It’s time for the annual boating vacation! This time – my family and I are using our 2019 Toyota Tundra TRD Pro to pull our boat to the lake and back. This pickup truck has arguably the best feature for boaters. It also has something horrible in store for us. Let’s go!
Big thanks to my daughter, Sophia, with the videography for this video. Thanks to my entire family for tolerating my antics.
This Tundra is basically all stock. It has a Safari raised air intake “snorkel” and 34-inch aftermarket all-terrain tires. We are towing a 2004 Tige 22ve wakeboard boat. The boat is 22-feet long. It’s a V-drive with a 5.7L Mercruiser V8, which is actually a Chevy 350 cu-in at its core. The boat with the trailer and gear weighs just about 6,000 lbs.
Wait – this video has two 5.7-liter V8 engines in it. Cool!
The Tundra TRD Pro is powered by a 5.7L iForce V8 with 381 horsepower and 401 lb-ft of torque. It’s mated to a 6-speed automatic transmission and an aggressive 4.30-to-1 rear axle ratio. You would think this would be enough oomph to move a trailer like this down the highway with ease. This truck does it, but it has to downshift into a higher rpm range 3,000-4,500 rpm in order to keep about 70 mph on the highway.
The horrible part is the resulting fuel consumption, which is reported to be 7.6 MPG. Yikes.
On the flip side, the best feature of this Tundra (or most other Tundra crew cab trucks) is the full sliding rear glass. It allows great visibility and communication when launching or retreiving a boat at the lake. It’s useful in many other circumstances. It’s great to great fresh air flowing or simply getting access to something that may be in your Tundra’s bed. This feature came in useful when my wife noticed a problem with our boat trailer while retrieving the boat. She didn’t need to yell. I was able to hear her comments and deal with the problem quickly.
Please join me in the video below.