I've always been an avid reader of Truck Trend, but you've finally managed to back me into a corner pulling my hair out. You write about how Toyota managed to post the only growing sales in the full-size pickup market for 2007 and laud them with the TOTY award. I normally wouldn't blink an eye to such articles except for the fact I have yet to see Toyota actually field a "full-size" production pickup with tow/haul ratings akin to those of one-ton diesels the other domestic manufacturers produce. Fortunately, all it took for me to understand why this happened when I read the letters from the editor. You wrote in a response to a comparison between the Tundra CrewMax and the Sierra Denali the Tundra managed to best the Denali payload by 300 pounds with a curb weight of almost 500 pounds more and yet a GVWR of only 200 pounds more. This may seem like a simple typo to some, but it's this kind of misstatement of numbers that sends less-knowledgeable truck buyers to the import dealers thinking they're buying more truck than they really are. Some simple checking of your numbers can prevent this kind of thing from happening and will let buyers on the fence pay for what they actually need. If I loaded a Tundra by the numbers you provided, I'd be overloading that truck by more than 600 pounds. I'd hate to be the one that has to pull that wreck out of the ditch with my "Truck of the Year Finalist."

Travis Epp
Del Rio, Texas

Dear Reader,

We put those quick specs together based on the numbers provided by the manufacturer. Unfortunately, whether it's because of miscalculations on their end or a little fudging of the numbers, their payload capacities aren't always right. According to the manufacturers' GVWR ratings and curb weights, the payload capacities for the Tundra CrewMax and GMC Sierra Denali are 1161 and 1417 pounds, respectively, despite the 1800 (Toyota) and 1500 (GMC) they claim.
 
 - Truck Trend