i have no experience with the tundra, allthough my sisiter and bra-in-law have one and have had no complaints. what i can say about toyotas is that they are a very well designed and built product. prior to my chevy i have an 86 sr5 4x and a 99 4x tacoma and could not have been happier with both. i explain above my recent experience with a tranny filter/fluid change on the z71 and my frustration with it, i never had any sort of experience with my toyotas like that.

toby, i also had the tranny issue. you know that fluid in your truck is good for 100k miles right? i hope you put the correct stuff back in. i elected to allow the dealer to do this work. they pump out 100%, and changed the filter and replaced. if you dump it yourself you only change out 20%. at least that is what they told me. the majority of the juice stays behind in the torque converter. i changed mine at 75k miles because of the life i put it through.

i need/want a bigger truck to tow. in my future i picture a bassboat, and my 911 on a trailer.

I can only say that Dodge trucks IMO are cheaply built. I had bought a new 98 Dakota 4X4 and the paint on the bumper chipped early on leaving rust bubbles everywhere within 1 year. The undersides are poorly painted. The axles and other underbody components are bare and are covered in surface rust as they sit brand new on the dealer lot!

I had 8 problems (some mino, some major)with my truck in 3 yrs and 40,000 miles. It lived in a garage and was primarily driven gently by my wife. I traded it in on a used '99 Tacoma 4X4 w/ 9000 miles on the clock. Other than putting brakes and tires on my Toyota (60,000 miles on it now), I have not had ANY problems (little or small). The local Dodge dealer's service dept is always backlogged with huge quantities (often 50 plus) of vehicles (many are less than 1 year old!) in nedd of repair. The local Toyota dealership typically only has 2-3 vehicles being worked on in their ghost town looking service bays.

I do not rotate new vehicles every two years, instead I buy a vehicle with cash while planning to keep it for a long time. Dodge quality is just not up to snuff! Most people today think it is normal to have to schedule their new vehicles in for warranty work to fix "minor bugs". I do not ascribe to this way of thinking!

I would trust my old 1977 924 w/ 200k on the clock over a new Dodge on a long road trip anyday!

Surface rust is a good thing - on the compnents you described.
Now the Dakota of the 1990s......what a piece of crap.

just curious, what is the towing capacity for the tundra? are the brakes any good?

I am SO glad Porsche did not think that way when they built my cars!:) My '87 951 with 110k on the clock still looks new after an underbody wash!:eek:

We have a 99 4x4 Z71 Chevy 1/2 ton bought new in 00 with over 300,000 miles and going strong. Actually has required very little maintenance other than a few O2 sensors, couple of interior switches, plugs, wires, tires, shocks, brakes, etc.

Tranny and transfer case are still strong and engine runs well. Suspension is about shot up front.

the fluid did not look so bad, so i would agree with what you said. i was interested in getting a new filter in as well. thing is it was only about a quart off the listed capacity in the manual when i replaced it. i put in a quart less than what the gm showed as capacity and it was full after warm up and checking as directed. i had suspected it to take it all, and was aware that there was alot more oil in the cooler and lines to the tranny cooler. much like the 2 quarts or so that stay in our 911 oil lines when you change it. i would have to say 20% is a bit slight on what you change out. it was the right stuff.

the thing that GM is not forthcoming with is the transfer case fluid. they spec a GM product and give no other info or i would have done that at the time too. just have not gotten to the dealer to get a bucket of that.

next time you see my pops i can rag the both of you together about taking you trucks to the dealer for fluid changes. he laughed at me for doing it myself, telling me how he went to the dealer too to stay out from under it. you two are figs! i on the other hand am a true DIY'er and have more time than money most days.

don't mean to highjack mr. walker

T$

ok, toby. we can talk after you try to tackle that fuel filter.