Returning to Tundra 2017 or 2021

I have a 2021 SR5 TRD OR that I bought new fresh off the truck. Saw it being unloaded at the dealership and pulled the trigger. It was one of the last of the V8s, assembled 7/2021. Been a fantastic truck, never been back to the dealer since I bought it. I do need to get in to have it inspected for the steering rack recall. I'm at 21k miles right now and about half of those are towing a 5k travel trailer. Brakes are still in excellent shape as they should be. The OEM Michelin LTX tires are wearing very nice and have good traction. I've owned a lot of new vehicles and never had an OE set of tires last this long. The Toyota Safety Sense system works nice and I really enjoy the adaptive cruise control.

I did add a transmission cooler with a kit from Genuine Cooling Systems when they still had the Improved Racing cooler. It's a simple upgrade and the GCS brackets are fantastic. Quite frankly if you tow the older trucks should get a cooler upgrade as well as the OEM cooler doesn't cut it. I also added blue Sumo Springs when the truck was new. I have zero sag in the stock leaf springs and I think that is due to the Sumo Springs keeping them from getting flattened when the truck is loaded. I'm routinely over GVWR (but not GCWR) and the truck handles it great. My truck is stock other than these two modifications. I will say that I plan to go with a full 2" suspension lift from Dobinsons in the near future.

My advice; find the cleanest, unmolested truck you can with the features you want. The less modifications the better. Since the 3UR-FE is no longer available you're going to have to buy used either way. The newer trucks have some nice features, but at the end of the day the drivetrain is the same and that's what is important.

 

A good point—I don’t think there’s a single cooler that GCS has ever offered that isn’t bigger and better than what used to come on the tow-packaged equipped trucks.

I’m eager to hear about the 2019 with 900k miles on it. The guy who services that truck is supposed to call one of the forum members to talk details. I’m curious if they serviced the transmission at all.

 

If you have a push button sart, you have remote start from the fob.

 

This guy right here bought a 2020 with almost 150k miles on it. Confirmed no trans cooler installed. Obviously not anywhere close to 900k but it’s still a lot of miles on a trans some swear will blow up without an auxiliary cooler

https://www.tundras.com/threads/finally-bought-a-tundra-2020-trd-off-road-with-142k-miles.144166/

 

We all read the forum. There are also folks who have had their transmissions overheat without one.

Some people want to put extra effort to protect their major purchases.

 

Mine doesn't. The push fob 3 times does't work. Maybe installing the app deactivated that. The app didn't have remote start or ability to unlock either. That's why I said it was crap. The most important would be ability to unlock the truck with the app incase keys are locked in. All this was free with the F150 app. But those features are only available with a higher trim level for Tundra and still have to pay monthly subscription. But feel free to make a constructive and accurate response to the rest of my post.

 

Downloading the app should not affect the key fob. Did you try pushing the lock button 3x and holding the lock button on the 3rd press for about 5 seconds or so. It takes a few times to get the timing down, has to be quick or it doesn’t work. It’s not the best remote start but it does work on my SR5.

best of luck!

 

I’ve had both a 2017 and a 2021. Both are amazing trucks. I’d probably lean towards the Platinum, mainly because I don’t care for the 1794 trim. I’d also probably end up spending a good bit of the price difference color matching and upgrading the headlights on the 2017. CarPlay is also a benefit and you can upgrade to an amazing sound system without changing the headunit.

 

I was pretty happy with my 21, but I suppose it would depend on the build date. Not sure I would want a truck built during COVID. I bought a 2021 F-150 and it has an insane amount of quality control issues.

 

How do keys get locked in the truck? Why not hide a key on the truck? Installing the app didn't deactivate the fob remote start. The most likely cause is that you are just not doing it correctly. Many on this site have noted it is a bit tricky to get the timing down correctly. Is this constructive and accurate enough for you?

 

2021 here. Had the front end shimmy while braking. Just swapped out rotors and pads today at 23K with another round of OEM. Hoping to get at least 30K on the next run, but we’ll see. TBH, I’m probably pretty aggressive with my braking.

 

That would make sense, I'm at 70k on oem brakes hoping to get 100k before I have to replace them