2008 Toyota Tundra: Why not trucks?

I can't believe I'm the first person to review the Tundra! I see other people here in upstate NY driving them all the time. I admit I don't know much about the finer points of a car, and I think driving is fun in general, (my sister is much pickier - it has to be manual and have a powerful engine, and once she literally freaked out because she was test-driving a Mazda i.e., import and ran off the dealership lot) but I absolutely LOVE my truck. I've owned a 2008 Double Cab 4x4 5.7L V8 automatic for 5 months now, and I still get that thrill whenever I drive it anywhere. The Tundra is such a beast, but it's so quiet and smooth - my friend didn't believe that it was a V8 since you can hardly hear the engine if you're driving around town. But getting on the freeway and hearing the engine as you go from 0-60 always makes me smile.

My boyfriend and I bought the Tundra mostly because we were moving cross country (for the 2nd time, 1st time was in a rented Chevy Aveo - whew big upgrade) to upstate NY from sunny CA, and we thought we would need a car with 4 wheel drive. Apparently they're really good about clearing the roads here, although I do appreciate the smoother ride in a large truck. On the trip from CA to NY, we never stayed in a hotel and just slept in the truck, even though we couldn't recline the seats and the cab was full of stuff - so it's definitely roomy enough (although I probably wouldn't do that again for a while). Side note: I drove a 95 Nissan Sentra in CA, which was fine since the roads there don't need as much in the way of repair (I've heard there are 2 seasons here in Rochester: construction and winter), and I've ridden in my neighbor's 07 Sentra here and you feel every inch of the road the way you don't in the truck. Also, my job requires that I bring large boxes and handcarts with me, and it's definitely nice to be able to just load stuff into the truck bed and go (I did the same job in CA, and they used plastic tubs instead of boxes but it's ridiculous trying to wrestle large objects into the trunk of a Toyota Echo or a 2-door sedan, or in the case of my new office driving multiple cars because you couldn't fit everything into 1 car).

Exterior looks-wise, I strongly feel that the Tundra wins, hands down, over almost all the other trucks out there (and I love the way it looks compared to an SUV - I hate the shape of SUVs except for the Escalade - ahhh, the Escalade). I mean just LOOK at it. I like particular incarnations of the Dodge Ram, but otherwise, when you look at other trucks like Ford or Chevy I feel like they just look dated and old. I know the Tundra is higher-end, so it would be fairer to compare looks to the Tacoma or the Nissan Titan, but when you go to the Ford website right at this moment (11/10/08) and it says, the brand new 2009 F-150 - I mean come on, it looks like it came right out of the 90s if not before that. One thing is that the Tundra regular cab looks a little silly and too short (this may be a bias from being used to looking at a double cab) and makes the truck look a little unfinished. The rear seats in the double cab actually seat 4 skinny people pretty comfortably, or even 3 skinny people and one larger person (if you find yourself needing to haul more than the prescribed amount of people), so fitting 3 regular sized adults is no problem even if the driver is 6'5" - this is from personal experience. I haven't been inside a crew cab, but to me it looks like a full size 4 door sedan with a truck bed, so it would probably be super roomy for a family.

The interior is pretty utilitarian but we have the regular Tundra grade and not an SR5 or a Limited edition. But I love the cup holders! Two in each door, two in the front, two in the middle back, so 12 cup holders in all. I read somewhere once that cup holders were a major criteria for female car buyers (haha). And there's actually a good amount of space under the back seat if you need to store stuff.

Bottom line: Trucks don't usually have a luxurious image but the Tundra is a really nice (and fun) ride and it looks so good too! I am definitely driving this baby until it dies.