Speaker 1: Pickup truck lovers rejoice for the new Toyota Tundra is here. It has been absolutely ages since we have seen anything major happen to this full size pickup truck. Now, there is a lot to talk about. I'm super excited to come ride shotgun with me. As we see just what this third generation truck has to offer
Speaker 1: Truth, be told, this is my second look at the Tundra. I did get to drive all over this thing a few [00:00:30] weeks ago. And so if you have any questions about the design, it's better or the technology, it is way better. Please go have a look at those videos. Nope. Today we are just talk about driving now in the past, the Tundra has suffered with engine options, especially when compared to like the F-150 or the Chevy Silverado, or even the Ram 1500. And guess what still suffers cuz you only get two options and neither one of them is a diesel. This one that I'm in right here is a 3.5 liter twin [00:01:00] turbo V six. That's pushing out 389 horsepower and 479 pound feet of torque. And it is dubbed the I force or, or you can have a 3.5 liter twin turbo, V6. That's a hybrid.
Speaker 1: And how do all those components work together? Well, really quite good. I mean, yes, it's a V6. I know you all are gonna the V8, but there's actually a really nice verbally sound that comes into the cabin. And there is plenty of power here, especially if you just need to pass on the highway, just [00:01:30] put your foot down. This thing down shift is pretty good. And you got plenty of power right there under your right foot. I also really like this transmission. I mean I've hated Toyota transmissions in the past. The old one was a six feet. I mean, come on this one here is really responsive. It downshift super easily. It Upshift really smoothly. Like all in all. My first impressions of this power train are really, really positive. Now the previous generation Tundra that had all the ride qualities of a shopping [00:02:00] cart, I mean it was just not enjoyable to live with day to day.
Speaker 1: Well, Toyota has ditched that old leaf spring in the rear for a coil over setup. Or you can even get air suspension in the rear that can help with leveling when you've got stuff in the bed and it can provide some dampen qualities as well. And overall you guys, this is just like night and day from last year, everything is so much more smooth. I'm not gonna get tired when I'm driving this truck for like 14,000 hours a day. Like I know some truck owners do the steering honestly feels a little bit vague. I really have to do [00:02:30] some mid corner corrections in here, but all in all, like I'm really impressed with the ride quality of this vehicle. Another thing that has improved is towing and hauling. You can tow up to a 12,000 pounds in the new tender. Now notice that I said up to not every configuration is gonna be able to do that.
Speaker 1: And in fact, you need the regular, I force engine to do it, not the hybrid, which I know seems really weird, right? Because the hybrid's got more toque. But the crux of the matter is when you add that battery, you add more weight, which adds more to the gross vehicle weight. So [00:03:00] your towing is gonna be a little bit less. And the same thing goes for payload as well. Mac payload is 1,940 pounds, but again, that's not for every configuration. Toyota does have two different toe haul modes. So one is for lighter things like, I don't know, like a jet ski or a small trailer. And then, and you have a like max tow mode, which will really give you all of the extra power that you need to make sure that you're hauling that load quickly and easily new for this year is also a straight path [00:03:30] assist for helping you get your trailer to back up in a straight line.
Speaker 1: But there's a couple of caveats here. Like one, it is hands free, but if you wanna it to back straight, you need to start with your trailer, absolutely straight. And sometimes like that can be a job in and of itself, but it is cool that Toyota is adding sub technology to help new beads tow a little bit easier. So when it comes to fuel economy, Toyota has not released the numbers for the hybrid yet, but the regular I force engine will get 18 miles per [00:04:00] gallon in the city, 23 on the highway and 20 combined. But that is for a two wheel drive truck. If you want a four wheel drive truck, well you're gonna have to subtract a number from each of those categories. And I wanna talk a little bit about technology. I mean, yes, I did cover it in that other video, but it's really impressive what Toyota has been able to do here.
Speaker 1: So you'll get a standard eight inch touch screen, but I've got own big here with a 14 inch screen that is just so much better than what we had before. You've got voice activation. It can recognize natural speech. The pinch to zoom qualities [00:04:30] are really fast. I'm really looking forward to having this truck for a week and digging into this new infotainment system because it's just such a big improvement over what we had last year. And when it comes to you advanced driver's aids, well Toyota safety sense. 2.5 is standard across the board. So that means that you get adaptive cruise control, you get a lane keeping assist, you get automatic, hi beams, all of those things that we've really come to expect out of Toyota's ADAS systems. But one thing that is optional is blind spot monitoring. I mean it's standard on the upper trims, but on the lower trims, it's [00:05:00] optional. And I'm like, I don't, I don't understand that. Just put blind spot monitoring on all your trucks. It's not that hard.
Speaker 1: All right. I am finally in my happy place. I'm talking about the T R D per pro. And now the cool thing about the T RD pro is that it is only available with that. I force hybrid powertrain. So I've got all 580, some odd pound feet of torque under my right foot, which is what I really want when I am offroading. [00:05:30] Now, the TRD pro has got a Fox 2.5 inch internal bypass shocks all the way around and in the rear you've got piggyback reservoirs and they've actually got a, like a skid plate or a stone plate protection on them. So there's less chance of you, you know, doing something stupid and hitting them. And I don't know, damaging your reservoir or just going all over the place. Other TD goodies include a front skid plate, a stabilizer bar. There's also a 1.1 inch lift.
Speaker 1: So that means that you have better approach and departure angles as well as about 11 inches of ground clearance. So this is just really [00:06:00] made for some great stock mobbing. All right. So the first thing I am going to do is a pretty steep hill climb and Toyota's had me put it into crawl control. So obviously I'm in Forough, but crawl control just kind of does everything on its own in the past. It's been really, really loud now. Like I don't really hear anything and I don't have my foot on the accelerator at all. It's gonna do it all on its own. So all I have to do is worry about steering. Honestly, it's kind of cheating. In fact, it's [00:06:30] really cheating. Uh, I don't need to have this crawl control on, but if you're a newbie to this, like it's kind of nice, cuz all you have to do is just pay attention to steering.
Speaker 1: Come on baby. Like we could have gone a lot faster of this a lot faster. Now that crawl control, like I said was really, really slow, but you can change it from levels one through five. Now if your career is as two tires, I've got 33 inch Falcon wild peak tires. These are actually really good. You know, it's a good [00:07:00] all round off rotor that still gives you pretty good performance on the street. Um, I've had these tires on rocks. I've had it in the dirt. I've had it in the sand in dunes. And um, I think that people are gonna find that they're a really nice tire. That's gonna fit this application of this truck all around.
Speaker 1: They're having us drive over some logs. Honestly, if it were me, I just wouldn't take this line. You don't need to take this line, just go around it. It's fine. [00:07:30] The TRD pro also has some driving mode. So you can get sand, you can get mud, you can get rocks, all of that stuff. And there's also a rear law. Now in terms of driving modes, it helps because it will give you the correct throttle and transmission calibrations. So you don't have to think about it as much, although I enjoy thinking about it. So what does this TD truck compete with? Well, it's not going against the Raptor and it's not going against the Ram TRX. This is more of like a Ram rebel, the uh, F one 50 with the [00:08:00] tremor package or the new Silverado Z two. It's not gonna be super fast in the whoops you guys it's just not, but it is gonna be really great in these rocks.
Speaker 1: There's one bad thing about this new TRRD pro though. You guys, there are no tow hooks, which I literally don't understand. They said it was for arrow and fuel to con, which is great. Like I'm all for that, but still this truck could get stuck. I could get this truck stuck. I could get it stuck in the dunes. I could get it high centered, like a myriad of things could happen. And [00:08:30] yet I don't have a tow hook to pull me out. Like, what's that about? Or if I needed to pull somebody else out or like, I don't know, pull out a stuff. There's no place for me to actually connect to this truck, which is a huge oversight on Toyota's part. And I really don't understand why they didn't put tow hooks on this. It just baffles me. Now, if you want to make your Toyota even better, you can get a three inch lift from the factory, which is pretty cool.
Speaker 1: I mean, I had a little bit of a hard time actually climbing into this. So I can't imagine a three inch lift [00:09:00] over the TRD pro, but Hey man, if you want it, you wanna put bigger tires on it, go for it, buddy. Okay. Toyota has asked me to put this in downhill dissent control. So like the crawl that goes up the hill downhill dissent control, it's gonna go down. It is a nice way, uh, to save your brakes. So nothing's heating up again. This is really not noisy at all, which is awesome. And all I need to do is worry about steering. I don't need to worry about getting on or off the brakes, but it's also really slow and it's [00:09:30] making me crazy. So forget about it. Oh, look, looks like we got a little water cross thing too. I know you guys all want me to splash through there, but that is not in accordance with tread lightly principles.
Speaker 1: You wanna go through water crossings as slow as possible so that you don't mess up the trail. Now, another thing that I can't stand in addition to the absence of tow hooks is that these cameras are just so bad. I mean, I don't really know the reason why my producer thinks that it's because like a high Def screen, but not a high Def camera, whatever the point is, [00:10:00] it's not very clear and I would never really rely on these cameras while I'm offroading. Of course there's more to a truck than just how it drives. And like I said, I've got deeper dive videos into the configurations, the design and the technology of the new Tundra. One thing that I cannot tell you about the price Toyota hasn't told me anything about that, but I do know that the standard I force engine will be available. Come this December. If you want the hybrid, you're gonna have to wait until next spring.
