SPEAKER: It's been over a decade since we
were behind the wheel of an all-new redesigned Tundra,
almost 15 years, but finally, we're here.
We're behind the wheel.
We're going to drive one on the road and tell you all about it.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Consistently in America, there are three automakers
that sell the top one, two, and three best-selling vehicles,
the Ford F-150, the Ram 1500, and the Chevy Silverado 1500,
and this one aims to eat a little bit of their lunch.
The Tundra is redesigned with a new frame, a new engine
under the hood, and all-new looks.
But we want to find out if it's got
what it takes to compete with the big three
and also what it's like compared to the old one because,
man, that truck was around for a long time.
For more information on the Tundra, all of its competitors
be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel.
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And if you want to cash off on your car today,
go to edmunds.com/sellmycar, especially if you want to get
into something brand-new like this.
Before I get into the nitty gritty of the,
how does it drive, what's the engine
feel like, Ryan, one of my coworkers at Edmunds,
did a great first look video on the Tundra
where he goes really deep in-depth with the buttons,
the knobs, how things work here in the center console.
I'll touch on that lightly, but if you want a deeper dive,
check out Ryan's video below.
Now let's talk about what's under the hood.
This particular Tundra that I'm driving has the standard V6.
They call it the i-Force V6.
It's 3 and 1/2 liters, and it's got more power
than the outgoing V8.
There is no more V8 for the Tundra.
It's gone, bye-bye, so if you don't want this one,
you'll have to wait a little while.
There will be a hybrid version of the 3.5-liter V6,
and it'll have even more power.
It'll come standard on the TRD Pro,
and it'll be optional in some of the upper trim levels,
but it's also got a 10 speed automatic transmission, which
is another big change for Toyota in the powertrain department.
How does it feel?
Well, it's pretty gutsy for a large truck.
It doesn't inspire any, oh, it's going crazy fast moments,
but it's got good acceleration.
This is still a pretty heavy truck,
and sub 400 horsepower territory means
it's plenty enough to tow and haul
and good enough to get you up to speed,
but it's not going to light the tires on fire.
So far in the driving experience I've had with this truck,
it shifts well, crisp.
Going up grades, it's not hunting for gears.
A lot of times, you worry about with a transmission
that's got a lot of gears, will it be shifting around a lot?
It seems like Toyota has kind of nailed out the logic on that,
and it's shifting reasonably well.
Also when you pop it over into sport mode like that,
you can select the gear and start
to hear a little bit of the engine note, which
I like a little bit.
We're pulling up to a red light now,
but it sounds pretty good for a V6, which
is saying something because V6s typically don't sound great.
So the V6 is only a little bit more powerful
than the outgoing V8, but it does
have the benefit of being attached to a 10 speed
transmission, which means it can shift
into a more appropriate gear for the task it's doing,
and it means that you're not going
to get as much engine noise when you're on the highway.
That was one of my biggest complaints
with the old Tundra is, it would rev pretty high,
and you'd hear that engine a lot,
especially when you're going 70, 75 out on the open road.
Now in this one, I spent some considerable time
on the highway, didn't get any of that engine noise.
But there was considerable wind noise from these side mirrors.
They're pretty big.
It's not great.
Now, I didn't have any music going.
I wanted to hear the inside of the truck.
I'm sure if I turned up the tunes a little bit,
I could drown that out.
Another big part of the Tundra that's changed is the frame.
They've gone with a fully boxed frame,
changing from the previous generation that
did not have that.
They've caught up, essentially, with the rest of the full size
truck market in that sense, but they've leaped forward
in terms of rear suspension.
Instead of leaf springs, you get coil springs,
which actually kind of smooths out the ride a little bit
in the rear and makes handling a little bit better.
The truck doesn't have as much weight down near the suspension
to pull it out of line when you're going through a corner,
so it feels a little bit more stable.
Now, the ride on the highway is still a little bit bumpy.
This is a big, heavy, full-size pickup truck,
but it's reasonable enough that you could daily
drive it without any comfort issues
and have a little bit of enjoyment
if there's a curve or two in the road.
You do get some bounce into the cabin.
That's to be expected in the full size class,
but the Tundra is certainly more in line
with the crop of full sizers today
like the F-150 and the Silverado.
I would say it falls behind the Ram 1500
in terms of suspension comfort, but I'd have to drive them back
to back just to be sure.
Then there's modern in-car tech.
When I think Toyota trucks, I think big chunky knobs
and simple dashboards, but this is throwing that preconception
right out the window.
All Tundras come with Toyota's Safety Sense
2.5 suite of driver aids, which is essentially
a long list of driver aids that includes stuff like lane
centering, lane keep assist, adaptive cruise control,
and they work pretty well.
Now, the beeps are a little bit annoying,
in that it can watch--
how dare you, with your driver assist system?
[BEEP] And the adaptive cruise control
doesn't keep me as close to the car in front of me as I'd like,
but it's not all that bad.
Honestly, this is a good system.
You could live with on a daily basis,
and it would help reduce fatigue over long road trips.
These trucks will be on the road by the end of 2021.
This is a pre-production model that I'm driving,
but Toyota says they'll be ready very soon.
Unfortunately, you can only get the first few models
with the standard V6.
If you want the hybrid with much more power and hopefully
better fuel economy, you'll have to wait.
In terms of fuel economy for this truck,
there's two different ratings for four by two and four
by four.
It's 20 miles per gallon combined for the standard V6,
and with four by four, it's 19 miles per gallon combined.
Not excellent when you consider that other vehicles
in the class have diesel offerings
or, Ford for instance, has the PowerBoost offering, which
does much better, but acceptable for a full-sized truck.
So after some time behind the wheel,
this is a big leap forward for Toyota.
This truck feels better at pretty much
every measurable thing that you can feel about it.
It drives better.
It accelerates better.
It's got a much nicer and I think better laid out interior,
but there are still some cheap plastics on the interior.
The ride is not as smooth as the Ram 1500.
And it doesn't have nearly as many powertrain options
as something like the F-150, where
you can get the PowerBoost option in the truck.
You can get a diesel.
You can get a V8.
Toyota has simplified things over the years
by only having a V8 and, in this truck,
having just the V6 and the V6 hybrid.
But that means you're going to appeal to fewer buyers,
and, in my opinion, that's a drawback of the Tundra.
So now we are in the TRD Pro.
This one is the big boss.
It's got all the suspension goodies
and, for the first time in Toyota Tundra history,
a locking rear differential.
Hey, good job, Toyota.
Welcome to the party.
Essentially, it physically connects the two rear tires
so that you can get further in off-road scenarios
where you want one of them to not be slipping, for instance,
if you've lost traction.
And Toyota's sent us out on this off-road trail,
so we're going to see what it's got to offer, see what it's
like in terms of rock crawling capability and all
that kind of good stuff.
But the big difference in this particular trim, TRD Pro
is only available with the hybrid,
so we're driving the hybrid right now.
It's got 430 horsepower and--
roundabouts there, 437, I think, and almost 600 pound feet
of torque, 580 something.
It's a really torque-y engine, which
is a good thing for an off-roader,
especially if you want that torque to be low down when
you're crawling over obstacles.
All right, so we are now engaged in four low.
We're doing crawl control, where it regulates the speed uphill
for you.
I'm avoiding a tree, as per the spotter's instructions.
Completely left hand down.
I've got a bunch of cameras going on the outside, which
is actually pretty cool.
All right, now he's going to have me reverse a little bit,
and really good resolution on these cameras, too.
This is a big, heavy duty truck, and it is going up
a really steep hill.
Yeah, a little bit of right hand down, so I figured.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Crawl control engaged, keeping me
from slipping back down the hill.
I mean, it's disconcerting to drive something
this big up a hill like this, and it's slipping, slipping,
but it caught.
Crawl control caught, as it was supposed to, and we're through.
That was pretty simple.
It's also really nice to just have these big screens
and a lot of tech, especially when
you're in such a big vehicle.
It makes off-roading less stressful.
Now, the TRD Pro doesn't have the kind of power
you get from the RAM TRX, but this is a real good competitor
with Ford's Ecoboost engine, their turbocharged V6,
and those power numbers are pretty similar.
What I'm interested to see is what this is like in a desert
running scenario.
So what we're going to be doing high speed off roading,
a lot of whoops, because I love how the Raptor performs
in those situations.
But the TRD Pro feels like it's more suited for tight trails
and going up really steep, slow climbs.
Let's talk about the super red interior on the TRD Pro.
We got a lot of comments when the photos and videos first
came out about how red the interior is.
I don't mind it that much, especially because I'm
red-green colorblind, so it just looks like Christmas in here
to me.
But it's also well-balanced with blacks
and a couple of grays and charcoal,
heather charcoals in here.
It's not too red.
So there's no spotter in the articulation
section, which I can only venture
to guess means I'll do fine.
I've got the cameras on and dipping the tire in,
a little bit of crawl, just go nice and slow,
keeping the wheels straight.
Now you hang a wheel up, and it crawls you forward, no problem.
I had a rear wheel in the air there,
crawl a little bit further, twist it
a little bit, no problem.
And I'm out of the articulation section.
That was easy.
All right, so now we get our first towing opportunity
with the Tundra, and they've put us
in an SR5, which is kind of a base-ish trim with the standard
engine and with no optional air suspension,
and so it's not great.
It's not my favorite towing experience, but it's not bad.
It's pretty comfortable, and we're only
towing a 3,000 to 4,000 pound trailer,
so there's no strain in the engine.
One of the things I'm happy to report
is that the 10 speed automatic shifts
really well with a trailer behind it, at least so far
with this small trailer.
It's not doing early upshifts.
It's not hunting around for gears.
You could go on a long uphill grade
and probably be just fine.
But next, we're going to hop into the other Tundra
that they've got here with a much bigger trailer
and see how it handles it with the air suspension and the load
leveling for the rear, should be an increase
in luxurious towing.
Now we're in a Platinum Tundra, one of the higher trim levels,
and it's got the optional air suspension
on it, which levels the rear end when
you've got a heavy trailer.
And we're towing a trailer that weighs more than twice as much
as the first one.
This one's almost 8,000 pounds, big dual-axle airstream.
Everything seems to be fine.
The 10 speed automatic still has good shift logic.
It's not upshifting early for me.
It's down shifting well on this downhill grade,
even with that air suspension in the back.
It doesn't bounce as much.
You're not getting as jittery of a ride,
so if you're towing on a regular basis,
you've got something that you're hauling to the same mountain
every weekend, or if you really love to go down
to the local boat ramp, maybe think
about getting one of the versions that
has the adaptive air suspension, and your life
will be a little bit more comfortable.
I do want to touch on the interior a little bit now.
If you want a deep dive, again, refer to Ryan's great video,
the first look at this truck.
He really talks about all the buttons and switches
in great detail, but some impressions
after driving the vehicle, for starters,
the screen doesn't wash out in the sun.
I can happily report that even with the sunroof wide open,
this is super easy to see.
This is now one of my favorite screens in any truck.
It's not as functional as some other options, stuff
like RAM's Uconnect screen, but this is an excellent layout.
It keeps visibility good, and it doesn't intrude on the lower
space in the dashboard.
So you can still fit your smartphone down here easily,
getting down to that area, the smartphone charger,
it's kind of a weird place to put it.
Every time I load my smartphone here and it starts to charge,
you go over a bump, and it shifts,
and charging stops again.
Putting it flat would have made it easier, plus there's
nothing here to cover this up.
It's just kind of ugly all the time.
And the same is true of these two centers console bits.
They're not good looking, and this plastic
is going to get scratched up pretty quickly.
Thankfully, this is really functional.
It is definitely function over eye-catching form.
This is one of my favorite parts of the interior.
You could put a big Nalgene water bottle
in here, a couple of smartphones up here,
so I actually really like it, despite not
liking to look at it.
Great driving position, can see well over the hood,
and the best part about sitting here
is, you don't have to look at the grille
on the front of the truck.
Then there's the big mirrors.
Now, those were a problem with wind noise on the highway when
we were driving here.
But it's not that bad.
Turn up the stereo, you'll be fine.
And they're nice and big, so you can
see a lot of stuff out of it.
The same is true of all the windows in the truck.
Forward visibility is good, except for an average-sized A
pillar up front, and you get the cool added benefit
of the rear window that rolls down,
which I'm sure anybody that's a Toyota fanboy
will really enjoy.
Seating comfort, great.
I could sit in these seats for long hours with no problem,
and if it's especially hot out, which it is today in Texas,
you can turn on the ventilated seats
if you get a truck with that option.
And they actually have a pretty powerful fan,
so immediately when you sit in the truck,
you start to cool off your backside.
And one more thing, this row of buttons here,
row of buttons here, and row of buttons here, excellent.
I really like the placement of the buttons.
They fall easily to hand.
They're easy to learn, and while they're not made out
of the sturdiest materials, I still enjoy their locations,
and functionally, the way they work, big fan.
Let's talk about what the Tundra does and doesn't have
as a result of its redesign.
It does have a better ride quality.
It's better to drive and steer, and the interior is much nicer.
It doesn't have the numbers to quite compete
with the best in class rivals, though it
doesn't have payload that can stack up to the best in class.
For instance, the max payload is just
under 2,000 pounds, which is impressive.
You can put a lot back here, but top rivals
have 1,000 pounds more than that.
Then there's the towing.
Yes, you can tow as much as 12,000 pounds with the Tundra,
but again, top rivals beat it there.
Thankfully, the margins pretty small in terms of percentages
of difference in towing, and, really,
my opinion, if you're towing over 10,000 pounds
on a regular basis, you should probably
be looking at a heavy duty truck anyways.
What it does have back here is a composite bed,
standard on all 2022 Tundras, something that they brought
in on the '07 Tacoma, but for some reason decided to wait
until now to give it to the Tundra.
But it is missing some truck gadgets, too,
stuff like a multi configurable tailgate
or even a power up tailgate.
All that aside, the Tundra has caught up quite a bit.
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Does it still make sense?
Will it appeal to you if you like the old Tundra?
Absolutely, and glad to say, it's
much better than ever before, but I still
want to get it in house, put it up against the F-150, the Ram
1500, and the Silverado just to see
where all the points fall out.
If you want more info about all the trucks in this segment,
click the link in the description below,
and press subscribe.
We got plenty of truck videos coming your way all the time.
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