Tommy Gate G2 Tundra Liftgate

Loading equipment, supplies or other heavy gear in and out of your Tundra can be a back breaking experience. Even with the tailgate lowered or removed, it’s still not always easy to lift the items you need to haul up over the bumper and deposit them safely in the truck bed. Sometimes you will luck out and be able to back right up to a loading dock that is just the proper height, but most of the time you are on your own when it comes to the heavy lifting.

Toyota Tundra with a Tommy Gate

Tommy Gate realizes that there are certain loads that weight too much to be safely loaded using muscle alone. They also know that not everyone has access to a forklift or other mechanical helper when it’s time to pack up the truck. This is why they developed the G2 Dual Drive liftgate. Read more…

Edmunds.com Offers A Solid Truck Comparison Test

Most popular car magazines/publications – such as Motor Trend, Car and Driver, and Consumer Reports – are oriented towards cars. Not trucks, not SUVs, but cars. These car publications often evaluate trucks and SUVs completely incorrectly. Rather than talk about a truck’s towing and hauling capabilities, these publications emphasize “cabin noise” and “ride quality.” While these are reasonable criteria worth discussing, the fact is they’re not that important for your typical truck owner. We’re looking for something that hauls the mail, not something that hauls “the ladies that lunch.”

Don’t get us wrong here – comparisons are best when they evaluate a lot of criteria. However, any reviewer that says quote “Several logbook scribes thought the Tundra was just too big” has no business reviewing trucks (from Car and Driver reviews the Tundra long-term). If you think a truck is bad because it’s big, you don’t get it.

This past Sunday Edmunds.com published a balanced and reasonable review that evaluated trucks on the important stuff – hauling, towing, and overall performance. While we dont’ agree with their conclusions (the Tundra placed 2nd behind the less-than-utilitarian Ram), we appreciate this opinion:

For me, trucks are about utility. I wouldn’t own one unless I had to perform heavy towing and large payload-hauling as we did in this test. Everything else — and I mean everything — can be done with another kind of vehicle. For this reason, I can’t help but evaluate trucks without placing significant weight on those abilities.

That’s a quotation from Josh Jacquot, Senior Road test editor for Edmunds.com. While Josh isn’t a “truck guy” – admittedly so – he understands the criteria that trucks should be judged by. Kudos. This might be the first Edmunds.com review we’ve ever seen that doesn’t make a ton of ridiculous comments about trucks being “too big” or “beastly.”

Here’s what we saw that we liked: Read more…

Can Fiat Make Trucks? Italy Isn’t Exactly Known For Pickups…

When people think of fine Italian products, the list looks like this:

• Leather
• Espresso
• Magnificent sports cars
• Men’s suits
• An assortment of wines and cheeses

Is this the next Fiat Ram? Image from JamesSmiley.com.

Please note that “truck” and/or “pickup” don’t appear on that list. Considering that Fiat is going to be a major stakeholder in Chrysler when the company emerges from bankruptcy, it’s time to consider Italy’s contribution to the truck world and what we can expect from a Dodge Ram crafted by Italian engineers. Read more…

CST Lift Kits For The Toyota Tundra

It’s not always easy to know which lift kits will work the best for your Tundra. There are several different options on the market, and some of them involve replacing many suspension components and need a professional mechanic to be installed properly. While these high end kits do offer a good amount of flexibility and height choice, they can really do a lot of damage to your pocketbook.

CST offers lift kits for the Toyota Tundra from 2 to 7 inches.

CST, a.k.a. California SuperTrucks, offers a simpler spindle lift kit for Toyota Tundra owners that offers excellent quality without adding in complicated component changes. The CST kits offer up to 7 inches of lift using custom-made spindles for the front end, along with a block and bolt kit for the rear of the vehicle. The spindles are made out of machined sheet steel which is then welded by hand. They are stronger than standard cast iron spindles, and are in fact even stronger than the factory spindles that came with your truck (special deal for TundraHQ readers – see below.) Read more…

Ford Marketing Genius – Test Drives For Charity

We’re often accused of bashing Ford Motor Company here at TundraHeadquarters, but let’s be clear – Ford is a solid company. We predicted Ford stock would go up this year (so far it has…big time). We’ve always said the F150 was a good truck in both of our Tundra vs F150 comparisons, and despite our recent lambasting of Ford’s SFE F150, we’re usually on board with every marketing move Ford makes.

Ford Marketing Genius - $20 Test Drives for Cancer

The latest move – offering to make a $20 donation to the Susan G. Koman foundation for each person that test drives a Ford, Lincoln, or Mercury product between now and July 1st – is unadulterated genius. Read more…