Toyota Tundra review and buyer’s guide
There’s never been more choice when buying a full-size, heavy-towing, luxurious pick-up truck in Australia. It’ll pull, haul and function in almost every operating environment, but spending over $100,000 on a Tundra, F-150, Ram or Silverado is not a decision you want to get wrong.
The Toyota Tundra is a seriously impressive full-size, heavy towing and big-payload capable dual-cab pick-up truck built in the United States of America. But it’s about more than just manual labour.
It’s also a fully-equipped luxury home-away-from-home, with enormous seats, acres of legroom and ample general cabin space sufficient enough to swing multiple cats simultaneously. Probably.
Tundras are shipped to Australia via Melbourne and taken to what was the old HSV factory in Clayton which is now the home of Walkinshaw Automotive, which has grown substantially from its “bumper bar factory” roots when it used to slap new front ends on Commodores and charge $130K for them.
Walkinshaw does fully factory-supported and warrantied conversions from left-hand drive to right-hand drive (to the correct side, basically) and spits them back out into showrooms. But still for about $130K each. Some things never change.
But in 2025 it needs to be said that Walkinshaw’s quality of operations is now so good, having started with RAMs nearly 10 years ago before expanding to Silverados, that the notional king of build quality, Toyota, is happy to give them the blueprints to convert the Tundra.
Click here to download the official Toyota Tundra spec sheet >>
Click here to download the official Toyota Tundra brochure >>
And much like the RAM 1500, the Tundra’s conversion is a super-slick operation with an end result that is utterly indistinguishable from the original factory LHD. This is a long, long way from the hack-job conversions of the late 2000s which would leave you with creaks and squeaks and rattles and il-fitting details like grab handles, indicator stalks and mis-matching buttons or switches.
The job done by Walkinshaw is absolutely masterful. It’s not cheap, but it very much leaves you with the impression this is one of the best operations of its kind. You can see the investment poured into getting this right, systematically, on every single unit.
Size is everything in the ute market and the Tundra is as big as you think it is in these pictures. It measures in at 5955mm long (let’s call it 6 metres) and 2040mm wide (let’s call it 2 metres).
To put that in perspective, the Ford Ranger, routinely Australia’s most popular vehicle, is 5.5 metres long (rounded up) and 1.86m wide, meaning that in overall dimensions, the Tundra is 9 per cent longer and 7 per cent wider.
It’s built on the same ladder-frame platform Toyota uses for the Prado and LandCruiser 300, but at 3.7 metres, the wheelbase is 30 per cent longer and even 14 per cent longer than a Ranger Wildtrak.
Height is another consideration to make here if you don’t have an abundance of space at your place. Tundra is 1.98 metres tall, which is 7 per cent taller than said Ranger Wildtrak, and most public carparks are around the 2.0-2.2 metre height restriction, so be conscious of that, too.
In terms of proportions, you’re looking at a vehicle that is not just functionally bigger than the typical ute crowd, but it’s also going to be more commodious.
Looking at sales of these American pick-ups, Tundra enters a somewhat saturated market already occupied by the RAM 1500 selling nearly 900 units per month, the Ford F-150 selling over 500 a month, and the Chevy Silverado moving about 1000 in its two variations including the HD. Tundra is currently selling around 300-ish units per month, which puts it a clear fourth.
FEATURES & PRICING
TUNDRA LIMITED | $163,000 driveaway approx. | V6TT hybrid, 10spd auto, 4X4
includes:
INTERIOR
Premium cloth seats
8-way power adjustment for driver and front passenger seats
Driver and front passenger power lumbar support
Heated and ventilated front seats
Leather accented steering wheel, Leather accented gear shift knob
Manual tilt and telescope steering column
Centre console with open storage trays, Illuminated centre console storage bin
Carpet floormats
4x cup holders
Front dual-zone climate control
Electronic parking brake
Power sliding rear glass
Panoramic View Monitor
5x USB ports – 3x front, 2x rear
Proximity smartkey
Front and rear LED interior lights
EXTERIOR
20-inch 265/60/R20 Bridgestone tyres (w/ 18-inch space saver spare)
LED headlamps with manual levelling, LED combination lamps
Tailgate release switch
Crushed tube side steps
Front and rear mudguards
Heated power side mirrors
Tub cargo management system
Power tailgate
Front and rear parking sensors
Variable speed windscreen wipers
Power fuel lid
Tyre pressure monitoring system
TECH
Integrated brake controller, integrated 7-pin trailer plug
14-inch infotainment touchscreen
12-speaker JBL premium audio system
Wireless Apple CarPlay, wired Android Auto
12.3-inch driver’s display screen
Wireless charger
Digital display auto-dimming rear view mirror
Adaptive cruise control, lane keeping/departure/centring, pre-collision safety system with pedestrian and daytime cyclist detection
Automatic high beam
Rear cross-traffic alert, blindspot monitor
TUNDRA PLATINUM | $180,600 driveaway approx. | V6TT hybrid, 10spd auto, 4X4
adds:
10.9-inch head-up display
Black alloy wheels
LED tub lighting
Leather accented seats
4-way driver and front passenger lumbar support
10-way passenger power front seat
2x heated and ventilated outboard rear seats
Driver and front passenger massage seats
Power tilt and telescope steering column with memory
Panoramic roof
Heated steering wheel
Rain sensing wipers
ENGINE
The twin-turbocharged V6 petrol engine (AKA the “i-FORCE MAX”) in the Tundra is, arguably, the headline act, with both variants delivering a combined 326kW of peak power and 790Nm of peak torque. Only 36kW/250Nm is being produced by the electric motor generator in a parallel hybrid system.
Without the battery-motor combo, the combustion side of the powertrain is making 290kW and 649Nm, which would probably still have been enough, although the additional approximate 100kg of Ni-MH battery only has 1.87kWh of capacity, meaning it’s not going to be doing the majority of the work in the case of big payloads and heavy trailers.
The AC electric motor can only derive enough juice from the battery to start moving the Tundra from stationary to about 30-40km/h, because it is only about 15 per cent bigger than the one in the current outgoing RAV4 hybrid. And the Tundra weighs an additional 1100 kilos (empty, of course).
The grunt is driving a switchable rear-wheel drive or four-wheel drive system via a 10-speed epicyclic automatic transmission with torque converter.
Power to weight ratio is best in the Limited with 120kW per tonne which dips to 118kW/t in the Platinum. That puts it line-ball with all the other big American dual-cab pick-up trucks, with exception for the TRX RAM 1500 which is an absolute monster.
What’s going to make a Tundra such a good long-distance towing tool is the 122 litre fuel tank, so if you have horses to float interstate or across the state to various racecourses or showgrounds, it will require 95 RON premium petrol, but purchasing a $150,000+ pick-up truck, the price of fuel is hardly going to be your biggest concern.
Toyota claims a combined fuel economy in the US of 20 miles per gallon, which works out to about 17 litres per 100km in metric. That’s roughly double what you get from the bi-turbo V6 diesel in a Ranger Wildtrak at 8.4l/100km, so there’s no getting around the fact a Tundra will consume more fuel than your typical dual-cab ute, even with the hybrid equipment doing its level best to get the entourage going from the lights.
The overarching point here is that if you’re going to pay for all the additional performance, you would want to have a good use for it if economic rationality is part of your ethos for buying a Tundra. And it does come with genuine performance.
That same Ranger Wildtrak is going to offer you 63 kilowatts per tonne to the Tundra’s 120-118kW per tonne. So you’re getting 90 per cent greater performance and 28 per cent better towing capacity in a Tundra, for twice the price.
TRANSMISSION
The 10 speed epicyclic auto transmission with torque converter is the same unit developed by Toyota for use in the US market’s Tacoma dual-cab pick-up and Sequoia large SUV, as well as in the LandCruiser 300 and the Lexus LX550 and GX600 spin-offs.
It has proven quite reliable and given that it stretches back to use in 2022, that should speak volumes. Given all these vehicles have substantial towing capacities, quite high power outputs and serious off-roading (low speed, high load) lifecycle demands placed on the transmission, Toyota’s 10-speed should be very robust for the foreseeable life of the vehicle.
It’s a far cry from the Jatco CVT Nissan slapped together and shoved into the Pathfinder.
FUNCTIONALITY
Tundra has a compelling case for carrying stuff in the tray, which Americans like to call the “bed”. The payload capacity of 744kg in the Limited and 702kg in the Platinum might be about 200kg down on some of the smaller dual-cab utes like Ranger Wildtrak (950kg), Triton GSR (1030kg) and the Hilux Rogue(764kg).
But what really matters is the actual dimensions available to you. Tundra’s tray is 1675mm long (let’s call it 1.6m), it’s 1.27 metres wide between the wheelarches and has a depth of 530mm, so over half a metre deep.
What this means is that you get the benefits of a rear-sprung rear end that makes for a comfortable long-distance ride and over harsher low-speed roads or even off-road, but you also get the dimensions in the tray that make for a highly functional multi-purpose work platform.
See, typical dual-cab utes are good for towing OR carrying stuff. But they’re severely compromised when it comes to doing both at the same time, due to the fundamental design (and design constraints) of their platforms. Maxing out their payload compromises on towing and vice versa. When you start pushing the payload and towing limits, you get very close to the gross vehicle limit (GVM); sometimes, dangerously so, considering the ute’s kerb weight and ability to keep the combination stable.
Tundra’s GVM of 3536kg and 8030kg gross combination mass limit mean you’re much, much further from pushing this thing beyond its inherent design capabilities, if the same payload and trailer were applied to it.
While on the subject of loading up, the Tundra gets a very slight load restraint system for tying down your heavy stuff. And because the tray is so generous in its dimensions, that Aussie 1165x1165mm pallet other ute brands like to brag about at every opportunity (or ignore when they can’t brag about it) fits easily into a Tundra, with room to spare - between the wheelarches.
Having such a big bed means, much like a king size bed in your bedroom, you can spread the load out more evenly when you have landscaping materials on board like mulch, soil, gravel or sand. This offers a reduced centre of gravity.
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INTERIOR
Tundra’s enormous landscape touchscreen, with its excellent resolution and haptic response, has menu iconography stuck on the left-hand side. It clearly hasn’t been coded to run on the RHS of the screen closest to the driver, while the air conditioning sync button syncs the temperature setting to the passenger side of the dual-zone climate system, not the driver’s.
These observations were made by Matt Campbell at The Right Car and although they are an inconvenience - the same irritating inconvenience Hyundai models in recent years have made with their infotainment screens - they’re not worthy of writing it off completely; they’re minor. The rest of the cockpit is a lesson in how to make work vehicles hospitable, a juxtaposition to something as primitive and crude as the LandCruiser 79 Series.
Tundra has massive seats that support, reposition electrically, massage, warm up and cool down. The steering wheel on the Platinum is electrically adjustable with memorised positioning, and the rear seats get heating a ventilation (cooling). The centre console is enormous and actually functions as a storage option for families, tradies, farmer or business operators to actually store things, not just rest your elbow on.
Having a cabin so much wider than your typical “mid-size” dual-cab utes like Ranger and Triton means an abundance of elbow room, and particularly if you’re over 6 feet tall, you also get decent headroom - finally. The struggle is real.
Quiet clever is that Chevy has the wireless phone charging pad sit vertically in the centre console area taking up much less room than, for example, the dual charging pads in a Hyundai Santa Fe. Not only does this preserve the centre area for cups, keys, bits and bobs.
The joy of having such an enormous cabin is there’s ample legroom not just for kids but for fully grown adults, with workboots on. That includes the centre seat. This is a win for anybody who has to transport a bunch of heavy stuff, a trailer of also-heavy stuff and your co-workers to a jobsite and spend the entire day on your feet.
DRIVING
Having a 15-metre turning circle means you’re going to be limited in how you manoeuvre the Tundra in confined carparks, laneways and cul-de-sacs. Halve the limited ability when you add a trailer.
Your best bet when it comes to making three-point turns is to not bother and just use driveways, continuing straight until you find a suitable U-turn opportunity, or to consider getting yourself a fleet of tugs to bring you about when mooring.
The Tundra’s dexterity is also reduced compared to that of a conventional mid-size dual-cab ute (like Ranger or Triton) when it comes to moderate off-roading and in particular, clearing obstacles. The approach, breakover and departure angles are ordinary thanks to the wheelbase being big enough to fit most small SUVs inside.
Those angles are 23 degrees on approach, 21 degrees on departure, and with just 216mm of ground clearance, you’re looking at about the same amount of off-roading under-carriage clearance of a Subaru Forester. Although a Forester does actually have better ground clearance as 220mm.
Having no differential locks, only a limited-slip differential, means you will still be able to reach most places off-road, you just won’t be able to achieve the same lofty, CV-busting heights that something like a LandCruiser 300 or Prado Altitude can reach.
But for the 90 per cent of farmers, tradies, towing or haulage business support personnel, that’s going to be just fine. You’re not buying a Tundra to climb the black spur goat tracks, because that’s not what it’s designed for.
Having said that, you do still get a conventional 4WD system that is going to get you to all the same camping grounds, snowfield carparks and up to the top paddock on the farm, you just can run it in 4-High on sealed surfaces in the wet, for example, in the way you can with a Triton or Ranger.
Ride and handling is average in the context of the rest of the ute market, given that Tundra weighs an extra 1000 kilos and has such a bigger presence, filling the entire lane (just about). But in terms of its comfort levels in-cabin, it’s actually pretty good.
The old sentiment about American vehicles being terrible to drive has largely disappeared thanks to modern R&D. You just can’t drive it like a Mazda MX-5, you have to drive it for what it is: a very long, quite wide, heavy, powerful pick-up truck.
You can still drive your Tundra in 4H on these dirt/gravel roads, just switch back to 2H when you hit the sealed roads again.
TOWING
Don’t think of the 4500kg maximum braked towing capacity (with a 70mm towball) as the aspirational limit, think of it as an increased margin for safety, because that’s what it is. Towing 3.5 tonnes, which is the headline brag for all the mid-size dual-cab utes like Ranger, Hilux, Triton, BT-50 and D-Max, that’s actually a much more feasibly safe undertaking in a Tundra compared with the aforementioned.
You’ve got a substantial amount of towing performance and dynamic stability left on the table before things can get out of hand in the wrong driving conditions such a long highway descent at 110km/h at night in the rain with B-doubles either side of you. Or some unknown twisty mountain road where you’ve been doing roadworks or installing some kind of infrastructure to connect Springfield to Shelbyville.
Tundra has a 1737mm front and rear track, which is 7 per cent wider than the 1630mm in a Ranger Wildtrak, so it sits on the road, under load, with a lower centre of gravity despite being just 10cm taller.
A 3.5-tonne trailer is much more prone to pushing a 2.3-tonne Ranger or 2-tonne Hilux/Triton/D-Max/BT-50 around than it is a 2.8-tonne Tundra.
So if seriously heavy towing is a frequent thing in your future, perhaps reconsider that pipsqueak dual-cab ute - you could even count the 79 Series LandCruiser in there too - and have a proper think about a Tundra instead.
SAFETY
The Toyota Tundra has been tested by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety and is regarded as the IIHS’s Top Safety Pick+ for 2025, which is its highest safety rating.
Just for clarity here, the video might be dated with a 2022 stamp, but the 2025 model you would buy here in Australia is based on the same vehicle as tested in 2022, only it was re-rated again in 2025 to keep the safety scores up to date. This is completely at odds with how ANCAP tests a car once (or copies & pastes the result from EuroNCAP tests) and allows that rating to expire, rather than re-rate the vehicle when it gets updated.
Tundra scores very well for crashworthiness, getting ‘Good’ scores in the small overlap, moderate overlap and side impact tests. Here’s how it looked in the crashlab, in the US:
It’s impressive to watch how the Tundra absorbs the energy of the impact and disperses it along its substantial frame and body.
American vehicle safety has come a long way in the last 10-15 years, with exception of the Jeep Wrangler of course (that thing is a quantifiable death trap).
There are two inherent safety aspects to having a crash in a Tundra as opposed to a smaller vehicle or some kind of roadside furniture or tree perhaps. Being a larger, heavier vehicle, this makes it far better at withstanding the impacts of a crash with a smaller vehicle (keeping in mind it’s bad for the occupants of the smaller vehicle).
And hitting some idle piece of guardrail or a small tree is going to be less potentially deadly in a bigger Tundra than a smaller SUV, for example. (Note: that doesn’t guarantee survival, particularly against the tree).
The second inherent safety benefit of a Tundra is that there is more physical separation between you and the rest of the vehicle, meaning more vehicle has to be crumpled in order for you to hit things inside the cabin. The IIHS noted, for example, the footwell in the front held up quite well in these two overlap crash tests.
The one bad thing about being in a big Tundra in a crash is that it carries more kinetic energy than a smaller vehicle at the same speed. So when it hits the barrier, you’ll notice it travels quite a way across the crashlab floor, meaning it could have a secondary crash into other vehicles or objects after the primary impact.
DRAWBACKS
That aforementioned 15-metre turning circle is the worst among the four American pick-up trucks, over half a metre behind the 14.4m radius of the Silverado in third, it’s 2.5 metres bigger than the F-150 and the RAM 1500 SWB gets it done in just 12.1 metres, which is also better than a Ranger Wildtrak at 12.9 and a smidge more than the 11.8m for Mitsubishi Triton.
US market ‘Capstone’ variant shown here
The lack of hardcore 4X4 drivetrain compared with a LandCruiser 300 or Prado 250 Series might seem like a drawback initially, mostly because it is, for the most part. But all vehicles are an inherent engineering compromise. What you lack in off-road capability (keeping in mind it does still have a rudimentary 4X4 system like a current (outgoing Hilux) with low-range transfer case), you gain in having a much higher working load limit in terms of towing.
This is a vehicle much better suited to long-haul heavy towing than anything else offered in the midsize dual-cab ute market. Having that higher ceiling means you’re far less likely to overwhelm the combination in adverse conditions.
So yeah, you can take your Tundra off-roading, and for the most part it’s going to get through a decent array of shoddy conditions, such as light river crossings, muddy and rocky terrain, and plenty of dirt tracks and potentially some wetter, compacted sand.
But you are limited in the driveline’s sophistication, there are no crawl modes, no traction control settings and no locking differentials to get you out of trouble.
Price is obviously the other big hurdle to get over when it comes to putting one of these things in your barn at home. You’re lucky that being a ute you’re not handing over a big chunk of cash in luxury car tax, but that doesn’t inoculate you from the $160,000 base price. That’s $16,000 more than a LandCruiser Sahara ZX, which absolutely will go where the Tundra simply cannot.
That trade-off is of course in the Tundra’s substantial towing prowess, of course, where the 300 Series is impeded by a towing capacity 22 per cent lower, the Tundra has a gross combination mass 19 per cent higher than the little LandCruiser.
MAIN COMPETITORS
Ford F-150 Lariat SWB | 3.5L petrol V6 TT | $146,800 driveaway, approx.
Power: 298kW | Torque: 678Nm
Power-weight ratio: 129 kilowatts per tonne | Fuel: 91 RON petrol (Tank: 136 litres)
Length: 5884mm | Width: 2030mm | Height 1995mm
Kerb Weight: 2535 kg | Track: 1725mm (fr), 1735mm (r) | Overhang: 955mm (fr), 1735mm (r)
GVM: 3220kg | GCM: 7270kg | Towing cap.: 4500kg | Payload: 685kg
Ground clearance: 239mm | Approach: 24 deg | Breakover: 20 deg | Departure: 25 deg
TRAY: Length: 1705 mm Width: 1656 mm B/w wheelarches: 1285 mm | Height: N/A
Max front axle load: 1633 kg | Max rear axle load: 1882 kg
Click here for more on Ford F-150 >>
RAM 1500 Laramie SO SWB | 3L turbo-petrol inline-6 | $150,000 driveaway approx.
Power: 313kW | Torque: 635Nm
Power-weight ratio: 121 kilowatts per tonne | Fuel: 91 RON petrol (Tank: 98 litres)
Length: 5916mm | Width: 2084mm | Height 1971mm
Kerb Weight: 2642 kg | Track: 1741mm (fr), 1729mm (r) | Overhang: N/A
GVM: 3521kg | GCM: 7711kg | Towing cap.: 4500kg | Payload: 879kg
Ground clearance: 217mm | Approach: 20 deg | Breakover: 18 deg | Departure: 21 deg
TRAY: Length: 1712 mm | Width b/w wheelarches: 1270 mm | Height: 543mm
Max front axle load: 1770 kg | Max rear axle load: 1860 kg
Click here for more on RAM 1500 >>
Chevy Silverado LTZ Premium | 6.2L V8 petrol | $140,000 driveaway approx.
Power: 313kW (yes, same power as the RAM) | Torque: 624Nm (yes, less torque than the RAM)
Power-weight ratio: 126 kilowatts per tonne | Fuel: 91 RON petrol (Tank: 91 litres)
Length: 5935mm | Width: 2086mm | Height 1930mm
Kerb Weight: 2543 kg | Track: 1743mm (fr), 1728mm (r) | Overhang: N/A
GVM: 3300kg | GCM: 7160kg | Towing cap.: 4500kg | Max. towball d/load 422 kg | Payload: 757kg
Ground clearance: 231mm | Approach: 21 deg | Breakover: 20 deg | Departure: 21 deg
TRAY: Length: 1776 mm | Width b/w wheelarches: 1286 mm | Height: N/A
Max front axle load: 1724 kg | Max rear axle load: 1724 kg
Click here for more on Chevy Silverado >>
CONCLUSION
Especially in terms of breadth of capability, the Tundra is a much more capable towing platform than the dual-cab utes we’ve become used to in Australia.
It’s bigger in every plane, it’s heavier, and it offers more power than you can poke a stick at. That gives it a much wider array of benefits if you need a workhorse capable of doing the same towing, carrying and general use you’ve been subjecting your midsize dual-cab ute to for years now. Only a Tundra won’t really notice that work in the same way.
That’s the key reason to consider a Tundra, or indeed even an F-150, RAM 1500 or Chevy Silverado, because you want this very-hard-work to be much easier for the vehicle in question. “Easier” means less stress on components, reduced wear and tear, better daily ease-of-use, increased inherent stability and a propensity to make what many hands would consider light work.
Only the Tundra is a massive pair of hands doing what a 79 Series or Ranger would be fundamentally less proficient at - you just have to make sure your accountant can turn that $160,000 pricetag into a proper tax deduction.
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