trucks off-road. You’ve seen chickens do this, right?
I’m not exactly sure why the bypass is on the back of the seats, unless the responsibility to control how much head stability one should have is just traditionally the job of whoever is sitting in the back seat? Maybe it’s the sort of thing Toyota doesn’t want people screwing with while driving? I’m really not sure.
At the press event, our own Mercedes Streeter didn’t get a chance to actually try out these seats, but told me everything she did know:
The explanation I’ve been given is that the seats use adjustable shock absorbers to smooth out the bumps and jolts of off-roading. The gauges show the adjustable air pressure. Basically, it’s a pimped out air seat.
I suspect these air-suspended seats in the new Tacoma will also help with comfort, even if that isn’t the main goal stated by Toyota. I’m willing to bet that, set up properly, these seats will let you drive over a speed bump at 45 mph and not even spill the bowl of piping-hot clam chowder in your lap, which is the dream of any new truck buyer.
Were you guessing the new Tacoma would have seats with air-over-oil shock absorbers? I wasn’t.
Seems to me they missed the mark here. First off the use of in-seat compressors has been done for years, for bladder style lumbar adjustments, so yes they typically are lower pressure. Secondly many off-road builds include on-board air systems so this seems like a great opportunity to offer a factory on-board air system that people can use to blow up their inflatables and their tires that they aired down for the terrain.
It does have a factory onboard air system. It’s in the bed on the driver’s side and can reach all four tires.
If it actually works it should be something you’ll never notice.
Those seats look like they belong in an MCRN Corvette-class light frigate.
The air seats are part of the subwoofer for the gigawatt sound system.
“twin metaphorical meatballs of confusion”
This is not the first time I’ve heard this.
Am I the only one thinking how awesome a chicken-based camera gimbal would be?
Foster the Lumbar
All the other taco’s with the pumped up seats
You better drive, better drive outrun my gun
All the other taco’s with the pumped up seats
You better drive, better drive faster than my bullet
They put them in the back so the first time you take your kids for a ride, they let the air out and lose the caps under the seat.
This is gonna make it easier for me to eat a bowl of cereal during my commute.
I get that reference!
Well this is some grade A Terminator looking shit here. Unless they can prevent the Skynet thing from happening, I vote crack pipe.
I wonder if it requires different psi for different weights, my mountain bike suspension has to be dialed in for individual riders.
Good point. And what range of body weights is it designed for? Or will it be like the air suspension on my Gold Wing — set it to the almost-adequate max and leave it there forever?
It absolutely will. They touched on it in one of the notes:
What you do is take a manual air pump and adjust the air pressure in the shocks for the kind of off-roading you’re doing and your weight. The air pressure also changes damping.
What I’m curious about is if they just have a set damping amount for a given air pressure. While there’s a correlation between the two, some people prefer more or less damping even at the same air pressure. Maybe in this application you just have to get close enough?
I should have RTFA
edit: on my FOX Float shocks there is an air chamber but also a damping dial, so for any given psi you can still adjust damping. I’m a set-and-forget person but there are people who fiddle with their suspension on every ride.
Yeah, I don’t fiddle with my damper settings a lot, but I do occasionally find that I want to, mostly due to temperature changes. What works well at 80F is not so good at 30F.
Yes the clam chowder spillage is not acceptable! I prefer pea soup.
I saw a pic of these seats on another site but there was zero mention about them. Was wondering wtf I was looking at so I came right over here for some possible insight and sure enough!
Seats like this could be a real game-changer on upper Midwest roads.
or Maine logging roads, they can be brutal over a time period
I applaud the engineering effort behind the intended use but we all know that these will instead be preened over in lifted brodozers which live 6″ from the back of your bumper.
…and I though Recaros in your pickup truck was a frivolous expense.
Is this for the overlander who is traveling on rutted or washboard roads or the desert runner?
Speed bumps, they’re for speed bumps. Mall-terrain.
Do NOT underestimate the challenges of mall parking lots!
https://www.cnn.com/2019/11/09/us/omaha-rock-crash-meme-trnd/index.html
They remind me of those exoskeleton suits.
$$$$ I hope there are enough well off tacoma fans to buy these to support the rabid used tacoma market.
Those really appear to cut into the rear seat legroom
I bet it feels great to bash your knee on the seat in front of you with those.
And don’t even think about crash safety for people in the back seat, particularly their knees!
IsoDynamic Performance Seats? Who channeled L. Ron Hubbard to come up with that name?
How much rear leg room does the new truck have? Because those hard bits look like they would be murder on your knees.
Hopefully it’s an option, and your buddy that wants you to ride in the back of his new Tacoma didn’t get these.
If someone asks me to get in the back with these things on there, I am going to assume he is trying to injure me. They look like props from a Fast & Furious scene where they double as jetpacks.
Chicken Head Stabilizer: for better decapitation accuracy.
It’s cool, but also seems like one of those things nearly all the owners might try once or a couple times at best before leaving it until the seals inevitably fail, ruining the carpet with hydraulic fluid and the seat to hopefully not default to flopping around a bit on its dead shocks.
It’s an air shock, not a hydraulic shock.
Article said air over oil
Reading comprehension is difficult for some.
“The IsoDynamic Performance Seat uses an air-over-oil shock absorber system”
Yup, this, like a mountain bike, it’s an air spring with oil damper. Oil would also be needed to lubricate the seals.
Is that some sort of bred-in reverse survival mechanism? Like, once you place its head on the chopping block, it doesn’t matter how much the hand holding the fowl flails around because it obligingly keeps its own head in-line with the axe?
They don’t really need their heads. See: Mike the Headless Chicken. (OK, he was an exception, but I love this weird stuff.)
Thanks for prompting me to look that up! It’s something all birds do, because as they fly or move, their body bounces all over the place and they need to keep their head still so they can keep their eyes locked on their prey, or keep track of a predator. You know, just plain old optokinetic stabilization.
https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(09)00668-X
It’s super interesting from a neuroscience POV too. ‘Software’ stabilization takes a lot of brainpower, which birds don’t have in abundance due to size/weight constraints. So instead they use ‘hardware’ stabilization.