2025 Toyota Tundra Review and Test Drive

The new 2025 Tundra TRD Rally is ready for off-roading in style.

James Riswick | 

Apr 11, 2025 | 7 min read

James Riswick

The TRD Rally is a mid-grade off-roader comparable to the Chevy Silverado LT Trail Boss, Ford F-150 Tremor, and Ram 1500 Rebel. Toyota bases it on the SR5 trim level, adding off-road-oriented upgrades, special styling flourishes, and desirable creature comforts.

The Texas-built Tundra is available in 10 trim levels, and prices range from about $42,000 to $83,000. For this review, I test-drove the Tundra TRD Rally in Southern California. The TRD Rally option package costs $8,660, and my test vehicle also had a few relatively inexpensive accessories that brought the manufacturer's suggested retail price to $62,442, including the $1,945 destination charge. Toyota provided the vehicle for this Tundra review.

James Riswick

Is the 2025 Toyota Tundra a Good Truck?

As you might expect with a full-size truck, there are so many variations of the Tundra that the competitiveness and desirability of each can vary. While other versions of the Tundra have underwhelmed me, including the TRD Pro, I found the less expensive, SR5-based TRD Rally to be more appealing. Its performance on and off-road, interior quality and usability, and relatively accessible price all add up to a more competitive package.

James Riswick

What's New for the 2025 Toyota Tundra?

The TRD Rally option package is the main update for the 2025 Toyota Tundra. Highlights include a bunch of exterior and interior tri-color stripes, a Toyota Racing Development (TRD) exhaust, all-terrain tires, Bilstein shocks, skid plates, a locking rear differential, Multi-Terrain Select off-road drive modes, and a Crawl Control off-road cruise control system. In addition, it features dual-zone automatic climate control, heated power front seats, SofTex simulated leather upholstery, and technology upgrades.

Elsewhere in the lineup, the 1794, Platinum, and Capstone trims now come standard with massaging front seats for the 2025 model year. Other new options include a wireless trailer-camera system and a power tailgate with a knee-lift-assist function.

James Riswick

More of an Off-Roader Than It Looks

The TRD Rally doesn't have as much of a macho vibe as the Chevy Trail Boss, Ford Tremor, or Ram Rebel. If anything, it looks more like a roadgoing truck with its racy stripes and black fender flares that create the optical illusion of it being lower to the ground than it really is. Even its Michelin LTX Trail all-terrain tires don't look as knobby and hardcore as those of its competitors.

As such, I wasn't expecting much when I steered the TRD Rally off the pavement and onto my local off-roading trail. I prepared myself for slipping tires and painful underbody scraping. Nope! The TRD Rally tackled everything and went everywhere I'd taken the seemingly more hardcore Ram 1500 Warlock three weeks prior.

For example, the TRD Rally safely traversed a body-twisting, bumper-crunching collection of downhill gullies with a bit of help from the truck's excellent multi-angle forward camera system. I then turned around and went through it all uphill. Again, no problem. After the truck aced some more tests, I threw a few more challenges at it.

James Riswick

There's an extra-steep hill with deep ruts and loose dirt that I've never attempted before because, well, it looks gnarly. But the TRD Rally had easily passed every test thus far, so why not? I selected 4WD Low and the Multi-Terrain Select (MTS) system's Dirt setting. It was a severe challenge, and MTS-Dirt mode was clearly preventing tire slippage (it uses the brakes, which were a bit smelly afterward), but hey, the TRD Rally pulled it off. It may look street racy, but it performs like a mountain goat.

I came back down the hill on a smoother path, which let me test the Crawl Control and Hill Descent Control systems. I set the speed and let the truck brake itself down. Toyota's older hill-descent systems pulsed the brakes in a way that made it sound like a machine gun firing under the front bumper. It no longer makes that racket.

Suitably impressed, I returned to the road, where the Tundra showed that it's not a dynamic equal to the Ram 1500. The suspension transmits more bumps into the cabin (especially on the highway), the steering is less precise, and it's generally less refined.

The all-terrain tires wrapped around 18-inch wheels didn't add as much impact harshness or noise as I feared, though, and the ride with them was ultimately more comfortable than that of a Tundra I previously tested with 20-inch wheels and low-profile tires.

James Riswick

The TRD Rally Comes Standard With a Twin-Turbo V6

The new Tundra TRD Rally is equipped as standard with a twin-turbocharged 3.4-liter V6. In this trim, it produces 389 horsepower and 479 pound-feet of torque. Some Tundras have an i-Force Max hybrid powertrain producing 437 horsepower and 583 lb-ft, but that setup is unavailable with the TRD Rally package.

Like the turbo sixes of other full-size trucks, the Tundra's twin-turbo 3.4-liter is incredibly smooth and not wanting for acceleration. It never crossed my mind that I would need or even want more power than this engine provides.

Although the upgrade engine is a hybrid, its electric motor boosts performance more than fuel economy. The difference between the two engines is only 1 mpg in combined driving: 20 mpg for the hybrid with four-wheel drive (4WD) and 19 mpg for the non-hybrid 4WD V6. I missed that mark by a mile, getting only 14.5 mpg in my 133 miles of mixed driving. But that's what I got in a hybrid-equipped Tundra in similar driving scenarios, as well.

This was also my first chance to test something other than a top Tundra trim level. Unlike a TRD Pro or Platinum, the TRD Rally has analog instead of digital gauges, the seats are heated but not ventilated, and the roof is solid metal instead of panoramic glass. I can't say I missed any of the upgrades.

James Riswick

Besides, the TRD Rally still has a leather-wrapped steering wheel, and the Tundra lineup's biggest-available 14.0-inch touchscreen. As such, the TRD Rally's equipment and the quality of materials should land in the Goldilocks zone for most truck buyers.

I also appreciated the TRD Rally's yellow-orange-red stripe motif. It would've been easy for the company to stop at the tri-color dash sticker, but the matching upholstery and stitching are cohesive, extra-mile details that increase the truck's cool factor and value beyond other Tundras.

Undoubtedly, the TRD Rally is a good value. Only the Chevrolet Silverado LT Trail Boss is cheaper, but that's with its less powerful turbocharged four-cylinder base engine. The Ford F-150 Tremor costs thousands more, but its engine choices have more horsepower than the Toyota non-hybrid V6. It's a similar story with the Ram 1500 Rebel.

James Riswick

This test showed that the Tundra's mid-grade trim level is just as competitive, if not more so, than a top-shelf version of Toyota's full-size truck. Having spent a week driving the 2025 Toyota Tundra TRD Rally, I think it's easy to start questioning whether the Tundra TRD Pro is worth nearly $13,000 more.

All vehicle pricing includes MSRP plus destination charges (set at the time of publication), and will be rounded to the nearest thousand.

James Riswick

James Riswick has been testing cars and writing about them for more than 20 years. He was the senior reviews editor for Autoblog and previously served multiple editor roles at Edmunds. He has also contributed to Autotrader, Car and Driver, Hagerty, J.D. Power, and Autoguide Magazine. He has been interested in cars forever; his mom took him to the Toronto Auto Show when he was 18 months old and he has attended at least one every year since (OK, except in 2020). When he's not testing the latest cars, he has a babied 1998 BMW Z3 in James Bond blue, a 2013 Mercedes-Benz E350 Wagon, and a 2023 Kia Niro EV.