I received my CR reports car edition in the mail the other day

Of course I was eager to read all about the Tundra. I am not a Toyota apologist, but I have been a little baffled by some reviews and comments I have read here and elsewhere, which haven’t aligned with my experiences. At any rate, looking at the data presented by Consumer Reports, I am now even further confused. They are predicting poor reliability, and that’s ok, but in the same breath, they also are scoring the really important parts of the vehicle, such as the engine, transmission, drive system, fuel system, all as being stellar, double green arrows, the reliable things we all want on a vehicle to last a long time.

Even stranger is the predicted reliability of all half tons is pretty poor. They did not include the GM 2.7, 6.2, or Ford 5.0 or standard 3.5. I also question putting a modern diesel Ram pick up above most all the gas engined half tons. Maybe I have a skewed viewpoint, but we have a few modern DEF diesels at work and the stupid things that happen to those emissions systems are hilarious. I am sure my Boss loves those bills.
I am not buying that a RAM Eco Diesel 3.0 is going to last longer and be more reliable than a gas powered Toyota.

Thoughts?

 

Consumer Reports has obviously been reading feedback on this site and Facebook from non-owners to set their ratings. If you're happy with your truck, ignore their bullshit.

 

Seeing an eco diesel and two evs in the front of the pack tells me everything.

I've always thought Consumer Reports were a tabloid.

 

I’m 6months in and 8k miles. Mine is a 22crewmax sr5 trd off rd. premium. I think most issues were addressed early in 2022 before my build. I’ve had the e-brake recall and the flash for the pop/clunk at startup. I love this truck and look forward to driving it every day. Came from a 2016 tacoma trd off rd. The tundra is way nicer.

 

Consumer reports is trash. Used to mean something. They used to test products and give objective info and reviews on those products. Think they are just making money from the manufacturers now and are giving relatively subjective info instead. Also, predicted reliability for a new model is an impossible statistic. Like saying which team will win the Super Bowl next year. If the truck has 3-5 years of real world use, you can start to better predict reliability. Even then, you’re just reporting reliability, not predicting it.

 

That is not how CR works. Above all keep in mind, the ratings are DIRECTLY from readers input, Voluntary input annually.

So if the folks who happen to respond are skewed, so are the CR results. It does Not include every owner, only those that respond to CR.

As usual, YMMV. On the flip side, I've had read on here somewhere else rated the 3.4TT are poor in acceleration above 65, major Ouch in my book. Luck all.

 

I’m convinced the manufactures just pay money to get to the top of the list. It’s how the whole world works, unfortunately.

 

I don't know. I'm not going to beat my chest and say the Tundra is superior to it's competitors in every way, because in many ways it isn't. Maybe I am biased, maybe not. I've watched my brother's RAM fall apart beneath him and wondered why he continues to dump money into it. From personal experience, I can say the Tundra has been the most reliable half ton I have ever owned.

 

Consumer Reports has never been Tundra-friendly for as long as I can remember.

 

Consumer Reports is still a thing ?

I thought they went away with the 8 track and fax machine…guess some hipster’s are keeping everything from their grandparents daily life around still - including CR.

Trust your own opinions over a paid reviewers - regardless of who is paying for the review - u less the reviewer is giving a money back guarantee if dissatisfied - their opinion is worthless.

 

I mentioned this a while back.

With Consumer Reports, no two “poor” reliability ratings are going to mean the same thing, and they don’t go out of their way to offer any clarity.

I can put up with a lot if the things that actually move the truck up and down the road reliably work. Giving a truck with “noise/leaks” and “body trim” issues the same lousy rating as a truck whose transmission can’t be trusted is nonsense.

 

Paint/Trim, Leaks/Noise, In Car Electronics haven't been a problem on the '22's? Leaking window seals, air noise at highway speeds, driver speed display blacks out, and poor body panel alignment are all well documented. Maybe CR is just a little more objective than this forum. Sounds like the '23 MY has remedied the window seals, but screen blackout recall just rolled out. None of that would show up on this rating.

 

If I am not deciding which minivan to buy or town between the Accord or the Camry I don't have much use for CR.

 

+1 to this. I subscribed to CR since the 80s, and let it go about five years ago. Their quality of reporting took a serious nosedive and it was sad to see. You can see a particular agenda being pushed and as the years went by it became so "in your face" that I finally quit in disgust. Hence I am not surprised that the battery powered trucks are higher rated than the others, but TBH seeing ANY Chrysler product deemed "reliable" by them is a surprise to me. They have historically hated domestic cars and made no bones about it. I'm checking out my window to see if I can catch a view of any flying pigs.

 

CR and MT always recommends Koreans cars so I’m good with my current Toyotas and my next Toyotas.

 

@wedemmoez does Toyota take any stock internally to things like CR?

 

I have to offer some defense for CR, but I can also jump to devils advocate and question their literature, and how they showcase certain things.

CRs model is designed to keep them out of any manufacturers back pocket. They gather their data from actual verified customers, and they test the vehicles and products themselves. Their revenue comes from subscribers, not manufacturers. Because they are compiling and analyzing years of data, they can assess vehicles value and reliability over time.

CR has pretty much endorsed the Tundra for as long as I paid attention, until this latest design came out. I know because I followed their analysis of the Tundra for the years I was making a decision about my next vehicle, and for the years following because it was entertaining to see how shitty the domestics performed against the Tundra.

Their biggest gripe about the Tundra was that it was bordering on ancient, even by 2018 when I bit. The next few years was more bitching about how obsolete the truck was compared to the competition, but the ratings were still very good.
2022, Toyota cranks out the redesign. It’s a first model year, so naturally it’s going to get hen-pecked… no forward tow hooks, no 5.7, looks like a big taco, interrupted fulfillment because of supply chain issues, etc…

My guess is that CR is basing its assessment on customer input, and it has 5 recalls in the first year as a new model, where the baseline was reset entirely.

I do think that CR has to be careful about how it presents its data BECAUSE they are subscriber funded. If you turn off all Ford and Dodge customers because you accurately report that their products are stalled recall traps that will spend more time getting towed and repaired than they will working normally, you need to be careful about how you cover them.

I remember reading what I considered to be years worth of “puff pieces” on the F150. It was contradictory to read a hype piece at the beginning of the issue, and then turn to the product ratings and see the same truck gobbling poo.
I remember as a kid hearing about how CR was horribly biased toward Honda and Toyota. My guess is that CR had to change that perception to reach more potential subscribers. They have to be able to retain Chrysler/Jeep/Fiat subscribers to the extent they can by NOT just reporting the assessed scores, but by cradling those same subscribers who might respond negatively to reading data that proves they chose to buy a crappy unreliable vehicle that has racked up more defects than road miles.

Consider if you were a diehard Ford fan. You open up CR -for years- and ONLY see the CR assessments that rank it as unreliable. Are you going to keep reading CR? Probably not.

Aside from CR, there are a lot of varied opinions about the latest Tundra. I take it all with a grain of salt. Just reading posts on this site, you get everything from adulation to disgust. Time will tell, and Toyota is no band of idiots. They will learn and adjust quickly.

 

I can't speak for the company as a whole, but my team mostly ignores CR ratings.

 

When you spend your hard earned money on something, you both consciously and subconsciously want to be validated. You look for others that agree with your decision and defend your decision irrationally at times. CR is what it is. Fanboys will skew results vs objective data. So take the information for what it’s worth.

 

You're 1000% right. When I see RAM in the list, I see $$$ transaction under the table.

 

Ram has really improved over the years, for example the transmissions are now the best out there when they went to ZF.

That said, I buy what I like and don't give a shit what a magazine says

 

Maybe I'm misreading or not understanding the difference in the two reports.

• How can they rank the noise good in one report and poor in the other report?
• In the same breath, how can they rank the predicted reliability down but every major engine component up?

Just curious if there is a reasoning or method of analysis that I don't know of. Just seems odd to me.

 

X2. In addition, its been my experience that any issues I've ever had, Toyota has bend over backwards to help and have been very reasonable. This is my 3rd Tundra, plus one Tacoma.

 

I've wondered that too about CR. There can be a lot of red or green in the details column, yet the overall is different. Go figure. I suspect that's to give a final conclusion the way they want it to be....driven by whatever.

 

This is true. I'm definitely guilty of it. I want this Tundra to be just as reliable as my Taco (252k miles when I sold it) and my 4Runner (130k miles when sold) was for me.

Confirmation bias runs both ways too. Either trying to prove it's good or trying it's bad. Most of us have doing it since we were little kids: "My Dad can beat up your Dad" type of thing. hahaha.

I think the trick is try & be as self-aware as you can.

 

I also was a long time subscriber to CR who gave up on them several years ago. While some of their ratings were still objective (or at least seemed to be), I had to start filtering out articles with an obvious slant. I then refused to continue supporting the organization when they allowed politics into their ratings. Not overtly, but their articles made it clear where they stood. I don't want to say more for obvious reasons.

 

Don't remember if it was CR or MT, but I used to love to flip to the back and look at displacement, engine type, HP numbers and 0-60 times for every car made.

 

I got the impression that CR used to only care about reliability but they've started to focus more on features and initial quality and less on reliability, making them no different than any other car magazine out there these days.

I do the occasional survey for them about my vehicles and other things I own but it's hard to say how they classify each complaint I might have. Is something unreliable if I only have 1 minor complaint about it? Could something be reliable if I have 200 minor complaints about it but no major problems? It also seems like they ask questions about the user experience. If I don't like the infotainment UI on my wife's car as much as the one in my truck, does that make it unreliable or mean it should be marked as a negative?