What the ‘Million Mile Tundra’ Taught Toyota Engineers
When Toyota bought the “Million Mile Tundra,” it wasn’t a PR stunt. The company’s engineers were eager to learn from it.
While Toyota is known for making durable, long-lasting trucks, Victor Sheppard’s 2007 Tundra proved an outlier. Over nine years, Sheppard racked up over a million miles on his rig, which was among the first built at Toyota’s San Antonio, Texas facility. But despite the lofty mileage, the Tundra was in remarkably original condition. So back in 2016, Toyota famously swapped his truck for a brand-new model, and as you might suspect, this was more than a public relations ploy. The engineers developing the latest Tundra wanted to see how the truck had held up.
Now, in this video from our friends over at Pickup Trucks Plus SUV Talk, we get a firsthand account of how what they learned went into the latest generation of Toyota’s big rig. Host Tim Esterdahl talks with Toyota Chief Truck Engineer Mike Sweers, and even if you’re not a total gearhead, the discussion is fascinating. Over the course of the episode, Sweers takes viewers on a guided tour of the third-generation truck, and covers everything from the chassis, to the drivetrain, to the bed, to the interior. At just under 30 minutes, it’s not exactly a TikTok clip — but it’s well worth the watch.
Surprisingly, the first thing that Sweers wanted to see on Sheppard’s truck wasn’t the engine, the transmission, or the differentials. As it turns out? He really wanted to see how the front seat of the truck had held up — because Sheppard is built like a linebacker. But while there were some slight tears in the fabric, the structure of the chair — including all the adjustment mechanisms — had performed beautifully. There wasn’t a single broken weld on the frame! As a result, the bones of the latest seat aren’t terribly different from the old one, though in the name of weight savings, they’re now constructed from high-strength steel.
From a structural standpoint, the most important lessons the Sweers and his team learned involved the bed. Sheppard had put a tremendous amount of strain — at one point, Esterdahl calls it “abuse” — on his truck’s bed, which directly led to making the weld points on the new bed beefier.
That said, one of my favorite parts of the video involves the discussion of the transfer case, where you can see how much thicker Toyota’s drive chain is from an unnamed competitor’s, even though both vehicles use a similar BorgWarner unit. As Esterdahl points out, this is where all the weight shaved off the rest of the truck gets put back. Overall, while there are a lot of complex concepts being discussed, the tone of the discussion is easy to grasp, and it gives great insight on how Toyota’s engineers approach their jobs. Enjoy!
Photos: YouTube