Toyota is preparing to muster its big Tundra pick-up truck for sale in Australia.
The company has been running a small trial with customers who’ve opted in to a $2500 a month “all costs covered” loan of the full-size ute that will go head-to-head with the Chevrolet Silverado, Ford F-150 and Ram 1500
The Tundra is imported in left-hand drive and converted to right-hand drive by Walkinshaw, which used to apply their craft to fast Holdens, in Melbourne.
Toyota Australia’s Vice President of Sales, Marketing and Franchise Operations Sean Hanley, said he is very optimistic the local arm will get approval to launch the car officially to the public soon.
“We haven’t done all this not to launch it,” said Hanley.
“We still have a way to go and a trial is a trial. It’s a trial not a PR stunt. We are correcting, finding [issues]. We want this Tundra to be as close to OE spec for our customers as we can get based on the local conversion.”
Hanley indicated the trial had helped iron out any issues with the conversion process and quality problems with the vehicle before it goes on sale to the public.
The famously conservative Japanese company may be on to something. Ford and its remanufacturing partner RMA Automotive have run into a mass of quality issues since it launched the F-150 late last year. This includes multiple stop sale orders to correct compliance issues and several recalls.
Ford was even forced to dip into its own pocket to placate customers by giving a complimentary five year/75,000km service program to all affected F-150 customers.
Toyota should have no such issues according to Hanley.
“We are in contact with 189 customers pretty regularly,” said Hanley
“Quality issues have been low. We’ve had a couple of things, some of them from donor vehicles and some relate back to warranty stuff, but nothing major.”
“We’ve had a few little things in the conversion, again nothing major.
“It’s proving to be a really good exercise for us because we are able to get these things fixed at Walkinshaw and re-evaluate what we are doing.
“It is incredibly encouraging for us and looking more and more positive that we’ll get approval to launch this car in the near future,” he said.
He wouldn’t confirm when the Tundra would be given the green light but Hanley suggested the company would have some news towards the end of the year.
When it does arrive potential customers can expect some pretty impressive performance from the Tundra.
It uses a twin-turbocharged 3.5-litre V6 hybrid set-up to make a combined 326kW and 790Nm. Those are big boy numbers.
It can tow 4500kg in Australia. This was reduced from 5500kg in the US because Aussies would need a truck licence to drive it with that capability.
Hanley said part of the trial was to educate people on what the car is capable of, and not.
“One of the things we don’t want to portray is that the Tundra is a LandCruiser 70 Series off-road vehicle. It’s not, it’s not that truck,” he said.