Car Gazing
Double your pleasure
Tundra Double Cab offers roomy cabin, Toyota quality
By Derek Price
Pictures don't do this truck justice.
While it's about the same size as four-door versions of the Nissan Titan, Ford F-150 and Chevy Silverado – trucks intentionally designed to look tough and scary – the Toyota Tundra Double Cab looks like a child's toy when you see it in photographs.
Blame it on the gently sloping front end or car-like bumper and headlights, but it just doesn't look like the tough, brawny, testosterone-soaked truck that it is.
In actuality, the four-door Tundra is a beast of a pickup. It's about four inches longer than the F-150 SuperCrew, mainly because Toyota didn't sacrifice the bed size to squeeze in a larger cabin like Ford did. The Toyota's bed is about seven inches longer than both the Ford and Nissan, and it definitely looks like a real, hard-working truck when you walk up to one in person.
It also feels like a real truck when you climb inside the cabin. The Double Cab is four inches wider and three inches taller than other Tundra models, giving it plenty of space for stretching out your legs and riding comfortably for hours, even in the back seat.
Despite its truck-like roominess, the fit and finish of the cabin is very much like a car. The curvy, sweeping, well-designed dash and instrument panels look like they belong in a Camry, not a tough work truck.
Performance wise, the Tundra can be good or bad depending on how you want to use it.
If you're looking to do serious, heavy-duty towing, you're bound to be disappointed that it can pull an absolute max of 7,100 pounds when properly equipped. That's significantly less than its competitors, which offer bigger V8 engines with more torque and horsepower.
On the other hand, if you only need a truck for everyday driving and run-of-the-mill towing and hauling – the things most people really use their truck for – then the Tundra is a dream come true.
Available with either a 4.0-liter V6 or 4.7-liter V8, it offers a good mix of efficiency and power. The smaller engine makes 236 horsepower and 266 pound-feet of torque while getting up to 22 miles per gallon on the highway, while the V8 makes 271 horsepower and 313 pound-feet of torque and gets up to 19 mpg.
Best of all, both engines are extremely refined and a pleasure to drive. Coupled with a softly tuned suspension and a smooth-shifting, five-speed automatic transmission, the Tundra is probably the best truck anybody could buy for commuting. It's just quiet and comfortable.
Back-seat passengers would agree, especially if you spring for the DVD player with wireless headphones and remote control.
Like with most pickups, prices run the gamut from bare-bones work trucks to fancy luxury models. A basic, rear-wheel-drive, V6 regular-cab model starts at a paltry $16,155, while a Double Cab 4x4 Limited will run $33,575. There are plenty of different Tundra variations in between, so you shouldn't have any trouble finding the right combination of price and equipment.
Whatever you do, don't base your opinion of the Tundra on how it looks in photos.
See it in person. It'll be a whole lot bigger than you thought.
(Derek Price is a newspaper editor and freelance writer living in Texas.
Contact him at dprice@cargazingonline.com)
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