I Love My GMT800. So Why Do I Keep Looking at Tundras?

Aug 12

I love my Yukon.

Not in the fake internet way where somebody says they love their old truck right before explaining why they’re replacing absolutely everything on it.

I genuinely love it.

It’s a 2003 Yukon Denali with the 6.0, it’s comfortable, it still feels nice enough inside, it sounds good, it hauls the family, and it has proven itself to be exactly the kind of old vehicle I’ve grown to appreciate more as I’ve gotten older.

Which is funny, because I wasn’t always like this.

There was a stretch of my life where I had a new lease every year.

I worked at a dealership. Buying cars there didn’t bother me because I could basically do it while I was working. If the salesman needed something, he could come find me at my desk. I wasn’t spending my Saturday sitting under fluorescent lights waiting for somebody to “go talk to the manager.”

Now?

I fucking hate buying cars at dealerships.

Nothing against salespeople. I’ve spent enough time around the business to know how it all works.

I just don’t want to lose an entire day of my life buying something.

And maybe that’s part of why my taste in vehicles has changed too.

I used to like new.

Now I like proven.

The Yukon Does Everything I Need

The Yukon is our toy vehicle.

Technically, it’s my third vehicle.

I have a company vehicle for work. My wife has her own car.

The Yukon is the thing we take when we’re doing something.

Beach.

Road trip.

Car show.

Paddleboard.

Kayak.

Bikes.

Random family nonsense.

My five-year-old is into basically everything, and I’m assuming that’s going to continue for the foreseeable future.

The Yukon will tow our trailer.

Full disclosure: our trailer is currently imaginary.

It’ll tow our boat too.

Also full disclosure: depending on which boat we’re referring to, that one is either imaginary or inflatable.

So no, I’m not exactly pushing the limits of the 6.0 V8.

But I still like having it.

I like knowing there’s a dependable V8 under the hood.

I like the sound of a V8.

I like the simplicity.

I like that it feels like a machine instead of a software platform with tires.

The Yukon is more than capable of handling our life.

There’s just one problem.

I want a bed.

A Bed Would Make Life Easier

This is not some grand towing-capacity decision.

I am not suddenly hauling excavators.

I am not starting a landscaping business.

I just keep realizing how much easier life would be with a pickup bed.

My e-bike is huge.

My son has his bike.

We have a kayak.

We have a paddleboard.

We have beach gear, life jackets, chairs, tools and whatever other crap somehow accumulates every time we leave the house.

The Yukon can carry all of this.

Believe me.

I have tested its limits.

But there’s something very appealing about throwing dirty, wet, awkward stuff in a bed and closing the tailgate.

No folding seats.

No careful packing.

No worrying about soaking the carpet.

No trying to figure out whether a bicycle pedal is about to punch a hole in an interior panel.

Just throw it in the back.

That sounds pretty good.

So I started looking at pickups.

Which is always how bad financial decisions begin.

Then I Found a First-Gen Tundra

I’ve always liked first-generation Tundras.

I like the way they look.

I like the size.

And I really like the 4.7.

The 2UZ-FE has one of those reputations that makes otherwise reasonable people say completely ridiculous things like:

“270,000 kilometres? That’s not bad.”

On a 20-plus-year-old truck.

And somehow they’re not wrong.

That engine has earned its reputation.

It’s simple.

It’s naturally aspirated.

It’s a V8.

It’s proven.

All things I apparently care about more now than I did when I was younger and swapping into a new lease every twelve months.

There’s also something weirdly perfect about the size of the first-gen Tundra today.

When they were new, people complained they weren’t really full-size enough.

Now everything has gotten so fucking enormous that the old Tundra suddenly looks just right.

Especially the Double Cab.

It’s big enough for the family.

Big enough to be useful.

But it doesn’t look like I need a commercial driver’s licence to park it at Save-On-Foods.

Of Course, the One I Found Isn’t Quite Right

The one currently tempting me is around eight grand.

Double Cab.

4.7.

Decent kilometres.

Exactly the general formula I want.

And it’s about two hours away.

If it were local, I would have already been crawling underneath it and embarrassing myself in the parking lot.

But I’m not driving two hours just to find out the pictures were flattering.

And even in the pictures, it needs work.

Cosmetically, it’s tired.

That doesn’t scare me.

Honestly, part of the fun is bringing an old vehicle back.

Fix the ugly stuff.

Catch up on maintenance.

Replace worn bits.

Make it nicer.

Drive it.

Repeat.

That sounds far more appealing to me now than handing over a stupid amount of money for something new and then being scared to scratch it.

But if I can already see a bunch of stuff wrong in the photos, I assume there’s more waiting in person.

There always is.

Old vehicles don’t surprise you by being better than expected very often.

If It Were a Limited, This Article Might Be About My New Truck

This whole search has taught me something else.

Apparently I’m fancier than I thought.

The Yukon is old.

But it’s a Denali.

It has leather.

Heated seats.

Automatic climate control.

Wood trim.

Comfortable seats.

All the ridiculous luxury stuff GM could cram into a truck in 2003.

And I like it.

I like getting into an old vehicle that still feels nice.

I don’t need a giant touchscreen.

I don’t need massaging seats.

I don’t need 14 different ambient lighting colours.

But I also don’t want to spend the next ten years sitting on grey cloth in something that feels like a fleet truck.

I thought drivetrain and condition would be everything.

Turns out trim matters too.

Because if that Tundra were a clean Limited?

I’m not sure I’d still be writing this.

I probably would have already been there humping the back bumper and throwing my wallet at somebody.

Which is irritating information to learn about yourself.

Do I Just Buy Another GMT800?

That’s the obvious question.

I already know GMT800s.

I trust them.

I like them.

Parts are everywhere.

I know what goes wrong.

I know how they drive.

I know how comfortable they are.

And the 5.3 and 6.0 are exactly the kind of engines I like.

So the sensible thing might be to find a nice GMT800 Crew Cab and keep going.

But I don’t know if I want to commit to the same platform forever.

I’ve done the GMT800 thing.

I love the GMT800 thing.

Maybe that’s exactly why trying another legendary old platform sounds appealing.

The first-gen Tundra is almost the Toyota version of the same philosophy.

Simple.

Proven.

V8.

Old enough to be affordable.

New enough to still be usable every day.

Not packed with 4,000 computers waiting to get offended because a sensor saw a cloud.

Buy it.

Fix it.

Maintain it.

Enjoy it.

That’s increasingly how I think about vehicles now.

Apparently I’m Becoming an Old Man

Maybe this is just what happens.

You get older.

You stop caring about having the newest thing.

You start caring about whether the thing you own is actually good.

You want it comfortable.

You want it dependable.

You want parts to exist.

You want to be able to fix it.

And if it sounds good when you start it, even better.

I’m not anti-new-car.

If somebody wants to hand me a brand-new truck, I will happily refrigerate my ass in ventilated seats and enjoy every minute of it.

But spending my own money?

I’m increasingly drawn to the idea of buying vehicles that already proved themselves.

The Yukon did.

The first-gen Tundra definitely did.

And I think that’s why I keep going back to the ad.

I don’t need it.

It isn’t exactly the spec I want.

It’s two hours away.

It needs work.

And I already own a vehicle I adore.

So naturally, I’ve looked at it about 900 times.

This is probably going to get worse before it gets better.