One year update: 2024 SR5, just under 30k miles

May marked one year since I switched from a 2019 Silverado to my current SR5 Tundra. And after a year, I definitely have a good feel for the truck and its capabilities - Plus, what I like, and don’t like.


Use case: The truck is my daily driver, including occasional longer road trips for work. We live up north, so we face a good 6 months or so of possible snow, this past year being exceptionally snowy. I tow snowmobiles in a trailer relatively often, anywhere between one and five sleds per tow. During the summer I tend to fill truck beds and/or trailers with rocks, mulch, etc, and tow lawn equipment. The truck also gets me into somewhat remote hunting spots down muddy unpaved roads.


Setup: swapped out the stock (awful) tires with Goodyear wranglers for spring/Summer, Nokian Hakka tires for winter (great recommendation from this forum). 6.5ft bed, softex seats, soft cover on the bed, OEM step up, OEM wheel bed toolboxes (left and right). Oil changes every 5k miles, undercoated before winter.


Overall thoughts: I perceive this truck as more streamlined and effortless to operate and use as a truck vs my previous Silverado. The electronics just work vs my previous experience just accepting a mandatory infotainment system would never actually respond to instructions, causing me to require a Bluetooth speaker in that vehicle. The Tundra is super comfortable on the highway, is a crowd pleaser when I have passengers, and it tows pretty effortlessly. The 6.5ft bed has been a superior experience than my previous short bed trucks, I don’t think I can go back to that! This fits plywood, sleds, bikes, ATVs, etc, so much better. Performance on slippery or off-pavement conditions has been good as long as 4WD is engaged. Overall, what’s been most striking is that the vehicle just works and does what I ask of it without headaches.


There are an few annoyances, some of which may be personal preference, but they’re small in comparison to what I’ve experienced in my previous trucks, and in comparison to the things I like. I’ve listed them below, plus, some ways to circumvent them.


Things I like:

• Overall turnkey experience, it just works. This is really the key for why I love this truck - it’s a tool that is working well, and for me, that’s what gives me the greatest enjoyment.
• MPG: a hot topic on forums/fb. But I generally drive within 5-10 miles of the speed limit and I get around 20-21 highway, maybe a few mpg better than my previous 5.3l v8. Towing with a larger trailer is more like 13-14MPG, no better or worse than what I’ve experienced on a v8.
• Radar cruise: ok fine, I like this. I complained about the complexity of this system when I bought the truck but it is nice. You win, Toyota
• Interior: maybe controversial, but I’ve found the build quality on mine to be very very good. The interior looks and feels premium. No rattles, nothing loose. Maybe I got a good one! I see others complaining about this type of thing. First tundra, so maybe it’s just better than alternatives or a particularly good example.
• 4WD: haven’t gotten stuck yet! This thing has gotten me through some absolutely nasty conditions. The Nokian tires certainly helped in winter. But the 4WD is excellent and shifts easily. I recommend swapping out the SR5’s stock tires immediately, they’re unusable on anything other than warm dry pavement.
• Looks: personal preference, but I think that this is the best looking truck on the road. Gotta love the feeling when you’re proud of your vehicle and just like looking back at it when you park. I knew I was going to buy a white and black tundra since I saw that storm trooper-looking thing back in 2022.
• Easy cleaning under truck: I don’t see this talked about much, but it is so incredibly easy to spray salt off the underside of this truck. Everything is within sight, and a combination of undercoating and weekly cleaning has left my truck shockingly rust free after a very salty winter.
• Actual button controls: this is such a nice change of pace vs other modern vehicles. I never need to touch the screen to do anything while driving. Excellent buttons and tactile controls. Props to Toyota for not following the awful trend of replacing everything with an iPad. Which, by the way, makes other vehicles more dangerous to operate
• Storage! I absolutely love the amount of storage built into this car. First off - under and behind the seat. There’s a bit of space behind the rear seats, in addition to the giant storage compartment under the seats. I carry around gear for a ton of purposes - hunting, fishing, property repairs, etc, and I’ve been able to put together a few different kits that are quickly accessed from that under seat storage. I also installed the Toyota branded over-wheel bed swing out tool boxes. Game changer! I now carry around a pretty built-out set of of common tools, plus towing and recovery/hauling essentials (ex: air compressor, recovery hooks, rope, straps, etc). In addition, there’s a ton of space in the center console - great for battery packs, flashlights, a medicine bag, etc). I’m so much less cluttered in this vehicle, everything has a place.
• Lots of charging ports. I’ve also installed two wireless chargers, which are great.
• You can leave the vehicle running for an hour or more AND lock it if you use the physical key hidden in your fob. Very useful if you’re somewhere with a dog and need to keep the AC on for more than 10 minutes.

Things I would change or dislike:

• annoying safety features: there is zero reason why the truck should engage the parking brake when I back up with a door open. Other things like “take a break” notifications are annoying and set off when you’re on un-lined or unpaved roads. Note that some things like the back seat alarms can be deactivated using a scanner tool. I’ve turned off all seat alarms and it’s so much better. Wear your seatbelt obviously, but my use-case is sometimes driving in a field at 5MPH hopping out every few seconds. I wish that “take a break” could be permanently disabled, but it needs to be disabled before every trip I’m worried about it activating. Stupid.
• Start stop: annoying, but I’ve permanently turned this off with a little $10 Amazon adapter. Still working and is preventing auto stop after a year.
• Tie downs - Chevy does a better job with this. A truck needs more tie downs than the measly four Toyota gives us. They work, but it’s not enough. The truck still does the job, but more hooks make my life easier.
• Recovery hooks: there are aftermarket options and I’ve installed some. But they should be standard on a truck.
• Electronic things that would be better as manual things: liftgate buttons and electronics have no place on a truck. Manual parking brakes are superior.
• Dipstick - impossible to read, need to finally get around to sanding or etching it
• Touch handle vehicle unlock feature: here’s where I give Chevy a point. They use a physical button on the door handles to lock/unlock the vehicle. A physical button is always superior
• Key: just give me a physical key. No one does anymore. But I would choose that option any day. I should also add that the Toyota key fob is worse than most other manufacturers.
• Interior lighting, more of it would be nice.
  
• Turbo engine - I debated putting this in the complaint department, but I think it does belong here. My engine has, to its credit, been excellent thus far. But I tend to opt for simplicity and longer term ownership whenever possible. And I’d buy a V8 in a heartbeat if I was given that option. I don’t need a giant v8 to outcompete some random dude’s jacked up f150 - I just need a reasonable 4.7 to 5.7ish reliable engine. If I had one of those in this vehicle, I’d easily keep it as long as humanly possible because it’s been such a phenomenal truck. However, any turbo engine requires more diligence and careful consideration before approaching high mileage.

Hopefully this is helpful for anyone considering this type of vehicle. A year in, I’m glad I made this purchase. I’m also glad that the annoyances are small in importance vs to the much more important upsides, but I wanted to list them out to create a fuller picture of the ownership experience. It’s been such a relief coming from two silverados with major electronic issues, transmission issues, and suspected engine issues (in the case of my 2019). Using a truck that “just works” has been incredible.


Link to Auto Stop bypass:

$24 Auto Idle Stop Start Eliminator/Disabler/Disable/Delete/Canceller, Compatible with Toyota Tundra 2022-2025 and GR Corolla IMT 2023-2024

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CM97RBKF. Super easy to install. Took maybe 5 minutes.

Bed cover: https://a.co/d/2OgGeSc. Probably took 45ish minutes to install. So far so good.

 

Good write up, I am also a year in but at only 8.5K miles. I also get between 20-23 MPG, but always see people say they only get 15-16

 

Thanks! I’ve heard it depends on how fast you drive. Maybe I’m just slow? I also haven’t upgraded tire size or lifted, which apparently really kills mileage.

best of luck with your 2024