2015 Toyota Tundra: The Ultimate Adventure Truck

The 2015 Toyota is built for active families.

Wow! I can honestly say I’ve never enjoyed a vehicle like I did the 2015 Toyota Tundra we got to review in June. In fact, my whole family voted it #1. It didn’t hurt that the Inferno paint job and shiny black trim made it a real head turner. Or, that the exhaust was just right, giving the perfect truck sound; not obnoxiously loud, but just enough rumble to let you know you were driving a truck.

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All of my adult life I’ve assumed that when I bought a truck it would be a certain brand… you know, something classically American. We’ve owned older model Fords and Chevys and I loved them all. I figured we’d buy another one someday. My first drive in the Toyota Tundra I changed my mind. After that, I rarely let my husband behind the wheel. This was MY truck. One day when I didn’t need the truck, I let him take it to work. Upon his return he said “Honey, we need to find a way…” Me: “to buy a truck?” Him: “Preferably that one.”

Amen.

What We Loved

  • Built in San Antonio, Texas
  • Roomy and comfortable
  • Fabric trimmed seats
  • 4WDemand part-time 4WD
  • TRD Pro Bilstein shocks

What You Need to Know

  • Starts at $41,385; model we tested: $43,159
  • 13 mpg in the city, 17 mpg on the highway
  • 381 horsepower
  • 6 speed automatic

Go TRD Pro for ultimate adventure in the 2015 Toyota Tundra

This is the perfect truck for an active family like ours. It’s spacious, strong, and durable. It can handle any terrain with ease, and feels good doing it. Take all the awesome features of the Tacoma, multiply them by ten, and you have a Tundra.

The Tundra’s middle name is durability

The 2015 Toyota Tundra is as big and sharp as it looks. It’s a really sharp truck, but it’s not built for luxury like the Silverado. Instead, it’s engineered to go off-road. This is the truck we’d take camping, haul canoes in, bring home a deer in, and load to the max with firewood, without fear.

Working for a trailer manufacturing company, my husband has seen the same loads pulled behind multiple brands and models of trucks and he says the Tundra is made for pulling and doesn’t sag the way some other trucks do.

Ride in practical comfort in the Toyota Tundra

The TRD Pro Bilstein front and rear shocks on this thing are amazing. We drove this truck on the open road, the back roads, and the not-roads. I also took it for a spin in an open field. No matter the terrain, the ride was comfortable. You can turn the four wheel drive on when you need it, a handy feature called 4WDemand.

While leather interiors catch my eye and make me feel spoiled, I always worry the kids will ruin them. The cloth trimmed seats in the Tundra are a high quality fabric and I liked that they didn’t get hot like leather, even though they are black. They also had zippers on the sides, which I’m assuming would make them easy to remove and wash or replace. You can’t do that with leather.

The Tundra doesn’t come with the entertainment package, so my kids were a little disappointment that they couldn’t watch movies on the way to the zoo. Honestly though? We wouldn’t be buying a truck for travel. I’d rather not have something so fragile in a truck I’d be using for work and adventure!

The Tundra is made in the U.S.A.

San Antonio, Texas. Perfection. As a native Texan, I think anything made in Texas is superior!

The Tundra has a fantastic resale value

When a consumer looks to buy a new vehicle, she has to look at the resale value of the vehicle. Does it hold its value well? Like the Tacoma, the Toyota Tundra has one of the best resale values on the market. This means if you decide to sell, you’ll get a good price for it. According to a friend of ours who has owned a Tundra for 8 years… he still loves it and can’t find an excuse to upgrade!

What We Missed

Nothing major, that’s for sure! My husband would have liked an auto setting for the climate controls, like our Camry has. I missed the memory seats and the power fold-in mirrors I’ve enjoyed on some other large vehicles. But none of these would dissuade me from buying a Tundra.

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Erica Mueller
Erica Mueller

A web developer, digital marketing consultant, auto journalist, truck expert, photographer and lover of gadgets, Erica is a textbook geek. On her days off she loves to travel, garden, hike and camp, and play her guitar. You can find Erica on Instagram at @EricaDrives. Erica is a board member and a journalist member of the Texas Auto Writers Association.

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