Toyota Develops 3-Piece Bumper for '14 Tundra
The new design is easier for assembly-line workers to install, and should lower repair costs for consumers, says the truck’s chief engineer.
November 4, 2013
While most elements of the Toyota Tundra are mildly refreshed for ’14, a few received a more thorough makeover.
The fullsize truck’s bumpers are a case in point.
Toyota has gone from standard 1-piece bumpers to a new 3-piece design, a change partly inspired by ’14 Tundra Chief Engineer Mike Sweers’ side job.
“I’ve got high-school kids driving my trucks,” Sweers, also a Michigan farmer, tells WardsAuto at a ’14 Tundra media event. “They back ’em up into wagons. They try to be careful, but I think you can look at anyone using a truck – sooner or later you bang into (something).
“Me, as a customer, I’m really not happy with the (outgoing Tundra’s) bumper,” he says.
But it wasn’t Sweers’ experience alone that led to the 3-piece construction.
Workers at the Tundra’s San Antonio assembly plant requested a design that was easier to bring into the plant, offload and install on the truck.
So Sweers challenged his engineering team to come up with a solution that addressed both repair costs and ease of installation.
“The handling of this monster unit was really difficult for us,” he says, noting the scant space between vehicles on the assembly line. “The (outgoing) bumper fit in the plant, but it’s difficult to handle because our hitch and our bumper comes in as a 1-piece modular unit.”
The outgoing Tundra’s 1-piece bumper was part of a past directive at Toyota to over-engineer parts or components.
“We’d run our hitch design way down the frame to help distribute some load along the frame, and my request to (the engineering team) was feel free to optimize that design – shorten that rail up a little bit so it’s easier to handle in the front.”
Having the new Tundra bumpers sectioned into separate pieces that can be assembled in the plant proved the solution.
The three pieces are bolted together, with a plastic cover concealing each bolt. The pieces attach to a truss to bolster rigidity.
Engineers working on the 3-piece design “came up with a new (testing) standard: When you step on the bumper, how much deflection do you have?” Sweers says. “They wanted it to be best-in-class, so we’ve got a truss, just like you’d put in a house, stamped out of steel.”
The ’14 Tundra’s rear bumper should move less than a millimeter, even with 150 lbs. (68 kg) of weight on it.
Sweers says the cost to replace the ’07-’13 Tundra’s bumper wasn’t any higher than that of competing bumpers. “It was just (my) personal complaint, because I put three bumpers on and (thought), ‘Wow, this is getting really expensive.’”
Replacement bumper covers sold online for the early years of the third-generation Tundra cost anywhere from just under $200 to $500. Costs climb higher if reinforcement or support bars also are replaced.
The ’14 Tundra went on sale Oct. 1 at U.S. Toyota dealers.
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