V8 bye bye?

Cod sack or not, the reality is for about 75% of the outdoor activities I do I could function just fine in a Subaru. It's the other 25% that necessitate a full size pickup.

 

Subaru???

 

LOL. Forgive me, I am pretty much a pragmatist about things. When I was 26, my boss had an absolute vintage 70's Chevy half ton. He drove it about 1500 miles per year. To go elk hunting, he had two old beat up Subarus he bought for about $1500 each. Between the two cars they probably had around 400k miles on them. I don't know how many dead bulls came out of the mountains in those.

I bought an 06 Outback for my daughter. It's a solid little car.

 

This is fact
A guy I work with rolled in with a 2020 chevy 1500 they other day. Good looking truck. So, naturally I starting a conversation with him. He didn't know anything about the truck he just bought. Not even the engine size. I mean nothing. Then I asked him if he towed anything. He said nah. So I asked. Why did you buy a truck. He said its the in cool thing fad now. Its cool to drive a truck. Guess I've been cool for the last 15 years. I stopped with the questions after that.

 

About the same thing as putting a lift kit, off road tires, and LED lights on a pickup that never leaves the pavement.

 

Haha. In that case I've been cool since I was 16. 26 yrs now.

 

When I bought my wife a Subaru two years ago I was looking at one with a turbo.

I talk to my mechanic first, he said to stay away from any vehicle with turbo because they tend to go out at about 75,000 miles. Just out of warranty. I had the same problem with my old ford truck.

My 2006 ford 250 diesel went through 2 turbo's before It hit 90,000 miles, that's about $5,000 in turbo repairs on a 8 year old truck. No thanks, I will hold on to this Tundra V8 until I die.

 

Years ago when six bangers were in line and longer stroke, they made good low rpm torque, even V-8's with a short strokes can have issues with low rpm torque, found that out when I installed a 429 in our 1978 Bronco, that thing would really do well at freeway speeds but towing was horrible. I hate having to scream engines to get them to do their work and most all of the four and six bangers seem to have a need for higher rpm to get the job done. An other problem about turbo usage is that a lot of people don't really know how to drive with them and I've heard that problem with diesel turbo engines as well, people don't allow a cool down idle and often do hot shut downs where the oil going to the turbo goes bad due to the heat, I've seen a lot of Ford trucks where the turbos were no longer working, so what makes anyone think that turbo gasoline engines would be any better. I'm perfectly happy with my NA 5.7 V-8 and will run it till the end of my days, probably hauling things it was never designed to do, but it does. We also have a Sienna with a NA 3.3 V-6 that does a great job without a turbo.

 

I like my tundra V8. I also like boosted 6’s. Remember the Grand Natl? Would still like one of those. I’ve driven the F150 3.5 and was impressed with how fast it is. I am not impressed with fords 5.0 and mysterious oil consumption. I just like the 5.7. It’s smooth. Yes the gas mileage sucks, but remember the eco boost is either in eco mode or boost mode. Never both. A Toyota boosted 6 would be the same. I’d love to see one in a 4R!

 

The new GM HDs will supposedly start themselves up if you shut them down when they're hot.

 

There’s 2 guys I work with who have turbo cars , the 1 guy has driven turbos most of his driving life and hasn’t had any problem with them . He said that when you first start them you have to let them warm up a bit before you take off (1-2) minutes or wait till the fast idle drops , try to drive them without getting into the boost too much and when you get where your going let them idle for 1-2 minutes before shutting them down . The other guy has gone through 3 turbos in 5 years , the first one was covered under warranty and the last 2 he had to pay for about 3500 each time . He starts his car up and goes and doesn’t let it idle at all before shutting it off because the dealer told him you don’t have to do that , just drive it like a normal n/a engine and it’ll be fine .

 

I'm keeping my 1st Gen for as long as possible and then buying a 2017 Platinum. I don't need stuff like adaptive cruise control or TSS and I don't care about fuel economy. I want reliability, power and comfort in that order. The 5.7L V8 has reliability and power, the Platinum has comfort. If Toyota goes to a TT V6, I won't buy one until it has a multi year track record of proven performance and reliability. Though I don't mind the V8 rumble, sound isn't a deal breaker for me in any way.

 

Ok that makes more sense. I misread into that. Thanks for clearing that up

 

that's funny. But again not gonna happen. The Lexus motor is very reliable.

 

So it has a turbo timer on it. Ford has the same thing on it's hd diesels. You can lock the truck and walk away and it will idle until the turbo is at a safe temp to shut down. I had one on my 2001 7.3 SD but I had to install the egt sensor and turbo timer myself as it was not offered from the factory

 

The TSS can go away but I have become a huge fan of the adaptive cruise control.

 

So basically they are going to turbo charge the sedan engine that's already sapped all the fun out of driving the Tacoma, and will probably give it a dreadful 10 or 11 speed transmission, which will be a gear hunting, jerky nightmare. Sorry to be a Gloomy Gus, but I'll be driving my 18 Tundra into the ground if this is the case. If I buy another pickup, I'll go with a manufacturer still using V8's.

 

2 days now of driving my 2020 and a person who lives on cruise control......adaptive cruise is life now. Tho I dont care much for the fact that if you run up on someone 15-20 mph slower than you that it uses the binders to slow you down even more in a manner that feels like its gonna toss you thru the windshield. I feel like that could have been programmed to be somewhat smoother......

 

I can see it being useful if you commute alot in traffic. The highways around here are pretty empty. I'd be changing lanes to pass long before adaptive cruise control got within range to slow me down.

 

V8s are always going to have a large customer base. Forcing a twin turbo V6 is kinda stupid from multiple angles.

Large displacement, natural aspiration, V8 is a damn good truck and family car engine even if it doesn't get "good" fuel efficiency.

 

It helps when you set the cruise then someone passes you and slows down cuz their phone rang. you can't switch lanes yet to go around cuz another car is there. Now I just set the cruise and can get through traffic with the cruise constantly set. I really like this feature

 

Yeah, I can see that. On our highways, I rarely have more than one other vehicle near me and that's only when passing or being passed. There's usually a mile or so between vehicles.

 

Wow that's nice. It's like that here about midnight and after. Any other time there is always someone in the way. I can't complain too bad though cuz the traffic is moving at the speed limit and there is rarely any traffic jams unless some people decided to play bumper cars.

 

One of the perks of living as far north as I do.

 

My experience Going from my 2016 taco to my 2019 Denali Duramax, to my 2019 Raptor then to my 2019 tundra after owning more than 50 cars, and working in Automotive for 27 years. I use my trucks for work trucks, tow a couple of times a week, and camping, mild 4 wheeling.

the taco transmission shifting sucks. Gas millage sucks, drivability stock sucks oV tune and 4:88 gears, OME leaf packs longer shocks and removed sway bar made a huge difference .

The programming on the Duramax sucks .its a brick unless your towing you cant get into the power. DEF system was garbage traded in with 900 miles on it. In the shop 5 times the first month.

The Raptor same gas milage as the taco but mine was flashed with 100 more ft lbs torque tune 600 ft lbs is more fun than whatever the taco makes. Fun to drive, fast, nice interior but poor quality assembly Quality of the ford overall was poor. You cant wash it without being cut and snagging microfiber on every little corner, trim was disintegrating. Sold at 9 months before it depreciated. I don't believe it will last 200k miles without several major issues. It wandered around on the freeway the front tires would bounce off the ground on the freeway seams so your always correcting it.

Tundra. Got a new one up from base TRD OR bigger gas tank, bucket seats. Its a truck less than 1/2 the price of the Raptor even with the King suspension 5:29 gear set . Stock Bed bounces on the freeway. Half the power of the Raptor. Better quality than the raptor. Less gas milage, geared too high stock, shifting is weird, feels like it needs a tune. I will probably supercharge it and do the OV tune on it. The adaptive cruise control half the time just doesn't work in the canyons, on hills, in traffic i would rather not have it than what it has.

what I would like to see in a toyota truck: full electric Tacoma 4 motor with tesla like torque and traction with a frame not unibody, turbocharged hybrid camless tundra with a frame. With drivability as its main programming focus. It seems like that has gone away on every car past 2016. Cruise control should always be on and set instantly without looking at it, should account for towing anti sway recognize hills and adapt gear range for it (should almost be autopilot).transmission should shift instantly with no slushyness and be able to be manually controlled to hold every gear to redline, in sport mode the torque converter should full lock.

 

Kuul for 48 years now....and counting.....

 

You know that if you hold the on/off button when turning on the cruise control you can just have old fashioned cruise, right? Most people already know, but I can't tell from the way you described it.

 

What Lexus vehicles is it in ? I’m thinking that a Tundra is going to have a lot more weight to lug around than a Lexus which in turn is going to make the engine work harder .

 

I believe Toyota supported the relaxing of the fuel economy standards a few weeks ago. Does anyone think this can help with keeping the V8z?

 

That's not 100% accurate. They supported there being a single federal standard and California not being allowed to make it's own more stringent demands. No automaker can afford to lose the CA market, so even if the federal mandates are less oppressive all automakers still comply with CA's demands so that their vehicles can be sold there. Toyota is still shooting for standards that would meet or exceed the demands of CA, but they don't agree with one state being able to dictate what the entire country has the option to buy.

Personally, I think their stance is kind of sly. If CA isn't allowed to tighten things beyond the federal level, then there will be automakers that only do the minimum to get by those standards. If Toyota still meets the harsher requirements they can pummel the brands that don't in the MPG department and net some big gains in sales.