http://www.toyota.com/tundra/index.h...N_TUNDRA_INDEX

In a Nutshell: The Lexus of pickup trucks under the skin......but the skin needs a lot of work.


Well, in response to some requests and widespread CL interest in this new truck, here is my take on the new 2007 Tundra. For the review, I chose the big, 5.7L V8 model with 4WD, a double-cab rear seat, and top-of-the-line Limited trim, because I figured this would be the Tundra model the majority of CL members would show the most interest in. Many CL members, of course, are already used to driving Lexus products. And as we will see later in the review, this truck does share some Lexus qualities, particularly in the silky drivetain and good noise isolation, but falls quite short on others, especially the cheesy body and trim. With the widespread interest in the also-new and redesigned 2007 Chevy Silverado, one of the Tundra's prime competitors, there is also a lot of interest, of course, in how these two trucks stack up against one another.

Toyota, in 1994, first decided to try and compete more with domestic pickups by offering the T-100 and later T-150 models that were marketed and promoted as "full-size" pickups, but in reality were mid-sized trucks, with quite limited hauling and towing capacity, and, unlike the mid-sized Dodge Dakota, not even the option of a V8 engine. A four-cylinder was standard, with a 190 HP V6 as an option. Needless to say, the American cowboy/rancher/handyman/construction crowd, who wanted and needed REAL trucks, wasn't fooled. They laughed at the T-series, and relatively few of them were sold.....most of them sat around on dealer lots collecting dust.
So, 5 or 6 years later, Toyota tried again, with the all-new, first-generation Tundra, this time a little larger than the original T-100/150, but STILL not a true full-size truck. The first-generation Tundra was again promoted as a "full-size" truck but was, in actuality, a three-quarter-size truck. This time, however, the Tundra at least had the option of a smooth, Lexus-derived 4.6L V8, and the truck was highly rated by Consumer Reports for its good road manners, refined drivetrain, and good repair record (much better than domestic trucks).

The Tundra sold somewhat better than the earlier, ill-fated T-series, but still wasn't enough for those who wanted true American-style macho-trucks. Then Nissan, suddenly, upstarted Toyota with their new Titan.....a truck, that, unlike the T-100 and first-generation Tundras, was designed from the outset to be a true full-sizer and compete directly with the F-150, Silverado, and Ram. Though lacking regular-cab and extended-bed versions, the Titan had the size and towing capacity to compete with American full-sizers, and probably would have done so, much better than it did, were it not for the truck's poor quality. Like most of the other Nissan/Infiniti products built at the Canton, MS plant, the Titan quickly developed a reputation for defects and numerous breakdowns. So Toyota, despite poor marketing in the past by repeatedly promoting undersize trucks in the American market, and not listening to its American dealerships who complained that the trucks were undersized, was suddenly, and luckily, given another chance by the American marketplace by the Titan's flop. So now, for 2007 ,enters the first TRUE full-sized Toyota pickup (yes, the truck that should have come out years ago), with American-style size, American-style power, and American-style towing capacity. I guess the old saying is.....better late than never.

What is this new truck like? How does it drive? Does it succeed where the old Tundra didn't? For those answers, read on.










Model Reviewed: 2007 Toyota Tundra 5.7L V8 4WD Limited Double Cab.


Base Price: $38,550

Major options: Cold-Weather package: $100

20" Alloy wheels and P275/55R20 tires: $920

Running Boards: $345

Front and Rear Mudguards: $60

Front and Rear Clearance Sonar (Parking Assist) $500

Preferred Accessory package $220

Destination Charge: $645



Price as Reviewed: $41,340




Exterior Color: Silver Sky Metallic

Interior: Graphite Leather.


Drivetrain: 5,7L I-Force, 32-valve, VVT-i V8, 381 HP @5600 RPM, 401 ft.-lbs. torque @ 3600, 6-speed automatic with ECT-i, Automanual shift, and TOW/HAUL mode, 2WD/4WD HI/LOW system with electronic transfer case.







PLUSSES:


Finally, a true full-size pickup with the promise of Toyota reliability.

Well-designed, smooth, quiet, powerful, refined, Lexus-derived V8.

Seamless automatic transmission.

Seamless 4Wd system can be used, set-and-forget, on any surface.

Electronic transfer case can be shifted at any speed.

Good noise isolation.

Relatively smooth ride by 4WD truck standards.

Room inside for tall people...better in front than the rear.

Well-designed, slick-operating controls and switches.

Complete gauge package.

Relatively wide choice of paint colors.

Towing capacity (10,300 lbs.) Similiar to comprable-sized and equipped domestic trucks.

Arctic-blast air conditioning.

Dual climate control for front-seat pasengers.




MINUSES:


Top-of-the-line line Tundra versions pricey.

No heavy-duty diesel or dual rear-wheel versions available yet (they may be on the way).

Spongy brakes.

Jumpy throttle from rest.

Relatively slow, unresonsive steering.

Paint job OK but not up to usual Toyota/Lexus standards.

No locking gas cap.

Flimsy exterior mirrors, unlike most Toyota products.

Dime-store-plastic exterior and interior trim.

Tinny-sounding and feeling doors and hood.

Flimsy running boards.

Cheesy-looking painted flat-silver interior plastics.

Relatively upright seatback angle (22 degrees) slightly compromises rear-seat comfort.

Rear-seat headroom marginal for tall people.

No lockable outside compartments like the Honda Ridgeline.






The first impression of this truck, when you first walk up to it, is the obvious....basically what I said in my opening comments. The exterior size is noticeably larger than past Tundras. The general shape is strongly similiar to the Double-Cab Titan, except that the big grille has a pug-nosed, bulldog-style macho shape to it, with chrome on SR5 and Limited versions; shiny black on lesser models. Same with the bumpers.....chrome on the upper models, black on lesser ones.

Unfortunately, little else, on the outside of the truck, impresses other than the new size. The sheet metal in the hood, doors, fenders, and hood all has a tinny feel and sound to it. The outside mirrors, in a marked departure from other Toyota/Lexus products, also feel insubstantial and tinny. Most of the outside hardware and body trim feels like dime-store plastic (even the running boards you have to step on), although the chrome on the plastic grille and bumpers is well-done. The flimsy-feeling gas cap cannot be locked. The paint job is OK but not up to the usual Toyota/Lexus standards, although, in fairness, my truck was silver, and silver, of course, is a color that generally doesn't have much luster to it. My truck listed for over $41,000, yet did not even have a bed-liner....nothing in the bed but painted silver sheet metal, though the side rails had thin black-plastic cover strips.

So, IMO, the exterior, in many ways, is a bust. Is the interior any better? Yes.....and no. I was not impressed with the cheap, plastic, flat-silver painted plastic dash/gauge trim or the shiny-black plastic surrounding the center-mounted stereo, nor was I impressed with the cheesy door trim...obvious cost-cutting on the part of the bean-counters. However, even the cheesy-looking and feeling trim was well-assembled, with tight gaps, nothing feeling loose, and only one minor rattle on the test-drive......from the right-front dash.

Once you get past the awful flat-silver plastics and cheap door trim, ( the salespeople said that they can put in a dealer-installed wood-trim package), the rest of the interior is pretty well-done. The driver's seat is comfortable, with numerous adjustments, as you would expect in the top-of-the-line Limited model. Up front, there is plenty of room inside for tall people. In back, the 22-degree seatback angle, thinly-padded leather, does compromise seating comfort a little, but this is an area where pickups, even Double-Cabs, have traditionally been weak in, and this truck is no worse than others in rear-seat comfort, although the high rear seating postion, low roofline, and front seat-back make it a little tight for tall people. Still, by truck standards, the rear-seat comfort, though not as good as up front, is not bad. The rear seat had a big center reading/dome light in the ceiling, a fold-down sunglass container, and cupholders, but lacked rear climate controls.

Back up front, The general dash layout was excellent....ditto for virtually all of the controls and switches. All of those switches and buttons, in typical Toyota fashion, are simple to use, have a solid and high-quality feel to them, and work effectively. The stereo, while not a Mark Levinson, is reasonably good for a truck.
The primary gauges; speedometer and tach; are in individual circular tunnels surrounded by....yes, that awful silver plastic....but the gauges themselves are well-done, clear, easy to read, and have Lexus-type backlighting to them. The gauge package is complete...no guessing on the oil pressure or ammeter voltage. Toyota, properly, gives you gauges for both. There is a wide, flip-up center storage compartment in between the seats, similiar to the one on the Dodge Ram, with several different cubbyhole compartments in it. The transmission lever, unlike many other pickups, is on the console, with a double-H pattern for the manual sport-shift feature. The TOW/HAUL mode button, which locks out overdrive for heavy towing or hilly terrain, is just ahead of the lever and to the left.

The climate control, in typical Toyota/Lexus fashion, Turning on the A/C (dual-zone automatic climate control, of course, is standard in the limited), is like a quick, and I mean QUICK, trip to Northern Alaska. Crank up the heater, and it suddenly becomes hotter than Pamela Anderson in short-shorts. Like the rest of the controls, the climate controls, even with the complexity of an automatic unit, are relatively simple and easy to use. The is one area, among others, that Toyota and Lexus really excels in.



OK, time to drive. The usual checklist.....adjust mirrors, seat, belts, etc.... crank her over, and the big 5.7L I-Force V8 settles into exactly the smooth, quiet idle you would expect from its Lexus-derived engineering (though, Lexus, to date, does not use the 5.7 itself yet). The engine is a real powerhouse.....381 HP and 401 ft-lbs. of torque (needed, of course, for heavy towing), though the extreme weight of this big truck ( roughly 7000 lbs.) and the added weight of the 4Wd hardware, after a slightly jumpy throttle from rest, bogs it down a little off the line. Torque or no torque, this is not a Friday-night dragster.

Nor is it a sports car or Formula 1 machine. Cornering is not bad by truck standards, especially in the relative lack of body roll for a high-center-of-gravity machine. Tight cornering, as stated, produces little body roll, but a noticeable slowness of steering response...this is a classic understeering vehicle, and like most large trucks outside of the Ford Lightning/Dodge Ram SRT class, NOT a machine to be thrown around tight corners.

It is also not a vehicle for tailgating other vehicles with. You have to keep your distance. Hit the brakes and you get smooth but weak and spongy response. This problem...weak brakes....seems to be endemic to many large trucks and SUV's....I've noticed it in the full-size Ford and GM lines also. The older GM trucks and SUV's were even worse. Little wonder that most large-truck manufacturers recommend trailer brakes for heavy towing.

Now we come to what are easily this vehicle's best features.....the ride quality and the drivetrain. I've already partially covered the smooth, quiet powerful V8. Even though the engine is burdened down with the truck's great weight, it still will at least get out of its own way, if necessary, with the 401 ft-lbs. of torque, though I've already stressed that this is not a dragster. The acceleration is quiet accept for some exhaust noise that gets past the otherwise well-done noise isolation.
The transmission, not surprisingly, could pass for a Lexus.....as smooth, seamless, and quiet as the engine, even in sport-shift under throttle, although the shift lever itself and gate has a cheesy feel to it. The 2WD/4WD rotary selector ****, with a 4WD Low range for off-roading, works seamlessly and, unlike many other pickups, can be shifted on the fly at any speed and used on any surface.....so if you want, you can put it in 4WD and set-and-forget it, and it will function like a car-based AWD system, although doing so will make an already gas-thirsty vehicle even more thirsty. I didn't try out the Low range, of course, being on-pavement for the whole test-drive.

The ride quality is excellent by large 4WD truck standards.....along with the refined drivetrain, one of the reasons why the last Tundra was rated highly by Consumer Reports. There is a little of the typical fore-and-aft pitching you get with high-center-of-gravity vehicles, and the ride, of course, is not as smooth as that of a sedan (you do feel bumps), but get out of this truck and into some others, like the hard-riding Ranger and Dakota, and you will really notice the difference. And, except for some exhaust noise that I mentioned earlier under acceleration, the engineers did a good job with noise isolation. Lexus owners, for the most part, ride-wise and drivetrain-wise, will probably feel right at home in this truck.



So...the verdict? And how does it stack up against the F-150 Lariat and the new top-of-the-line Silverado. Being a Toyota, of course, it has the history of reliability that domestics generally can't match. It also, for the first time, has the size, engine, room, and towing capacity to compete with domestics at the F-150/Silverado ( half-ton) pickup level. It cannot, as yet, compete with the heavy-duty diesel and dual-rear-wheel domestics yet (generally the F-250/350 and Ram 2500/3500 level) but rumors are, and the salespeople suggested this, that a heavy-duty Tundra is to follow. The Tundra drivetrain and ride quality meets or beats any large domestic truck currently in production....and the Nissan Titan as well.

Yet the Tundra also has its faults...and I certainly don't want to minimize those either. Toyota needs to seriously improve the sheet metal, exterior and interior hardware, and some of the interior trim as well....both the F-150 Lariat and the upper-level Silverados blow the Tundra away in interior trim quality. The power-brake booster, like that of the GM trucks, could use some improvement.
And is it too much to ask, Toyota, when one is paying $40,000 for a truck, to at least cover up the painted sheet metal in the bed?

But, faults aside, Toyota is to (finally) be commended for what it HAS done, something it should have done years ago...bring a true full-sizer to market to compete with the American macho trucks, with the promise of even heavier-duty versions to come. American full-size pickup owners have traditionally been THE toughest people in the auto market to convert. Will this truck make an appreciable dent in their sales when the Titan, with its poor quality and unreliability, couldn't? Only time will tell.

 

Wow great review.. Just as I suspected. When I first saw pictures of the interior, I could already get a feel for what kind of quality parts Toyota used. I dont like the direction Toyota has gone with quality. But on the other hand, if they had not cheapen the interior, the asking price would have been higher than it is now.

 

Thanks.
Like my review said, better the skin be defective than what is under the skin. And if they would only get rid of that cheesy silver plastic inside, the really isn't a whole lot else the interior needs...it is basically a good job.

Outside, though, it's a different story...IMO, several improvements are needed.

Still, what's UNDER the skin of this truck, both inside and outside, is very well-done. Lexus people will generally feel right at home.

 

Great review.

Very thorough and exactly what I felt/thought about when I saw the truck for the first time.

Definately has its plusses and minuses.

Way to go Toyota! But also, you have a way to go Toyota...

 

Thanks.

I don't have a lot of hard numbers on the upcoming diesel (in fact, we may see a gas-electric hybrid version before a diesel version here in the U.S. market), but rumor and what little I could find out about it indicate that Toyota may have a deal with Cummins to develop the engine, and IF it does go into production, it will have more than 700 ft-lbs. of torque. That, friends, is pulling power.
New transmissions and drivelines would also have to be developed. The current Lexus-like automatic, smooth and refined as it is, would be chewed up alive by that kind of torque.


Anyhow, our auto-news poster, Robarapta, will probably post the info if/when he finds it.

 

GFerg or others may beat me to it Thanx for the usual thorough review

 

Doesn't DaimlerChrysler have exclusivity with Cummins for light truck engines? Wouldn't Toyota use a Hino diesel?

 

Yes, Toyota at least partially owns Hino, and I've seen some Internet references to that, too, for the Tundra diesel. That's why I don't want to speculate too much on exactly where the engine will come from or what its numbers will be. Cummins, though, is the general industry leader in light truck diesels....they have supplied Ford, Chevy/GMC, and Dodge for years.

 

Correction: Navistar does most of Ford's engine business - Ford only offers Cummins in the F550 and up, and Detroit Diesel(1980s-mid 1990s), Isuzu, and D-MAX(currently) does GM's light truck diesels.

 

thanks for the review. I know you chose the expensive model because most CL members would show most interest.

I think most people (including me) who need a work truck would favor the less expensive model but unfortunately, even for a based 2dr model, the new Tundra is kind of pricey.

 

OK...I'll take your word for it. Despite being a car and truck guy, truck diesels are not one of my lines of expertise. I knew that Isuzu did some of the GM diesels, but I thought Cummins did the F250/350 and Ram 2500/3500. Perhaps not.

 

Well, it obviously costs money to develop the kind of drivetrain and refinement the Tundra has. This truck, in some ways, could pass for a Lexus...not surprising, considering that Lexus, unlike Cadillac and Lincoln, does not markete a pickup of their own....the upmarket Tundra Limiteds essentially serve that role, just like the top-of-the-line Toyota Sienna fills the role of the Lexus minivan.
Unfortunately, like I said in my review, the engineers spent so much under the Tundra's skin, making a superb truck underneath, that there was nothing left over for the skin itself....so we're stuck with junk exterior ( and some junk interior ) hardware and trim.

 

Great review, but as always opinions do differ, or maybe some of the early Tundras aren't built yet to full consistency.

The Tundras that I've seen at the dealer and at the local autoshow all had pretty solid running boards. I didn't notice any of them to be flimsy.
Playing around with the mirrors, they felt durable, not really flimsy. The silver part of the interior is also a matter of opinion, as I didn't find it cheesy looking. The doors do feel flimsy especially when closing, but I had no real criticisms about the door trim itself. A lot of people seem to be complaining about the door trim.

I also agree that despite some questionable materials in certain spots of the interior, everything seems to be put together solidly.

 

On my test truck, the drivers' side running board seemed a little more solid than the passsenger one....although both were topped with thin black plastic strips that certainly would not hold up under repeated steps by large, heavy people (like me). Perhaps the passenger's side one lacked a couple of attachment screws that should have been put on at the factory and weren't...it felt like it did.

The mirrors themselves were OK, but again, on my test truck ( and other Tundras I looked at on the lot ), the plastic used for the exterior mirror frames and housing felt thin and cheap.....much unlike almost any other Toyota model.

I respect your opinion, however. Everyone's tastes in vehicles differs, and I guess I'm just a little more critical of some vehicle materials than you are.
But, like you, as I stated in the review, what materials Toyota DID use were screwed together quite well. Out of the tens of thousands of parts on the truck, my only real assembly complaint was a minor rattle in the right front dash and the (perhaps) loose passenger running board.....not bad for a vehicle that complex.

 

It could all be down to inconsistently built trucks, which is to be expected, considering this is a new model, built at a new plant, with new workers. Early built 6th gen Camrys also had some interior and all-round inconsistencies.

And believe me, I'm also highly critical of interiors .