Mike Sweers Interview - He wanted a Diesel Tundra (and to keep the 5.7 as an option)

Fixed my post.

 

Judging by the price of diesel vs gas, we lack the refining capacity to support more diesel vehicles. I think this has something to do with it anyway.

I have no interest in a diesel... and frankly if they'd made a new V8 it would be more complex and unreliable like all the others. A 5.7 with the least reliable parts fixed, the 10spd tranny, with a lower geared diff option, would have been awesome!

 

I dont think so. I think the Big 3 were just lazy back then and were just coasting along. I don't think trucks were grocery getters and pimp mobiles like they are now. Toyota certainly woke them up with the 2007 Tundra, but they very quickly got their crap together and I would say the competition is far fiercer in 2022 than it was in 2007. They were not asleep at the wheel this time.

With your comment on power, if it were not for the 3.5 Ecoboost or 3.4L iForce, I wouldnt buy a half ton. Towing around the Rockies I have come to the harsh realization that almost everyone who tows travel trailers uses an HD Diesel, and if they don't they are using Ecoboosts. They are the only options that don't suck with the combination of high elevation, high temps, and high winds. I've been in conditions where my Ecoboost was brought to its knees and wished I had an HD, and thats towing a measly 5500 lb trailer.

 

100% agree. The first HD I would look at would be the 7.3L Godzilla, then the 6.6L GM gas engine. I've driven a 7.3L in the form of an E450 chassis Class C motorhome and I can tell you its an animal. And that was detuned compared to a superduty and with a 6 speed trans instead of the 10 speed.

But no other V8 can touch the 7.3L. That video from TFLtruck where they tow a 16000 lb horse trailer up the ike and basically do it in 8 minutes can't be matched by anything else.

 

I was hoping it would be the commercial X15 engine. It's not though. It is a smaller less powerful engine although I cannot recall the Cummins designation for it. I'm pretty confident that it is an I6 engine. If I find out what engine I'll update this thread.

 

They've got some pretty stiff competition in the new Colorado/Canyon. It looks like its going to be great truck.

The 4Runner kinda gets a free pass because its really one of the only vehicles in its market. The wrangler is the only other mid-sized BOF suv out there. Although, I guess the Bronco now too. But I am not sure that many people are cross shopping the 3 of them.

This is probably why they havent felt the need to update the 4Runner in 12 years. Who does it have to be competitive with?

 

Diesel prices were always cheaper than gas until early 2000's when the EPA got involved and started requiring ultra-low sulfur diesel. It always seems to be the EPA that is responsible for spoiling the fun.

 

Hino's website indicates the L and XL model trucks will have the Cummins L9 engines with three different power ranges, 300 HP, 330 HP, and 360 HP. I can't claim to know much about the L9 engines so I don't have any insight there.

 

There is more going on than that. Diesel prices are generally cheaper than gas in Europe and ULSD is required there as well.

If you want to talk about "spoiling the fun" they pay ~2x the price for fuel that we do. Which is why everyone drives vehicles powered by weak little diesel engines. You absolutely would not want to drive what they drive!

 

Your 1980 5.7L Camaro still smoked me in my 1978 Mustang II with a 2.8L V6.

 

So what did cause it? Serious question, not being argumentative. Diesel vs gas flipped for which is cheaper (in the US at least) right after the EPA made their rules change so the assumption for many, myself included, is that was the reason for the sudden price jump. But how does that saying go...correlation doesn't equal causation?

Do you know or have a guess to the real reason the prices changed?

 

its always the gubermints fault even though they subsidize our fuel prices and make them as cheap as they are.

I went to France in the summer of 2019 and just got back from the Netherlands Saturday and specifically asked about diesel cars both trips. They are moving heavily away from them it seems. Most of the new cars are gas or EV and all the diesels I saw tended to be older. I saw a really sweet 100 series Land Cruiser diesel. Also, I saw an obnoxious amount of Ram 1500's which was weird. I think the whole week I saw maybe 12-15 Rams. No F150's but I did see a Superduty diesel.

I didn't actually look at the cost diesel compared to gas, but I wouldn't be surprised if it cost more now.

There was definitely a lot of EV's but that works a lot better when your country is only 100 miles across.

 

yes..EPA bull-crap is the biggest culprit, but....

many moons ago....US refineries were set up to produce more Gas than diesel. and there is more gas in a barrel than diesel.

Europe is opposite.

when Diesel grew in US, refineries topped out.

we have not built a new one is a coon's age.

so, here we are.

I reckon if we turned all this EPA crap off, our present refineries could sustain us for quite a while.

 

Why can’t we all just get along.

2nd gen, 2.5 gen, 3rd gen it all toyota under the skin

loving my 3rd gen btw.

And my grill is all color matched sexy

 

I have the 7.3L “Godzilla” and let me tell you, that thing is a beast. I’m rather impressed with it. Good ole fashion brute force displacement instead of relying on turbos.

 

Hah hah
I was young and very impressionable. Like 18 ?
It was early 80's and the Z28 was bought used.
Charcoal one like in the pic.
Those T tops were cool. I had the manual which I think was a 4 speed.
But with my GF in the car I got smoked by a 240z in a race.
So being impressionable (lol) I switched to a 1971 240z myself, and discovered that cars could actually handle around corners.
I liked the 5.0 Liter Mustangs they were small and compact but never owned one.




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If my Tundra is stolen or totaled, I will only consider a 350 with a Godzilla.

 

I have quite an investment in Oil Producing companies right now. I reached down into that bucket of shit called Oil pre-pandemic and shored up the shares I owned in the hope that lowering my "average share price" one day they would come back. Had to. The world runs on oil and cars are only 25% of it. Trucks and Trains and Ships that the world runs on need diesel and the post pandemic demand and lack of investment in new refining facilities did not happen. Older plants were closed. It was the perfect storm for diesel prices and lack of refining facilities.

There is no incentive to produce more refining facilities due to the fact that in 10 years everyone pretty much agrees the demand for Oil for Transportation will be less and it is a huge investment up front. There are no government incentives. I won't get into the politics here.
That's my take and it all points to a big NO for the Tundra diesel.

All I will say is I am very happy when the price of Oil goes up for my stocks, but not when I fill the Tundra.

 

If mine is stolen or totaled, I'll probably end up in a GM 3500 with the gas 6.6.

Or maybe a 2018 Tundra if I can find a nice one.

 

15 years ago or so they started converting diesel fuel into gasoline by cracking chains of hydrocarbons off of it. This increased the supply of gasoline, decreased the supply of diesel fuel, and increased the cost of both. Remember when the price of diesel was cheaper than gas, then in less than a year it flipped? It had more to to with cracking diesel than refining it to ULSD.
As for refining capacity, we are losing refining capacity but not because demand is outpacing it. Refineries - like any large piece of equipment - require maintenance, upkeep, recertification, or replacement. Due to the powers declaring to everybody that we are going to transition completely to electric vehicles in the next 10 years (despite the ridiculous unfeasibility and inability of us to actual do so from any sort of logistical standpoint), many of the refineries have been left to run through the end of their certification then simply shutdown. The oil companies see no reason to invest millions or even billions of dollars in “technology” or equipment that will be rendered obsolete in the near future (again, whether or not that can actually happen is very debatable). Would you invest in something that you know won’t return your investment in couple years. Poor ROI as they see it.

 

I working primarily in the oil and gas market and I've been told by my coworker who works closely with some of the engineers at major oil refineries that this is exactly what they are being told. Basically, keep the refinery running but you're not getting major funding for capital projects or maintenance because we are putting all of our chips in on the petrochemical plants.

Petrochem still has a future because you still have to make everything in an EV car out of plastic.

They got burnt so bad during covid that they are not looking at them as a good investment anymore.

 

This is why I'm waiting for the next update. Gen 3.5, perhaps.

 

In 2029?

 

They are not going to make a truck that is a game changer like in 2007 because the other manufacturers arn't sitting around like they were. They are all hyper competitive now. Ford will likely release a new 3.5L in the next 3 years and it will be competitive with whatever Toyota would come up with.