Recently bought a Toyota Tacoma with a 2.7 Liter engine. The truck runs very rough when on the highway going up a slight hill and revving between 1,800 and 2,000 RPM. It feels like it is skipping and has very little power. If you give it lots more gas it down shifts a couple of times and it feels like the engine is going to blow itself up. My 2009 Tacoma had the same engine and ran like a champ. It hardly ever needed to down shift when going up a hill and certainly not when going up a very slight incline. Overall I am very unhappy with the truck. This is my fourth Tacoma and likely will be my last as it runs bad - I guess I was complacent when I bought this one because I had such good luck with the three I had previously. Brought it to the dealer and they claim there is no hesitation or skipping - I respectfully disagree. If this is how they all run then Toyota will/should loose market share. I will let everyone I know how lousy this truck is. My suggestion is they are over priced and the quality has gone down hill. Stay away. I guess this is good for Ford, Nissan, and GM, but bad for me as I am now stuck with a lemon. Sad because I have saved for a long time to get this truck and had high expectations.

Update from Oct 6, 2017: As I continue to drive the truck it may be that the transmission is trying to shift between a couple of gears, but can't make up its mind which is what produces the observed hesitation (skipping). I have looked on-line and others have had similar complaints. Strange that the mechanic did not mention that it may be the transmission and volunteer to re-program it or at least assure me that things would get better as the software got smarter. Time will tell if things improve or not.