Joined
·
47 Posts
I've had quite a few cars and trucks in my day, and I drive a lot. I've had everything from expensive luxury cars to bare-bones Ford Rangers, with full size trucks by Ford, Dodge, GM and Toyota. I've had vehicles from Toyota, Nissan, Ford, Chevy, Jeep, BMW, Dodge, Ram, Chrysler, Volkswagen, GMC and more. A few years ago, I bought a 2015 Dodge Durango Citadel, and in the course of a year, put 30k miles on it. Thereafter, my wife needed a car, and so she started driving the Durango. Not wanting to keep getting new vehicle depreciation hits, I picked up an excellent condition, used 2007 GMC Yukon. It was built out pretty well, and I enjoyed driving it, racking up nearly 70k miles in 2 years. However, towards the end of its life with me, it started getting more and more expensive to maintain. In the last year, it had upper and lower control arms, shocks, struts, CV shafts, brakes and rotors, tires, batteries (2), swaybar links (replaced twice), a main fuse box, 3 blend door control motors and more. It was time to put it out to pasture.
I wanted to stay in a full-size vehicle with 4wd and good towing capacity. However, having spent much of the past 2 years under the Yukon, I valued reliability over just about everything else. I looked at everything available in SUV and trucks, and decided I wanted to go back to a pickup truck. I looked at every manufacturer, and was turned off by the amount of crap on the trucks that could go wrong. My vehicles are usually fully-loaded...but this time, I wanted something a bit more basic. I didn't want navigation, didn't want a sunroof, didn't want a ton of options. I did want heated, leather seats. After test-driving and researching, I set my sights on a Tundra. (I previously had a Tundra back in about 2009).
IMG_9339 by Dean Frieders, on Flickr
I found my truck, a 2018 MGM Tundra SR5 Crewmax 4x4 with the SR5 and TRD options packages, exactly how I wanted it (minus the leather). This will be the build log for the truck. It isn't going to be a high-speed desert pre-runner; it is going to be a functional, do many things truck for moderate off-roading, camping trips, trailer pulling, and a lot of business miles. This will be the tale of the Wundra Tundra.
IMG_9413 by Dean Frieders, on Flickr
I wanted to stay in a full-size vehicle with 4wd and good towing capacity. However, having spent much of the past 2 years under the Yukon, I valued reliability over just about everything else. I looked at everything available in SUV and trucks, and decided I wanted to go back to a pickup truck. I looked at every manufacturer, and was turned off by the amount of crap on the trucks that could go wrong. My vehicles are usually fully-loaded...but this time, I wanted something a bit more basic. I didn't want navigation, didn't want a sunroof, didn't want a ton of options. I did want heated, leather seats. After test-driving and researching, I set my sights on a Tundra. (I previously had a Tundra back in about 2009).
IMG_9339 by Dean Frieders, on FlickrI found my truck, a 2018 MGM Tundra SR5 Crewmax 4x4 with the SR5 and TRD options packages, exactly how I wanted it (minus the leather). This will be the build log for the truck. It isn't going to be a high-speed desert pre-runner; it is going to be a functional, do many things truck for moderate off-roading, camping trips, trailer pulling, and a lot of business miles. This will be the tale of the Wundra Tundra.
IMG_9413 by Dean Frieders, on Flickr
