Almost didn’t happen? Engineering wins battle over 2024 Toyota Tacoma tow hooks

For many outsiders, the 2024 Toyota Tacoma tow hooks are an obvious staple for off-road trucks, yet there’s a lot more to the story. A lot more.

At the 2023 SEMA show, I had the chance to talk with Toyota Tacoma Chief Engineer Sheldon Brown about the crash safety of the Tacoma and those tow hooks. You know, the ones that are missing on the Tundra, Sequoia and Land Cruiser.

Toyota Tacoma tow hooks were in doubt?

Incredibly, to many of our readers, yes the 2024 Toyota Tacoma tow hooks almost didn’t happen. There was a lot of internal debate on them in fact according to Brown.

Let’s step back a moment to the launch of the 2022 Toyota Tundra. This completely redesigned truck has new powertrains, styling, off-road equipment, a pretty badass TRD PRO version and yet, no tow hooks. Myself and Toyota engineers heard about those tow hooks.

We received thousands of comments on the YouTube channel, our social media posts and on this website on the topic and the bulk of those comments all had one thing in common. They were dumbstruck how Toyota engineers could build a full-size truck and even more an off-road focused full-size truck without tow hooks. For them, tow hooks are more than just a nice to have feature, they are a must!

While this tow hook drama was swirling around, the 2024 Toyota Tacoma was being developed. Remember, the 2022 Tundra came out in 2021, but engineering started a few years before that. Truck engineers then got to hear all the push back on omitted tow hooks and that helped fuel their argument with the Toyota safety team.

What’s the deal with tow hooks?

The thing is truck engineers want tow hooks. They all did. I haven’t spoken to a single engineer who was against them. The problem isn’t that engineers made an obvious mistake rather engineers don’t have the final say on everything about the vehicle.

Yes, all engineers have bosses including chief engineers. They have to work with design, safety and legal teams. The crux of the problem with the tow hooks comes down to safety and passing rigorous crash tests like the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety front overlap crash test.

The front overlap crash test is basically a test for when you hit a stationary object at 40 mph on the corner of either side of the vehicle. Imagine hitting a street light pole or other obstacle. The IIHS says this is one of the most common accidents on the road.

This test is done by the IIHS and if you don’t pass, you don’t get the highly coveted Safety Pick +. If you don’t get that rating, the vehicle is often seen as unsafe to potential buyers and that’s actually happened with the prior-generation Toyota Tundra getting a poor rating for this particular test.

Oh and the IIHS can and does change its test meaning you could be a top pick one day and then get a failing grade the next day when a new test comes out. A conundrum for automakers like Toyota that stick to a strict 7-year model sequence making little to no changes during those 7 years.

Talking with Brown, I wanted to know how the front end design was influenced through that front overlap crash test and if they were able to meet safety testing requirements. My thought was since the tow hooks are tucked further back into the front end, did that help with those tests and ultimately allow his team to keep tow hooks unlike the Tundra with a more pronounced front-end design.

And they are tucked back in for sure. In fact, during this article explaining why the 2022 Toyota Tundra doesn’t have them, I drew faint yellow circles to highlight where the Tacoma tow hooks are because they are nearly impossible to see.

After I asked my question, Brown smiled at me and his eyes got big.

“There was a lot of internal debate about tow hooks,” he said. “But, we got them because we fought like hell.”

Yup, fought like hell for something that most truck guys are shocked about was even a topic of discussion.

Remember Toyota is a very conservative company and safety is a top priority, remember the scandal over unintended acceleration? Since tow hooks can and will move in a frontal collision, they can be seen as unsafe in a crash and safety is a huge concern for the company.

The bottom line

Over the past few years, I’ve heard it all from commenters who clamor to many thoughts like: this is just more cost cutting from Toyota, it is more aerodynamic to build a truck without tow hooks, simpler for the factory to build trucks without tow hooks and more.

While there’s a bit in truth to all those statements, the bottom line, for me after talking with many Toyota engineers, is this was about safety. Toyota truck engineers wanted them, Toyota safety engineers didn’t.

The question remains if Toyota engineers won their battle on the Tacoma, how will future battles play out on a new 4Runner, a next-gen Tundra, etc…? This isn’t over in my mind.