A Crew Cut Above Your Regular Cab

Author's Rating:

Pros: Four wheel drive, the crew cab is great if you have kids

Cons: Smaller bed than a normal truck, a few problems with parts.

The Bottom Line: 
It's a great little truck to have, especially if you have kids that you need to put in the back seat.

Author's Review
I've had my 2003 Crew Cab for about 3 1/2 years now. The main reason that I wanted the crew cab was because of the extra doors (we have several kids and it's so much easier getting them into the backseat with the extra door).

Let's start with the outside. My truck was wine colored- very pretty. It has a keyless remote entry with alarm function. There are two side view mirrors, which are power controlled from the inside. The mirrors also have a defrost button which comes in handy. The back windows are tinted more than the front ones. There is also a small window that slides open on the back that overlooks the bed.

The bed is 4 1/2 feet long by 4 1/2 wide. You lose the length of the bed with the extra seats. There are cargo hooks in each corner for ropes or bungee straps. A plastic bed liner is included. I do wish that the bed liner would go over the tops of the sides of the bed. I've put several scratches in the paint putting lumber in the back when they've slid over the edge. The tailgate is sturdy. I did get a tailgate extender, which was a pain to install but helps out tremendously when you need a little extra space in the bed.

The front of the truck has a couple of recovery hooks. I carry a tow chain and I've used these hooks on several occasions to pull trees out of the road or friends out of a ditch.

Now for the interior...
The truck has two seats up front (manually adjusted). They do adjust manually. There are a lot of controls. On the drivers door, you have the standard controls for power windows, doors, and mirrors. The steering wheel (power steering) has the horn, turn signals, lights, wipers, and cruise control. The wipers do have the delay function.

The dash board has a tacometer and speedometer. The odometer is digital, and it has two trip odometers. You also have the basic temperature/fuel/oil pressure gauges.

The center of the dash has your AC/Heating controls. The heater is very good. Also included is the radio/cassette/CD player. There are several storage areas for CDs (overhead and the center console). There is a rather small glove compartment on the passenger side. There are a couple of plugs for cell phone chargers, etc.

The center console has two drink holders, a storage tray, CD holder, and covered storage area.

The back seat is a bench seat. We can tightly squeeze two booster seats and a baby carrier in. There are tether strap hooks for a baby seat. The back windows are power controlled, but they don't roll down completely. You do have the option of child safety lock on the back doors. If a grown up is sitting in the back, you'll definitely want to pull the front seats up just a bit. The interior is a dark gray color which is great for not showing spills and stains.

The truck consistently gets 19-20 miles per gallon. he fuel tank holds about 14 gallons, and I usually get about 275 miles per tank. One thing that drives me nuts is that, when filling up with gas, the pump's automatic cutoff occurs when the tank is completely full. Often this results in splashover, and you cannot top off the car. Otherwise, you'll wind up spilling gas.

The truck does have four wheel drive. You can engage it with buttons located on the dash. The is 4 High, 4 Low, and 2 wheel drive. Supposedly, you can engage these on the fly. Yet, my experience is that they can be rather fickle. For example, if you're sitting on hill, the 4 x 4 won't engage because the wheels seem to be in a bind. The 4 x 4 does help in the snow. I did have the 4 x 4 button go bad just before the warranty was up. The warranty is 3 years or 36,000 miles.

The S-10 does handle like a truck. It has a long turning radius which can be a bit of challenge in small parking lots. It has good power for a truck it's size. If you're going to be doing any heavy hauling/towing, then you'll probably want to go to a larger size. I believe the book recommends 1/2 ton payload. Once, I had a loader mistakenly put 1500 pounds of gravel in the back when I'd asked for only a 1000. Still, the S-10 did fine. The short bed makes it hard to load things like gravel/mulch.