Unpopular opinion: The current Tundra interior is better than everyone else's.

My point is that those features are not missing. This is a fundamental difference in manufacturing philosophy between Toyota and all the rest.

Just because one or all of the other manufacturers in the segment focus on trying to wow people with new features every few years does not mean that every other manufacturer has to as well to keep from "falling behind" in the segment. I have my gripes with my truck, but I mostly love that Toyota has done VERY little to the Tundra in 14 years. It shows me that they are sticking to their manufacturing philosophy regardless of sales.

Short generation life and continually updating creature comfort/luxury features–which is the philosophy of the domestics–tells me they're more concerned with curb appeal and wowing you at the dealership than utility and long service life. The common issues I read about in their forums confirms this. The sole long-term drivetrain reliability study freely available online (written by Volvo fanboys, by the way) confirms this as well.

Lastly, someone telling me my argument is "not fair"...that sounds like the kind of whining that my OP was poking at.

 

I'd like to talk to my Tundra how my wife talks to her phone.

"TUNDRA! Play Metallica!"
"TUNDRA! Volume UP!"
"TUNDRA! Air conditioner on! Colder!"
"TUNDRA! DO NOT LET THAT CHEVY PASS US! GO! GO! GO!"

 

Not surprised...will come in handy.....not sure why though....with a 1 ft wide nav display...malls are outdated too. What to do now???

 

Alexa is everywhere. ....... ......

 

My biggest gripe with the Tundra interior is the location of the Trailer Brake Controller. Not very convenient, visible, or easily accessible. other than that, I love my interior. Granted, I swapped out the headunit to a betrer one, and will soon be getting rid of the chrome. But otherwise think it is laid out very well and obvious.

When it comes to similar trims in the competition, and maybe the 2022, all I can think is the buttons! my god look at all the buttons!

 

You got a mouse in your pocket? Who is this "we" you speak of?

I would love to have a tailgate with an integrated step in it like the GMChevy. Hell, I'd even take the F-150 style step. I got bad knees and every little bit helps getting in the bed.

 

That's why you get a Prodigy and mount it where you find it most convenient.

 

I like my 2012 interior. I also like the interior of the 2021 Ram 1500 that I have for work. Between the two, I prefer the Tundra interior because it has more buttons and no touchscreen.

 

I'll just add my Fuddy Duddy thought here, then slowly slink away. Big screen touch tech is pretty awesome for maybe the kids or the wife driving with you. While I'm driving I prefer to keep my eyes on the road, and the rear-view mirror. After 2 years I still haven't mastered all the steering wheel controls without looking, and the voice command you can use that my last truck didn't even have. Its enough for me, but that's just me.

 

Very good points actually!

 

They all have it . The Tundra probably will too .

 

Tilly brought up a good point . I forgot to mention that you can use voice command to do all those things .

 

That's cool.


My previous posts were just for clarification of why some don't want the screens. I like the happy middle ground, myself. I want all my HVAC on old school knobs and buttons, but I don't mind touch screens. Full disclosure, I think the huge screens don't appeal to me purely from an aesthetics point of view; not because of any functionality issues.

 

I'm sure you're not the only one that feels that way .
I love all the stuff the big screens can do and I still don't know everything it can do . lol

 

How so? Can they watch movies or play games on it?

I’m asking honestly. It was my understanding that you can’t actually do anything fun on these giant screens, especially while driving, but I could be wrong.

 

I'm not really sure, they said it was like going to a drive-in movie without actually going out, and having fun.

 

Literally LOL'd at this.

 

As a child of the 80s its been a longtime dream to have my car say "That's not a good idea, Michael"

Even if my name isn't Michael.

 

It’s on my wife’s 2015 GMC and it’s awesome.

 

99% agree. The main thing I can’t wrap my head around is why the hell doesn’t the driver get a grab handle. Lol.

 

Not from factory . But the after market has some software that enables it .

 

Agree on all points except the cup holders in the rear are not good. It is a minor thing but it should be mentioned.

 

This and its a single point of failure where most functionality is lost when the display goes out.

 

Crash test dummies hit their heads on the handle in the newer tests that came about after the 2007 Tundra was released. Toyota removed the driver side handle in an attempt to get better crash scores. They had to do new manufacturing processes to have the panel without a handle, so it cost them money to do it. Especially because the dummy tests results were different in the Sequoia (added weight and different suspension changed the crash dynamics) so they still produced the panel with the handle.

But don't let those facts confuse you. Ask any internet-engineer on here and they'll let you know it was a corner cut to save money.

 

Yeah, I disagree. Nothing against you personally of course. More unpopular opinions I suppose.

1. I disagree with the idea that they didn't save money. Yes, they spent a bit of money retooling (or paying the plastics company that makes the interior A pillar to retool), but there's no way that retooling to delete that handle cost them more than they saved over however many model years of making 100k trucks/year without the handle. They didn't even delete it all the way. The threaded brackets that it mounts to are still there underneath.

2. They deleted them in the Tacoma, 4runner, and Tundra at or near the same time. They were the only company to do this as far as I know. All the other full-size trucks have the drivers side grab handle AND have better safety ratings than the Tundra. The Tundra's safety rating still sucks post-deletion. I love Toyota, and I love my truck, but it seems to me they are the absolute MASTER of deleting something mid- or late-generation for profit and coming up with a pretty convincing reason for doing so.

No, I don't think I'm an internet engineer. And I haven't let the "facts confuse [me]." But I do disagree with your premise that they didn't save money. Retooling one part vs not making a handle for how many trucks? Say the thing cost $20 and they deleted it for 600k trucks. That's $12 million saved. They also saved money deleting the external transmission cooler. Remember the reasonable excuse for that? "We found that we didn't need it and that running the transmission temp hotter is better for fuel economy." Yeah, sounds reasonable. Except wait, there's ZERO difference (stated by Toyota or observed by drivers) in fuel economy between 2019+ and prior Tundras.

I understand that it's possible I'm wrong about all of this. I'm a highly skeptical person by nature, and sometimes that gets the best of me.

 

No offense taken, none meant, and I enjoy the discussion.

1. Not changing anything would have saved the most money. They had the mold for the part already, and it was paid for by sales by the time the handle was removed. They had to design, test, fit, etc. for a new part, though this would be relatively easy as it's a modified existing part vs a ground up design, but there is a cost. Injection molds are not cheap. See the link for some examples, and I'm going to pull a pic of a relevant part of the link as well.
Any interior auto part is going to be in the advanced level due to size, texture, and shape. The biggest part shown below is 6.4"x3.4"x1.5" and that mold would cost $28000. The link says that molds can exceed $80,000 in cost. One mold. How many molds did they need to meet 100,000+ trucks per year (only tundras for this number)? 10? 100? 1000? I don't know, but let's say it cost a total of $500,000 for speculative purposes. Plastic for the molding process is $1-$5 per kg or roughly $0.45 to $2.27 per pound.

Using the above AND ignoring labor costs, lets be generous and say that the handle removal saves 1 pound of plastic and that that pound is worth a dollar. That means that 500,000 trucks would have to be sold to save a dollar each and break even on the initial mold investment from above. 100k trucks a year and that's a 5 year term to break even. Couple this with the fact that the handles stayed in production for the Sequoia, and it's not about saving money.

• https://rexplastics.com/plastic-injection-molds/how-much-do-plastic-injection-molds-cost

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2. Other full size trucks kept handles you say? Yeah, so? The Sequoia did too. Other manufacturers redesign the whole vehicle every few years and can adjust the handle shape, placement, etc. to account for the newer crash tests. If it were only about the money, why not drop that too and eliminate a whole set of molds?



Conclusion: Did they save money? Maybe, and I'd even say long term, yeah it's likely. Was saving money the impetus for the change? I don't think so, because the flat out most cost effective thing would be to not change anything at all. The next most cost effective thing would be to eliminate the old molds entirely instead of running two sets of molds for the same functional part rather than increasing the production needs. It just doesn't make sense to me that they would have changed anything purely for saving money.

 

Agreed. I'd like something in the back of the centre console but I suspect that would interfere with the air vents.

Also, they could have given us something other than that stupid third cupholder under the dash.

 

GM lost the driver's side grab handle somewhere between 2014 and 2018 and gained it back in 2019. Do we know when Toyota dumped all theirs?

 

2014-2016 I think. A couple years after the test where dummies hit their heads was used by IIHS

 

So to me that all seems to line up with a new crash test somewhere around 2013-2015...