Can the New Tundra Play in the Luxury Truck Game?

Toyota is pretty dominant in the pickup truck market, make that midsize pickup truck market. That’s where the invincible Tacoma rules the roost, at least in sales. How about in the braggadocious, all-American, apple pie loving, country music crooning full-size truck segment? Well… that’s a different story. But darned if Toyota isn’t back with a new truck to give it the old college try. For the Tundra, is the 3rd gen finally the charm?

In short, no. But in long… also still no. But that’s not to say that the new Tundra is bad. The 2007 Tundra, arguably the first true full-size Tundra, made it very clear that Toyota was seeking real credibility in the full-size market and wanted to go for broke. Even the amount of marketing campaigns back then set the world (and likely Toyota marketing budgets) on fire to show how overbuilt the Tundra was. 2007 saw the highest Tundra sales ever, nearly cracking 200,000 units, nearly matching the GMC Sierra. Unfortunately headwinds like an economic recession didn’t pay the Tundra any favors. Toyota also stopped investing in the truck at that point for nearly 15 years (yes there was a facelift around 2014). Sales slumped, basically floating just above 100,000 or so units per year. It’s a segment where Ford, Chevy/GMC and RAM seek to out duel each other nearly every model year with something special and/or something new. No news meant no attention.

So, with 15 years to develop the 3rd gen Tundra, what do we get? Well, we get an all new frame, now fully boxed, new configurations including a longer bed that can be paired with the CrewMax cab, wholly new powertrains – gone is the stalwart yet supremely thirsty range of V8s and in its place come a stout turbo V6 and a turbo V6 hybrid, new infotainment inside, new rear suspension architecture and even a new ultra luxury trim in this Capstone model that we tested.

Ride and drive are night and day vs. the outgoing truck, which felt every day of its 15 year old age (an eternity or two in the automotive product sense). Steering and tracking are about 857% improved by our patented Driving MINdex (+/- 25%). The outgoing Tundra had slow steering with a level of vagueness not seen this decade. You’d constantly be making steering corrections and slight steering wheel movements, which can be extremely fatiguing on long drives, it resembled when you see people in TV shows in the 70’s driving a car. No more with the 3rd gen Tundra. Tracking down the highway and long sweeping curves is consistent and something that you could easily daily drive (although that’s an entirely different subject altogether if you enjoy dailying something larger than those parking lot coffee kiosks in Seattle).

Adjustable damper settings are nice to have with the suspension. Ride is also improved thanks to the new coil spring rear suspension (no more leaf springs), but you still get decent bumps up into the cabin, likely not helped by massive 22″ wheels (can we all agree on a max 20″ wheel size?). A full 4-corner air suspension could help, like it does on the RAM 1500, but only a rear air suspension is found here.

Tundra’s i-Force MAX powertrain is smooth, with no mentions of hybrid nearly anywhere inside. Power is rated at a beefy 437 horsepower and 583 lb-ft of torque. That’s a bump above the 389 horsepower and 479 torques found in the “base” Tundra turbo V6, and a hair above the Ford F-150’s Powerboost engine figures of 430 horsepower and 570 lb-ft. But no generator level external power offering here as Ford does with its Pro Power Onboard system. Where Toyota hybrids are typically routed through an eCVT transmission, the Tundra luckily has a standard 10-speed automatic transmission. I did note a little hesitation and “clunk” into gear whenever starting off or after a change in gear selection (e.g. going from reverse to drive), but other than that the overall feel was quite positive.

All this power can of course be routed through rear wheel drive or an available part-time 4-wheel drive system, depending on trim. That part-time 4WD system is one of the archaic misses of the new Tundra, as nearly every competitor offers an automatic 4WD drivetrain. As it sits, the Tundra is basically a rear wheel drive truck unless you’re off road or stuck somewhere. Toyota has an on road capable system they typically call Multi-Mode 4WD, with the necessary center differential, but it’s not on the Tundra (never has been), and is also oddly absent on the new Sequoia SUV, which HAS offered it from day one.

The i-Force MAX with the hybrid touts a 20 mile per gallon combined fuel economy rating on the Capstone. At first blush this would be a hefty, nearly 50%, improvement over the outgoing 5.7-liter V8’s rating of 14. However, in our week the observed fuel economy was a hair under 16 miles per gallon, a bit disappointing. That’s with a few unencumbered highway stints and largely little to no payload (my daughter almost 4 years old and hasn’t cracked 40 pounds yet). I know the phrase is your mileage may vary, but the i-Force MAX came up surprisingly short. Not sure how the Ford Powerboost folks have been seeing their real world hybrid full-size truck fuel economy figures.

Toyota did seem to spend a good chunk of development budget on the interior at least. Thank goodness the CrewMax retains its signature power down full rear window (another thing the Sequoia wasn’t able to keep alive). The Capstone delights with an available two-tone black and white interior scheme, but the white on the armrests are just asking to look dirty super quick. Luxury abounds with heated and ventilated seats front AND rear and truly soft leather. The dark American walnut wood is a nice touch, but could be used a bit more liberally. Some interior materials could still use an upgrade, especially given the $77,000 price of our tester, there are lots of painted silver plastics, maybe that would be okay for base and mid trims, but would like to see some authentic metal trim and accents at this stratosphere. CrewMax does get a nice huge panoramic roof now. Just missing the massage seats as in the new GMC Sierra Ultimate Denali.

Tech is fairly comprehensive. There are good Advanced Driver Assistance Systems, a big digital cluster (but it’s not super configurable/customizable), big infotainment with wireless phone connectivity, and a digital rearview mirror. Controls largely retain nice physical controls and toggles, although some of the buttons are too similar and small, but with time I am sure you’d get familiar with them. Toyota also tried to mount the wireless phone charger a bit upright, nice for visibility, but I found that my phone would bounce around given some of the truck ride quality and often end up not aligned to keep charging, they would do well to have some sort of tension clip to help keep the phone in place.

For truck tech, Toyota debuts a straight backup trailer assist here, not sure how helpful that is vs. competitors that help with the actual turning with a trailer in reverse. There are at least plenty of camera angles and positions to see around this nearly 20-foot long behemoth. Power deploying running boards were super helpful, there’s even a power step that deploys and retracts back by the tailgate, which itself can do a remote/button-operated opening. No multi-gate or dual-swing action entry into the tailgate innovation or RAMBox style bed storage wars.

As for exterior design, I won’t dwell on it. It’s super subjective. Yes, it looks significantly different than the outgoing Tundra, which for some, that’s really all they want. Tundra joins the other trucks, and also other Toyotas in large grille dreams. You won’t easily or readily mistake it for any other truck on the road, at least from the front.

Two nitpicks/pet peeves: No rear exterior passive entry/lock handles?! Can only lock/unlock the truck from the front door handles outside. At $77,000 this is nearly inexcusable. Also, auto dimming exterior mirror is only on the driver side. Sure trucks are higher up, but there can still be plenty of glare from headlights behind you at night. Again, at this price point I think both should be dimming, but I know some German lux OEMs have also been skimping on the dimming passenger mirror as well.

On paper it would seem that 15 years was largely worth the wait, at least for some Toyota loyalists. However, the Tundra had a ton of catching up to do. And ultimately that’s what it does. It largely comes back to relevance in a segment that has been on a tear the past 7 or so years, reinventing itself with ever grander off-road and luxury variants to chest thump around town. But the Tundra stops short of being able to wow or woo any of the Detroit 3 shoppers over. If Tundra had seen this type of overhaul back in say, 2015, I think Toyota could have carved out a great chunk of the segment for itself, but RAM really took that opportunity and hasn’t looked back. Or maybe not, maybe there’s nothing Toyota could ever do to crack the 200,000 unit ceiling with Tundra and maybe they’re okay with that. Tundra is not the lifeblood of the company as the full-size segment is for the Detroiters, and thus doesn’t get the carte blanche and blank check development budgets to go with it. Tundra fulfills its very catered brand mission and doesn’t feel the need to assert itself as best or first at anything (except resale value!).