Mind you, I've never bought a brand new car.... ever. But when I was looking, the Tacoma was my first choice too. Even used, you can look at them as 'holding their value' or just plain too expensive. Either way, they were more than I wanted to spend. I've always been more of a Chevy man (had been driving a S10 for about 14 years), so I was also considering the Colorado. I started to consider Nissan, because I often drove my girlfriends Nissan Altima(s).... she had bought 2 back to back. These little 4 bangers rocked (they make 4 cylinders so much better now). No, not high performance by any means... but certainly good enough. I drove those Altima's all over California. And liked it. Ended up finding a used 2013 Nissan Frontier Extended Cab with about 80K miles on it back in 2017. Still driving it today, and would take it anywhere without a worry. I really couldn't be happier with it. I keep it garaged (due to the San Joaquin heat). Change the oil, filters, and rotate the tires regularly, and that's it. I did change the shocks on it a couple years ago, but that was more of a 'want' than a 'need'.
The down side is... I've not needed to change the plugs on it yet, but YouTubed it once, and it does look like a friggin' ridiculous nightmare.
Anyways... just my 2 cents.
