I had a little mountain bike adventure in the Tundra last Friday. Loaded it up with four bikes, four people and plenty of gear and headed for the Southern Sierras. In fact, we did the same ride as last fall's adventure in the Chevy Silverado.
The Tundra performed flawlessly and didn't give a rip about the bikes hanging on the hitch, the extra cargo, or the thousands of vertical feet we had to climb to reach our starting point. I was reminded how truly potent this truck's powertrain is when it's pointed uphill and how much latitude there is in its transmission. The six speed is brilliant whether you're asking it to pass a freeway creeper or needing to hold a constant speed on a grade. And there's never any shortage of power. It's just an impressive package.
Fuel consumption averaged 17.16 mpg over the last 393 miles of mostly freeway driving.
Josh Jacquot, Senior road test editor @ 24,341 miles
louiswei says:
08:01 AM, 07/14/08
I'll take that the Tundra is showing no signs of tranny trouble?
; )
opfreak says:
08:35 AM, 07/14/08
^if we're taking cheap shots.
did the frame rust through yet :-p
greenpony says:
08:49 AM, 07/14/08
17+ mpg is pretty good, especially given the amount of power from this engine. Props to the Toyota driveline engineers.
cx7lover says:
09:14 AM, 07/14/08
Someone didn't inform you that the tranny on Toyota trucks dies after 60K miles.
z479 says:
09:36 AM, 07/14/08
One of my friends who works for Toyotas research center said that they found a major issue with the Tundra's rear suspenion in their long term evaluation of the vehicle...
cx7lover says:
10:16 AM, 07/14/08
Besides the fact that it's very weak?
z479 says:
12:13 PM, 07/14/08
Haha, well they found out that it really can not handle the towing and load capacity that they thought it could after a certain number of miles. I'm not sure how many miles it was, but he said that it wasn't even at the 100k mark yet. Their trying to figure out if it's only a batch of them, if so how many, or if the design is just flawed.
louiswei says:
01:01 PM, 07/14/08
Haha, I'll believe it when when I see it...
Just gotta love the "one of my friends" type of story.
saxdogg says:
02:09 PM, 07/14/08
LOL, you west coasters are funny...it "hauled four bicycles" like they weren't there...OF COURSE IT DID, it's FOUR BICYCLES. A Ford Ranger could do the same...with a 4-cyl.
You guys do have a major chubby for this Yota, but there's just as much owner complaint and bad apples out there as the apparently-unlucky Chevy you had, check the owner forums and youtube.
JP
toyota4life says:
02:34 PM, 07/14/08
Great review there Josh!
how is that refurb Silverado tranny holding up? i think you guys shoud've gotten the GMC Sara instead,the silverado is just plain embarrassing.
maybe GM should ask Toyota to build them a real work truck for them,because clearly the silverado was design for grocery getting.how can you be PERFECTING America's truck for over ninety yrs and put out such a disaster?
by my count ,the silverado has 19 Recalls/TSB since the start of this year alone.didn't think that was possible,but damn!
http://www.edmunds.com/maintenance/recalltsb.do?step=tsb&year=2007&make=Chevrolet&model=Silverado+1500&style=LT1+4dr+Extended+Cab+4WD+8+ft.+LB+%285.3L+8cyl+4A%29&zip=90036&synpartner=edmunds#92
cx7lover says:
03:13 PM, 07/14/08
Toyota should take a few lessons from GM and Ford on how to build a proper truck frame. The frame is very weak and I definitely have faith that they will start falling apart in a few years(with someone that uses it as it was intended to be used.)
louiswei says:
03:45 PM, 07/14/08
cx7lover, if I have Marty McFly's DeLorean I'd be glad to find out about whether or not the Tundra's frame will fall apart in a few year for you. However, since I don't all I know is that based on IL's LT testing SO FAR, the Tundra has made a much better impression than the Silverado.
To be honest, I really wasn't expecting this since the Silvy was built like a rock and has been America's truck for 90 years...
billt9 says:
07:10 PM, 07/14/08
The GM Silverado/Sierra's frame is also Triple Tech(TM) equivalent.
Enforced box front, box mid, C rear.
Look at GM's current GMC Sierra adverts in any car magazine.
GM just didn't advertise it, and idiots don't know that a truck is suppose to have 3 types of frame.
Now GM is advertising their triple type frame too.