You need a 5.7ltr TUNDRA. Seriously!
Why, you ask? Well?this is just an incredible vehicle. There?s no reason a full-size truck should be able to do what this thing does. Sometimes we just had to laugh in disbelief - it's that good.
First of all, it looks good. Or, rather, bad. In a good way. There aren't many vehicles out there that look as mean as this truck. You can see the Tundra coming a mile away, and armed with this intimidating presence it managed to accomplish something that few other vehicles in the world can.
With its massive grille and imposing stance, it shined a light of intimidation down I-66 like a beacon of hope. The I-66 slowpokes eagerly moved aside once their mirrors filled with the chrome Toyota logo of our tester. Now we have learned! Northern Virginia drivers respect only one thing? brute force. And apparently nothing delivers like the new Toyota Tundra.
Another thing it delivers is gobs and gobs of power. We just tested Toyota?s small SUV, the RAV4, which was pretty speedy with 269hp. But we really weren't prepared for what lurked under the Tundra?s hood. Our Limited tester came with the top-of-the-line motor, a 5.7-liter unit that makes an eye-popping 381 horsepower at 5600rpm and 401 pound-feet at 3600rpm. The only 2007 full-size truck that even comes close is Chevy?s new Silverado, which makes 367 horsepower yet needs an extra .3 liters of displacement to do it.
Sure, that's a lot of power. But you might have known that it's also a very heavy truck, at a shade over 5,500 lbs. That doesn't seem to bother the motor much, though. The Tundra is so powerful that achieving quick 0-60 acceleration times is made difficult. Standing starts in 2WD mode shredded the rear tires, muscle-car style, and returned a time of 7.01 seconds. Starting in 4WD took care of the traction issues, and the Tundra took off like a sprinter with a 0-50 time of 5.01. After 50 MPH, the drag of driving with all four wheels started to set in and the next 10 MPH took more than a full second. We played with the various traction control and limited slip electronic controls but unfortunately the Sun set before we figured out how to optimize the settings for a true and accurate 0-60 MPH run. The general consensus seems to be that the new Tundra goes from 0-60 MPH in about 6.5 seconds.
We?re sure that enterprising owners with an eye on the dragstrip can think of some way to get the Tundra to hook up. As the 0-50mph time shows, there is a ton of potential in this truck. It gets the power to the ground well enough; 6.5 seconds is very quick for a vehicle this heavy. But it has the juice to be much, much quicker.
?Sporty? was a word that came to our minds quite often when driving the Tundra. Unlike most of its competitors (as well as some aspiring sporty cars), the Tundra offers a six-speed automatic with a manual shift function. This 6-speed is the only available transmission with the 5.7L V8, and is exclusive to the bigger motor. It's mounted on the console as opposed to the steering column, for an even sportier feel. The only drawback is that there is a bit of lag, as with most automatics. So given the ferocious manner in which the Tundra rips through its gears, we found ourselves bouncing off the rev limiter quite often. Finally, we figured out that the tranny needed a little bit of advance notice for an upshift, so we settled on tapping the lever forward when the needle was about 1000rpm short of redline.
Bopping around Northern Virginia this way got pretty addictive. Climbing the hill from I-66 to the Roadfly offices, the Tundra felt, sounded, and ate up pavement like a true muscle car. What's more, despite being a full-size truck built for hauling, its handling was solid and predictable. We understand this might sound like a load of baloney. You might be thinking all those freebie Toyota-branded coffee mugs have compromised our objectivity. But just go drive one and see. You?ll find that this truck moves better than anything in its class, and better than a lot of things in sportier, lighter classes to boot.
Toyota has sunk a ton of money into marketing the Tundra, with gruff demonstrations of its prowess in the areas of acceleration and braking. The brakes are indeed superb, for a variety of reasons. Firstly, they stop you quickly when you're going quickly. Standing on the brakes from any sane speed brings very little drama, and the pedal feel is firm and progressive. No mush here.
It doesn't end there. Not only are the brakes great for hot-footing around with an empty payload, they promise to be outstanding on long drives with something large attached to the tow hitch. At Roadfly, we do a fair amount of towing, especially up and down the Pennsylvania Turnpike. This is an absolutely brutal trek for a truck?s braking system, as it features many changes in elevation. Adding 10,000 lbs. to the equation is murder. So, as with the rest of the Tundra, Toyota subscribed to the ?bigger is better? philosophy. They stuffed 13.9-inch rotors on the Tundra?s hubs, and wrapped them in four-piston calipers.
