Tundra for a work truck?

You said you need the bed space too. @ColoradoTJ makes a good point to get that Double Cab with a long bed. I tow my car trailer with my Crewmax and have no issues. I towed a car to Albany, NY (528 mile round trip) when it was a week old and it was awesome. How old is your daughter? My son is 20 months and no longer in the infant seat and I will say the reason I upgraded was the size of the cab on this truck. All the other stuff was just added bonuses. I have no doubt that it's a workhorse and that you'd be fine with this as a work truck. You'd be very happy. I came out of a Chevy 3/4 ton and I'm thrilled.

 

My daughter is going on 3yrs this April, and I'm only 5'6 so with the seat where I need it in the double cab she would have plenty of room. Double cab of the Tundra will give her 2" more then what she has in my crew cab Tacoma. Good to hear you came from a 3/4ton and have no regrets!

 

Awesome on the interior space issue! Without a doubt, no regrets. The 3/4 ton could only haul about 2,000 lbs more than this truck. It was also a lot taller, which meant a lot more leveling of loads was in order every time it was hauling a trailer. This Tundra feels like the rear of it is a 3/4 ton and the front is a 1/2 ton. It is a STRONG truck. Plus 20 more horsepower than the 3/4 ton out of the factory. In the summer when I'm racing, I have the car trailer with the car, extra tires and rims, and enough tools to be able to jack it up and cut it apart to bring it home if needed. A full bed plus a car and trailer and it doesn't break a sweat.

 

Tundras are pretty popular with small businesses around here. And from I've seen, seem to be growing in popularity in that market segment.

GM and Ford 5.0 1/2 tons still by far dominate overall, especially with larger companies. I'd assume much of that is their more aggressive/attractive fleet programs.

 

I drove a Tundra at my previous job, mainly just whenever my Duramax was in the shop. I pulled trailers that were well over the GVWR, and generally romped it around in fields, and she ran like a champ. If I could've, I'd of had a Duramax for pulling and a Tundra just for checking fields. I wouldn't hesitate to have one for a work truck, especially since it seems like you don't want to make a jump to diesel.

 

Lots of 2nd and 3d gen Tundra work trucks around these parts.

I have right now in my personal shop in my backyard, a friends 1st gen 2006 Tundra double cab, 4.7L 4x4. He has two identical actually, he bought them last spring from a mining exploration company. This one has 332,000 km, the other has about 390,000 km on it. They gave both been to hell and back, 50 times over, or more. It's very easy to see they were beaten down the roughest and muddiest back roads and trails, bottomed out on rocks regularly, hauled quads, snowmobiles, tools, and were flat-out abused their whole lives. When he got them, each truck had a broken leaf spring, one had blown out rear shocks, torn exhaust resonator, and each truck had a cracked left exhaust manifold (why the one is in my shop right now), and one had a broken inner CV joint. All that abuse, and no oil leaks from the engine, transmission, transfer case, diffs, transmissions shift nicely, engines run strong and use no oil. All door hinges are still tight, all latches work like new, all power windows work just fine. There is no possible way you will use / abuse a truck YOU own and pay for this badly, and I'd say they stood up amazingly well to 10 years of torture. And 2nd/3rd gen Tundras are a lot more truck than a first gen.

When the going gets tough, the tough get Toyotas.

 

^^^ Like that one. Gonna steal that from us and use it

 

It was a 2015. 6.0 gas jobby. I guess it was a difference of 3,000 pounds. My bigger issue than towing (because my race car is only 1780 pounds) is the plowing. I don't need the heavy duty suspension in the front because I don't plow anything bigger than a few smaller driveways and sometimes my lot at work when they haven't gotten here before me. The 3/4 ton was great to plow in, but for what I need it for, the Tundra does just fine. The Fisher HT Series plow is so light, too. This thing is only 400-some odd pounds on the front of the truck.

 

One thing about the crew max is I roll down the back window to carry long lengths of lumber. It's also nice when there's a Ford behind you at a stop light, 'cause they can't. haha. I'm not a fan of lumber racks 'cause they're noisy, expensive, often rust and hard to store.

 

I like Trail Whale. Pretty much sums it up.

 

Without a doubt. The 3/4 ton served its purpose for a few years but when it came time to need something with a larger cab for my son, a 3/4 Chevy doesn't come with a 5.5 bed. The 1/2 tons do, but as you said earlier, the Tundra is the real 1/2 ton. Just made more sense, for me anyway.

I race at Beech Ridge Motor Speedway in Scarborough, ME. There is a "low cost"(nothing in racing is low cost), "entry level" (there are varsity and junior varsity divisions) Thursday Thunder program. It is a 1/3 mile paved oval bullring. I race in the poorly names Beetle Bug Division. 4 cylinder cars, on DOT tires. We are the second fastest division out there on Thursdays, running the 1/3 in about 19 seconds. I have a 1991 Honda CRX Si that is new to me this year. I have been beaten handily by this car for the past few years. I ran a 1994 Civic DX last year. Time to find out if it's the car or the driver think!

I
This is with the signatures (at $5 a pop) raising money for the Dream Factory of Maine.


Before much fund raising


In action...


Not in action...

 

True story!

 

Next door neighbor would love to use Tundras for his A/C business, but he said the Ford fleet program is very aggressive. He does complain about the time his trucks spend in the shop for repairs. Neighbor across the street drives a Ford F350 and is a foreman for a construction company. He uses his truck to do a lot of heavy hauling and trailers his farm tractor to his ranch 60 miles north of here. He told me that a lot of "the good ole boys" at work drive Tundras - they just last a long time (lots of miles) and take a beating - I believe he is referring to 1st and 2nd gen. models, but he really liked my 3rd gen.

 

Just bought mine, so can't speak from experience. I saw this video before I bought my truck, if you didn't already believe in Toyota dependability this will help.

https://youtu.be/1HnokrriP_c

 

Don't hesitate. I pull right at 7,400 # all day almost every day.
Also not uncommon to have 1,000# in the bed at the same time.
These Tundras are a BEAST!!
My only gripe is the built in electric brake controller is to much or not enough and even with keeping my trailer brakes in working order I do warp rotors.

The funny thing is I pulled this same trailer with my 2005 4.7 and never warped one rotor. Squatted the little tundra so bad I drug the safety chains off the trailer 2 or 3 times. WTH? a man has to work.

I've put almost 300,000 miles on tundras workinh then to death and other than brakes they are as good as it gets.

 

If your pulling that much everyday with your Tundra I should be plenty fine. Hate to hear that on the rotors, my taco warped rotors to until I upgraded them to an ebc set. My area is pretty much as flat as it gets so hopefully this wont become an issue for me.

I stopped by and looked at the black sr5 again, sharp looking truck but I think I'm going to hold out and locate a silver or white sr5. Those colors will look cleaner even when dirty compared to the black. The black truck has the sand beige seats which I really liked.

 

My buddy has a 2007 double cab tundra with 175000 miles and tows 5 times a week enclosed trailer for contractors equipment only has replaced the radiator tires brakes and oil

 

The more I research these trucks the more I feel better about them for work! Seems also like while there mileage is lower then other full-size trucks its actually more stable when actually asked to do work.

I liked the black sr5 with sand beige interior I originally looked at but for my purposes I'm afraid I would regret it quickly. Searching for a sr5 in silver but boy are they hard to come by, not many double cabs in my area as well.

 

Colorado tj, love the action shots! Truck seems to handle all those loads very well. Is that stock suspension in those pics? I will agree with you about bringing a smile to your face when you start it up, when I started up the one I looked at and that 5.7 fires up with such authority I couldn't help but smile!

Blue falcon, I watched that deconstructed series last night. Pretty interesting stuff.

 

Thanks for the video. So what I can take from that is that my truck will survive just fine my 20 mile suburban daily commute on smooth tree lined streets?

 

If it works, it works.