My New Used Tundra - The Good The Bad The Ugly

[rkic]

So I bought a 2005 Doublecab Tundra off the internet in the Dallas/Fr Worth area. The seller had lots of photos and a good reputation off ebay, and the BBB so I bit. I flew over and picked up the truck, visited my parents south of DFW and then drove the truck home to Albuquerque.

First, the good. It's a 2005 Doublecab with SR5 package. Everything is still tight. White color - kind of bland but good here in sunny New Mexico plus I'm just partial to white vehicles. Compass and temp on the auto dimming mirror, Undercover tonneau cover. Stock single disk CD/radion player - sounds okay. Auto 5 speed tranny. Found LSD sticker on rear differential - so that's cool. Came with tow package - even though I don't tow. And step bars. Truck runs strong. Gas mileage so far averages 14.7 - 17.8 MPG. Not too bad I think.

The bad. 84,000 miles! The first thing I had done was a oil change. Then I took the truck and had the tranny flushed with Toyota's WS tranny fluid. Old brown fluid out and bright new WS in. I was able to watch the whole procedure with the technician. The 265 70 R16's needed to be balanced. One tire so far out that I'm having all four replaced with 245 75 R16's. This was an expense that I wasn't anticipating. I'm making arrangements to have the belt, water pump, tensioners replaced in the next few months.

Now the ugly. The previous owner was a smoker so I've been airing it out as much as possible in the cold weather. Yecch! I may try the ionizer technique that I read about on this board.
Toyota Experience said that this truck has heated mirrors and keyless entry. I can not find the switch for the heated mirrors and I have disassembled the lower dashboard and I can not see that there has ever been a keyless alarm installed. So I'm going to buy a kit and install it.
Again, another unanticipated expense. Plus I've bought two key fobs (HYQ12BBX) so far based upon the feedback from the Experience operator. Hope they will work with the factory kit I'm planning on installing - anybody know?

In summation, I'm pretty happy with this truck all things said. I'm not hard on vehicles (anymore!) so after I get the maintenance done I expect to have this truck for awhile.

Thanks for this great site. Lots of information here about my new used Tundra.

[Spectra06DC]

Congrats on the new truck. I bought my 06 limited new and it showed heated mirrors on the window sticker. I couldn't find the switch for them when I got it home. Looked in the owners manual and it shows that they work off the rear window defroster swich. So when you turn on the rear defroster that turns on the sideview mirrors heating elements also. The switch is on the lower right of the center dash area below the radio.
Also, A friend of mine bought a BMW that had been smoked in. He tried everything. He heard that if you wad up old newspaper and pretty much fill the whole passenger area that that would take the smell out. Thats what he did and it worked.

[peterdaniel]

[QUOTE He heard that if you wad up old newspaper and pretty much fill the whole passenger area that that would take the smell out. Thats what he did and it worked.[/quote]

Wow, care to explain how that works? Does it matter is its the times or the daily news???

[cmb]

The local liberal rag in Baltimore would bring plenty of it's own smell so you may end up with worse than you started! I've read on other sites about newspaper absorbing odors but it takes a while.Most times baking powder works really well if you can put enough of it around and leave it.Maybe put it in flat containers and sprinkle some of it where it can be vacumed up later.I'm sure these great folks here will come up with some ideas to help.

[tundo]

My Tundra also came from Texas. The guy I bought it from was a chain smoker who I swore smoked in the dam thing with the windows rolled up for all 90,000 of the miles he owned it. Anyhow, I ended up shampooing the interior twice, I sprayed out the heating fan (behind the dash) with a variety of chemicals 5 times, ran different types of odor killing chemicals down all the vents, even went so far as to changing out the headliner. While there still is a faint odor of smoke in the truck, I believe I cleaned the interior well enough to disguise the smoke for the next buyer. Your best bet is just to wait. Maybe rent a shampoo cleaner and run it through the interior once just to get the nicotine residue off the upholstery. Also, leave a window cracked every night to air it out. Here I am about 14 months later with my truck and it is pretty good. You still will get that smoke smell coming out of the vents (particularly when you use the heat) so get some of those air fresheners that plug into the vents. Those help keep the smell at a minimal. If you plan on keeping the truck for a while (sounds like you are), it will eventually fade away. Not completely but at least to a bearable level. Then again, I doubt your truck was as bad as mine was.

Ryan

[tundo]

BTW, newspaper did not work in my truck. Baking powder did not work. Cutting up fruit did not work. I bought a de-ionizer and it helped but not entirely. Most all odor sprays that you find at the store won't work. Honestly, in my experience there was not a single thing that I used that "solved" the problem. Some helped more than others but it wasn't a night and day difference. I never did get around to trying an industrial de-ionizer but those are quite expensive to rent based on the shopping that I did. A good shampoo and just waiting it out will be your best bet. Trust me, I did and tried almost everything out there and you can if you want, but you end up spending more time and money than its worth. Once you remove the residue, the rest will air itself out over time. Remember though, shampoo the headliner when you do it. This is really important since the headliner does trap a lot of the nicotine tar.

Ryan

[TRDSport]

Couple questions about what the ebay ad EXACTLY said.

Did the ad say it had 84,000 miles?

Did the ad say it had been smoked in?

If the ad did not clearly state both of these, you may have grounds to get your money back from the seller due to false advertising/not disclosing everything. If you think this is something you may want to do, I would suggest talking to ebay first to see whether or not they would support your claim. Something to think about.

[Tundra_Hick]

Try putting a male cat in the cab, let it mark its territory, it will cover the smell of the smoke. lol

[DCTUNDRA]

Go to your local rental house and rent an Ozone generator. Typical cost for a substantial one around here is $50/day $150/week. Plug it in and let it sit inside for about 4hrs, then start the vehicle and let the engine run with the system on recirculate, let the Ozone generator run for another hour or so with the A/C running on recirculate. Shut everything off and leave it closed up for another couple of hours and then open all doors and let fresh air inside.

It is not safe for you to be inside the vehicle with the Ozone machine running or to spend any time inside the vehicle after the generator has been running - until the Ozone has "decayed" to regular Oxygen. Ozone is unstable and will degrade in a couple of hours. After that, it's just Oxygen.

I have run one of these generators for a week continuously when working in cetain homes. Note: no one nor any pets are inside when I've done this.

[dngrkit]

It's been my experence that ebay dosen't like bad reviews. After a seller lied as to the delivery date, his inventory was stolen? and promised expedited shipping, truned out to be ground I tried to give the seller a bad review, not very easy to do so I gave him a ok review but if anyone bothered to read it they would know better.

It's weird driving from Ca. to Texas, suddenly you walk in a restruant and everyone is smoking inside.. That's when I know I am getting close to Texas, one other trait is a strange TEXAS IDENITY people who live their are more TEXAN vs being US citizens & taking a Northerner is just fine...

Look at our want to be King, he dosen't know or care about the constitution was able to service his rich friends like Exxon and to hell with everyone else until the last election.

[Buckeyefan]

Originally Posted by tundo

BTW, newspaper did not work in my truck. Baking powder did not work. Cutting up fruit did not work. I bought a de-ionizer and it helped but not entirely. Most all odor sprays that you find at the store won't work. Honestly, in my experience there was not a single thing that I used that "solved" the problem. Some helped more than others but it wasn't a night and day difference. I never did get around to trying an industrial de-ionizer but those are quite expensive to rent based on the shopping that I did. A good shampoo and just waiting it out will be your best bet. Trust me, I did and tried almost everything out there and you can if you want, but you end up spending more time and money than its worth. Once you remove the residue, the rest will air itself out over time. Remember though, shampoo the headliner when you do it. This is really important since the headliner does trap a lot of the nicotine tar.

Ryan

I bought a used truck at a really great price b/c it was way over the lease mileage, and had a "wet" dog smell. We got rid of it by pulling out the seats, vacuuming everything, shampooing, and most importantly, taking a wet/dry vac (a big one) and using the "blowing" portion to blow it through the hvac system. Some of these vehicles have filters that recirculate the air. You can do all the shampooing of the headliner, but if that filter has smoke in it, you're still gonna get that smell. Try the shop vac method and blow out the dash/vents while all the windows are down.

[swindler]

"It's weird driving from Ca. to Texas, suddenly you walk in a restruant and everyone is smoking inside.. That's when I know I am getting close to Texas, one other trait is a strange TEXAS IDENITY people who live their are more TEXAN vs being US citizens & taking a Northerner is just fine...

Look at our want to be King, he dosen't know or care about the constitution was able to service his rich friends like Exxon and to hell with everyone else until the last election."


When did this thread become a political debate? We don't hate all northerners, just people that do nothing but find insignificant things to complain about. Typical. People don't like our president so they don't like TX either. That's like me saying I don't like hippies so I don't like California. I don't really think that, just making a point.

[Toyota4ever]

Reading the thread with lots of mention of shampoo and it makes me think of a question of my own. I have an '02 Tundra SR5 Access Cab with cloth seats and I'd like to shampoo the carpet, seats, cloth door panels and head liner. Can anyone recommend a good shampoo for the job? Any threads on this kind of maintenance?

Mark
Bend, OR

[skinny2]

Why such small tires? 245 is pretty narrow...about 3/4" narrower than stock. Shorter too.

[HOGWILD]

Originally Posted by rkic

So I bought a 2005 Doublecab Tundra off the internet in the Dallas/Fr Worth area. The seller had lots of photos and a good reputation off ebay, and the BBB so I bit. I flew over and picked up the truck, visited my parents south of DFW and then drove the truck home to Albuquerque.

First, the good. It's a 2005 Doublecab with SR5 package. Everything is still tight. White color - kind of bland but good here in sunny New Mexico plus I'm just partial to white vehicles. Compass and temp on the auto dimming mirror, Undercover tonneau cover. Stock single disk CD/radion player - sounds okay. Auto 5 speed tranny. Found LSD sticker on rear differential - so that's cool. Came with tow package - even though I don't tow. And step bars. Truck runs strong. Gas mileage so far averages 14.7 - 17.8 MPG. Not too bad I think.

The bad. 84,000 miles! The first thing I had done was a oil change. Then I took the truck and had the tranny flushed with Toyota's WS tranny fluid. Old brown fluid out and bright new WS in. I was able to watch the whole procedure with the technician. The 265 70 R16's needed to be balanced. One tire so far out that I'm having all four replaced with 245 75 R16's. This was an expense that I wasn't anticipating. I'm making arrangements to have the belt, water pump, tensioners replaced in the next few months.

Now the ugly. The previous owner was a smoker so I've been airing it out as much as possible in the cold weather. Yecch! I may try the ionizer technique that I read about on this board.
Toyota Experience said that this truck has heated mirrors and keyless entry. I can not find the switch for the heated mirrors and I have disassembled the lower dashboard and I can not see that there has ever been a keyless alarm installed. So I'm going to buy a kit and install it.
Again, another unanticipated expense. Plus I've bought two key fobs (HYQ12BBX) so far based upon the feedback from the Experience operator. Hope they will work with the factory kit I'm planning on installing - anybody know?

In summation, I'm pretty happy with this truck all things said. I'm not hard on vehicles (anymore!) so after I get the maintenance done I expect to have this truck for awhile.

Thanks for this great site. Lots of information here about my new used Tundra.

Cruiser Dan at American is the MAN!! He knows a TON and can answer just about any question ya got in reference to what part works with what systems!!