Maybe it's a product of where you live vs where I live. Salt belt, and salt + water causes electrical problems if the connections aren't sealed up well and such. My dad has had countless usa made vehicles that had electrical problems, we were pretty hard core USA only products too. Like my dad still uses a OLD no safety junk grinder made by black n decker when it was USA built, that thing is a monster, takes up to a 14in grinding wheel and when it has a new disk on it, you better hold on to it like you mean it or it's going to jerk out of your arms. All metal housing etc, might not be light, but you can use it all day every day with no problems, first thing to wear out on it will likely be the brushes.
Tacoma started in 1995, before that it was just Toyota Truck, no name. Some said T100 on the titles but was never on the truck. The Toyota's did make a 1 ton pickup 2wd, most were converted to motorhomes, but a few trucks came out as a truck. The box had to be custom built as they came from Japan with no box, so fiberglass fenders and I think a stock or USA made box was used most of the time. The OLD 1 tons were just the standard 2wd axle with the v6 3rd member (8in ring gear vs 7.5in), later models it became a semi floater axle and if I recall correctly, it accepted duals with no adapter. Yes.. motor homes were sold that had single tire axle with an adapter to add a 2nd tire. If the axle bearing failed, the tire and axle would come out of the housing. Semi floater has 2 bearings to hold the hub on and the axle inside the housing isn't load bearing. Land cruiser axles are designed like that too, but they use a 9.5in ring gear. The first gen Tundra only had a "heavy 8in" ring gear, same size 8in ring gear as the older trucks, but the bearing caps were beefed up and cross membered. Newer tundras I think run a 10in ring gear, but don't know much about them, they had to update stuff because their 5.7L puts out some pretty nice power at the expense of old school v8 mileage.
Anyway, on the chevy's it really depends on which motor you get. Like the chevy designed 2.5L motor used in the pontiac grand am in the early 90's was vin "U" and people liked to nick name them the useless engine or just call them junk. Had an internal oil filter instead of external, easy way to identify them. The one I had was problematic, module went bad, and shortly after the head gasket blew. Car wasn't worth sinking money into so just switched vehicles. My dad has a 1990 Grand Am with the2.4L quad 4 engine, pretty sure that was an oldsmobile design. Great powerful little 2.3L 4 cyl, but they were known for blowing head gaskets (the burping process for anti freeze is very critical to do right). The other thing they were known for were electrical problems. The death of that machine was some electrical gremlin that while idleing the car would raise and lower the rpm over and over like you're wanting to race someone. If you stomped on the gas, it would light up and go though. It was so annoying and my dad threw a lot of money at it trying to fix it that he gave up on it. I got to beat it through the woods some, and when I checked the air filter.. a mouse ate a hole in it, so I deemed the engine junk and really beat it. Kind of nice hitting 70mph in 2nd gear though and getting around 31mpg beating the snot out of it. I can't recall for sure, but I think the 3300/3800 engine was designed by Chevy, one of the best engines for that era of GM. The 3100 was really good too, but I think they had intake gasket problems, just had to throw in a "job saver" gasket that was metal instead of plastic and you was good to go. Not sure of those cars were known for electrical problems, but I had a 89 olds that suddenly lost spark, and a 94 Buick lesabre do the same exact thing, both with 3800 engines.
From my understanding, the F250 power stroke diesels had electrical problems for their transmissions too. My dad's 96 has been sitting with electrical gremlins for the last shoot 12 years? He paid $14,000 for the truck used and only has 100k on it. I drove the truck in 2006 when I got my license, and it had problems a year or two after that. I think we might have it narrowed down to shift solenoid pack inside the transmission, need to get under the truck some day and ohm it out. He had to replace the glow plug controller too, was a new problem since the trans acted up, it would blow a fuse as soon as you turned the ignition switch on. At first it had 1st and 2nd gear only, then the fuse problem, fixed that and currently it won't move at all (full of fluid, smells good etc). Trans plug is good (common failure as well from what I've read, my uncle's 97 had that problem with a gas engine, same trans though).
For most of the usa made stuff up here, you're pretty lucky to hit 200k miles, beyond that is like a gamble of what will fail first and when. For the Toyota's, almost every one of them I buy is 200k+ miles. Around 300k-350k miles their compression seems to start to drop. The 517k mile truck doesn't even smoke, but it defo feels like the timing is a little slow, it's not nearly as peppy as the one I have with 104k miles.
I probably need to start going south to buy my vehicles, I don't mind long trips, but sounds like the prices are higher as well. Maybe I need to just buy vehicles with blown engines since heat is a problem down south and swap a northern engine in it and have the best of both worlds. Only down side is wiring don't last down there from the heat, atleast the Camry my dad bought that's from Florida the wiring is super stiff and basically falling apart, all the connectors and a nightmare to release because they are all stiff/brittle. Maybe it was in a flood or something and salt water has that effect on the connectors? Same story for my 86 pickup, it has some wiring problems due to age/heat, but the trucks I bought that lived their lives in michigan were rusty but good wiring when no one was in the wiring hacking it up (almost every one of them).
It seems like the 80's era usa made stuff was more or less junk, and around 90's to mid 90's they started building better engines and stuff but their bodies tended to rust out and the electrical problems. 2000+ vehicles are so much plastic and just fold up in wrecks, I've seen quite a few electrical problems on them too. I know a lady with a chevy cruiz and the mirror control has already failed, I think she said it's a 2014 car. I've never seen mirror controls fail on a vehicle before, and on that car the window switches are on the same circuit board, so it's like a $170 part + labor.
Really, the Japanese 80's era stuff wasn't super great either, they were known to rust out super fast up here. around mid 80's into early 90's they changed gears and all of a sudden their vehicles don't rust out... like at all. My 1992 camry is effectively rust free and it's from northern michigan, 300k miles. The first 2
parts camrys I bought had 350k and 378k miles and both were rust free except the driver's side fender on both which was dented and rusted from a fender bender. My lexus is similar, and I can see where the rear end is bondo'ed a bit, other side has a little rust just starting right above the rear wheels. Under belly and such is basically rust free though. Switch gears to my 96 tacoma, cab was perfect, box has bubbled up spots above the wheels. After a year the box had ~2in holes in it and the running boards on both side were rusting out from the inside out. My T100's running boards are basically gone, I can see the ground through them and it's cab corners are shot like the typical ford rust, same with the box wheel well rust just like a ford. I have yet to run a road worthy Toyota into the ground till the engine blows up, trans goes out, etc, rust always kills them long before then. That one corolla is the only one I had the engine die in a way that I was stranded (had to walk to the house from the woods). Every other one has had problems where I could still limp home, even when I hit a deer going 70mph and the front end was wiped off my camry, it still ran and drove, but the radiator was broken. Welded in core support from a
parts car and a hood from the same car and was good to go, fixed in 1 day (hit it going to work, midnight, had work the next night lol).