fact is Ford used a fully boxed frame, while using an open C-channel on their Superduty trucks. The exact same design used on semi-trucks.

Toyota Tundra may be recalled

Engine trouble on new Texas-made pickup could hurt quality reputation.

Christine Tierney / The Detroit News

Toyota Motor Corp. faces a costly setback in the biggest U.S. vehicle launch in its history after owners of its new Tundra pickup reported engine failures.

The Japanese automaker may recall Tundras equipped with 5.7-liter V-8s to replace the engines, a company spokesman said Wednesday.

The trouble with the Tundra's 5.7-liter engines, the most powerful engine available on the new pickup, is the latest in a series of recalls and problems that have dented Toyota's reputation.

The automaker set the industry standards for vehicle quality, but now seems to be straining to maintain top quality as it expands overseas, builds factories and hires thousands of new workers.

"It's really tough," said Karl Brauer, editor of Edmunds.com, an automotive research Web site. "Engine failure kills a car's ability to run and it's not a simple thing to fix."

Such a problem is also likely to affect residual values, he said.

Industry experts say Toyota is extremely vulnerable to negative publicity because of its prominence in the industry.

In the first quarter of 2007, Toyota overtook General Motors Corp. to become the world's leading automaker in terms of sales.

With the launch of the Tundra earlier this year, Toyota aims to double its share of the lucrative full-size pickup market, one of the few segments still dominated by the U.S. automakers.

Toyota officials characterize the Tundra launch as the most important introduction in the company's history in the United States.

The rollout has suffered delays and disappointments. For instance, the Tundra earned lower frontal crash scores than domestic rivals such as the Ford F-150 and Dodge Ram.

But the engine problem is more damaging and could slow the vehicle's brisk sales momentum.

Company spokesman Bill Kwong said Toyota realized in February that there was a problem with the camshafts delivered by a supplier for the 5.7-liter engine, and the automaker ordered the necessary changes to production.

Still, Toyota has seen 20 cases of engine failure in trucks equipped with 5.7-liter engines, although no injuries have been reported.

Toyota is now studying how many of the 30,000 5.7-liter engines it built are affected.

Toyota builds the Tundra pickup at assembly plants in Princeton, Ind., and San Antonio, Texas, and makes the engines in Alabama.

The automaker hopes to sell 200,000 new Tundras this year, compared with 124,508 previous-generation Tundras in 2006.

But U.S. automakers are holding their own in the pickup market, and GM has been successful with its new Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra trucks.

In contrast to their performance in the car market, where they have been pushed back by Japanese nameplates, American manufacturers account for more than 90 percent of full-size pickup sales, which totaled 2.2 million units in 2006.

Our good buddy Mike Levine over at Pickuptruck.com has updated his report on the story surrounding the failure of 20 camshaft in the 2007 Toyota Tundra's 5.7L V8 engine. Levine noticed that Toyota has already posted on two internet forums expressing regret to Tundra owners over the incident. Though the author's name was not provided, identical posts were published by "TMSUSA" on ToyotaNation.com and TundraSolutions.com that address customer concerns and provide this expression of remorse:

"Although the number of affected Tundras is very small, we very much regret that even one of our trucks was manufactured with a camshaft processing flaw and certainly any inconvenience caused to our customers."

Meanwhile, Levine also tracked down a consultant who confirms the estimate we originally reported that it will cost $5,000 to swap out each engine that experiences a failed camshaft. Toyota will certainly pay the estimated $100,000 to repair the 20 trucks already known to have experienced a camshaft failure, but the looming question that's yet to be answered is how many more trucks might need to have their engine replaced? Toyota Spokesperson Bill Kwong told Levine, "Our dealers have approximately 1,600 new Tundras nationwide for disposal as a loaner vehicle while a customer's truck is being repaired, and that doesn't include older Tundras and Tacomas." While meant more as an assurance that the company will do whatever it can to help out customers who find themselves with an affected engine, that statement also implies Toyota is at least prepared for the number to grow.

Playing down the imminence of a recall, Toyota spokesperson Bill Kwong tells PickupTruck.com that, "It's still too early to tell if a recall is necessary, but if it is, we'll initiate it."

But even a limited recall could turn into a very expensive proposition for the OEM. Jim Hossack, vice president and head of the pickup truck consulting practice at AutoPacific, a West Coast marketing and consulting firm, estimates the costs at upwards of $5000 per truck to replace a broken 5.7-liter i-Force V8 motor.

"At this point, they'll probably issue a TSB (Technical Service Bulletin) to their dealers, instead of doing a recall," says Hossack.

$5000 for each engine swap could be a relative bargain though versus the short term cost that this incident has caused Toyota's reputation for building high quality automobiles.

Still, Hossack thinks both Toyota and the Tundra will be fine in the long run because of Toyota's relatively unblemished quality record.

"Toyota will be forgiven and will come out of this unscathed, as long as there are no other major problems after this, but if the same situation had happened to a company like Hyundai, they'd be skewered," says Hossack."

Tundra owners impacted by a failed camshaft will face their own costs, especially if they depend on their truck for their livelihood. In this case, Bill Kwong says Toyota dealers will do what they can to help.

"Our dealers have approximately 1,600 new Tundras nationwide for disposal as a loaner vehicle while a customer's truck is being repaired," says Kwong, "and that doesn't include older Tundras and Tacomas."

Toyota has also been proactively managing the camshaft problem with some of its most loyal fans. Toyota communications and public relations reps have posted apologies and responses to comments in online discussion forums at ToyotaNation.com, a general Toyota news and community website, and at TundraSolutions.com, an online neighborhood of Tundra and other Toyota vehicle owners.