Toyota and their cheap interiors UPDATE IN FIRST POST.

The town I live in has one stop light, and I will not even see it for weeks at a time as I have no reason to drive in that part of town.

From my house to work I have exactly one yield sign, and two stop signs. Then it’s 24 miles of highway one way.

My other regular route to run errands, do major shopping etc has two stop signs, and then 50 miles or so of highway one way.

The vast majority of my annual mileage is driven at highway speeds.

As others have pointed out the price difference in diesel and gasoline, eats into or potentially eliminates any fuel cost saving of the 3.0L Duramax. Within reason I can accept that since I value fuel range more than outright cost savings.

The problem with any of the GM 1/2 tons regardless of engine choice I would consider, is that I’m forced to budget large sums of money to correct deficiencies the trucks have. Namely a tiny fuel tank, and if I bought a 6.2L the variable displacement system would need to be deactivated and I would replace all of the lifters.

 

lol
No idea if there is one but it does have a transmission temp gauge

 

For what it’s worth the new LZ0 3.0L Duramax oil pump belt service interval is now 200,000 miles. At the rate I accumulate miles that is somewhere around the 16 year mark of ownership.

If you haven’t already seen it the revised 3.0L Duramax also makes 305 horse power, and 495ft-lbs of torque thanks to changing over to steel pistons along with some other revisions. The cooling system was also simplified.

The long crank no start issue has been solved with software to make the crank position sensor read two full rotations of the reluctor gear in question to determine timing.

 

It might make sense. I am still skeptical, but open to considering it.

Burning over $1K on an aftermarket fuel tank chaps my ass though.

Plus in the winter the truck would sit down in the Cheyenne River valley for 24-36 hours at a time cold soaking in -30F before I get a return train and go home. I am leery of diesel cold starts in those conditions.

 

Makes me wonder what a mild tune, and some simple bolt on parts like a true cold air intake could do for the LZ0.

Surprised Gale Banks never did much with the LM2, but maybe the 1/2 ton world isn’t his thing.

 

I loved my 3.0 it was super smooth and got great mpg especially in the 50-60 mph range. round trip to my cabin was 30-32 mpg when it was stock and 26ish with 3.5 lift and 35s. they also come with 5 yr 100k powertrain warranty. it kinda lacked some horsepower when trying to pass someone, but had a ton of torque for towing. the transmission was great but some people were having some issues and sometimes it was a month out or 2 for parts. oil change kits on Amazon were like $65 but have gone up some. for the first year and a half i owned it 87 and diesel were about same price so it really saved some money, but now its about $1.60 difference, so not so much. i may go back to a 3.0 in a couple years. we will see

 

I believe the 10 speed transmission was designed by ford for both manufacturers . Gm designed the transmission for the transverse engines in both platforms that use v6 . Maybe why the transmissions is out minimum 3-5 months in my area

 

Good news, they at least extended that recommended service interval to 200k.

Edit: I see my failure to load the page for 2 hours before commenting has its consequences, as this was already mentioned lol

 

That was my first question . Why not rebuild it ? Remind me of CVT . No repair just throw a new part !

 

Yeah. Plus at some point the aftermarket will be making all sorts of beefed up parts for the Ford/GM 10 speed because there are going to be millions of them.

So a guy can probably have one rebuilt to be very very stout should they be willing to open their check book.

 

This post went from cheap interior to mpg to engines to transmission parts. Lol

 

My father in law picked up a trail boss it’s an impressive ride I really enjoyed it myself. Think you made the right choice.

 

Yeah, the DexosD is expensive. I dont know that I would run that though. I would probably run some 5W30 diesel oil.

 

Yup its one of things I love about this place.

 

Banks is working on a derringer for the lm2. S&B and AFe has an intake. The exhaust is already straight piped from the dpf back.

 

How exactly would you "account" for that? Foam wears down. And leather and fake leather also wear down. You can't "account" for wear and tear. I am not saying poor quality is excusable, but you have to take care of your shit too. lol

 

My F150 seats have held up FAR better than the seats in my Lexus GX460. The GX leather looks terrible and the foam is collapsing while my F150 seats look almost like new with a few small wrinkles. Both are leather and both have ~100k miles. The GX seats look terrible when I bought it at 60k and I've managed to keep them from degrading as fast with leather conditioner but they arnt good.

There is wear and there is Toyota wear.

 

Closed cell foam.

 

Well first you learn from the million mile tundras and work from there. There is a very good YouTube video on how Toyota came to be. Let's just say that they, alone with MANY other companies are only chasing the bottom line nowadays. You might not want to hear it but , Toyota dropped the ball on this gen. Mike Sweers FUBARed the tundra. For me to get a comparably equipped tundra like mine, it about $10-11k more. No way in hell is there that much upgrade money in the new gen. So yeah if the new gen is going to cost that much more, it better be GREAT. Eventually I will buy one so I hope Toyota gets their shit together. I really don't care for any of the BIG 3. Been there, done that, not happening again.

 

I honestly believe Toyota peaked with the 2.5 gen. I really wanted to like the 3rd gen I had, but I just could not.

 

More than likely not going to happen . Banks been postponing it . Now the LZO is out they might not even touch it .

 

I think when Toyota brought out the 2nd gen(07+), they put the big 3 to shame. It was a huge improvement over the 1st gen. The 3rd gen not so much, matter of fact not even close to the 1-2 gen jump. It was a beast of a truck. Highest HP/TQ, huge diff, 4piston calipers and largest rotors, reliable AF 6 speed, etc. The big 3 had their job cut out for them. It was by all means a work truck and Toyota was proud of that, all the commercials were base on how tough it was. Now they proud themself with the Jones commercial and the capstone metrosexual commercial. They went from a bullet proof 5.7 to a V6 TT that is ridiculously over complicated. That thing has sensors for everything in that engine. To me that doesn’t scream long term reliability. And to not offer another engine, when the rest are was also a stupid move. And I know they will never sell as much as the big 3, but now I believe they sell even less. Time will tell though.

 

I drove a diesel truck from 2008 until last month. There were exactly 2 short periods over 14 years when diesel was the same cost or less . There is concern the current $2 a gallon premium is here to stay for a while.