Off-Road Luxury for the Whole Family
Story & Photos By: Brandon Bunch
It certainly is fitting to see a Toyota Sequoia sitting in front of a mall, cruising down the Strip, or parked in the dirt next to a soccer field, but now in 2020 you might start seeing the big 7-seat Toyota SUV popping up in places a little more rural… With the introduction of the 2020 Toyota Sequoia TRD Pro, Toyota has breathed new life into this aging platform. The current generation Sequoia has been around for a long 12 years now, but adding on this serious off-road package opens up this vehicle to a whole new demographic.
As a Toyota fan and 4Runner owner myself, I’ve always had an eye for the Sequoia with it’s extremely spacious interior and powerful V8, but limited options to upgrade the suspension for severe off-road duty use always led me away from the full-size SUV. With this occupation I spend a lot of time off-road in my 4Runner, usually loaded down with camera gear and often traversing terrain that is far more suitable for a UTV rather than an SUV… So we couldn’t think of a better real-world way to put the Sequoia TRD Pro to the test than loading it full of gear, and taking it to Vegas for a week to shoot the 2020 The Mint 400.
The Sequoia features roomy seating for seven, by way of having two captain’s chairs in the second row, and a power-folding third row bench seat in the back. With just two humans loading up for this adventure, I was able to quickly stow away the rear bench seat, fold down the captain’s chairs, and open up the cavernous cargo area to fit all of our camera gear and luggage with lots of room to spare. It was a nice departure from having to play Tetris loading gear into the back of my 4Runner.
As we set off for our two and a half hour drive to Vegas, the first thing I noticed was how incredibly comfortable, quiet, and stable the Sequoia TRD Pro is. Road noise was minimal even on the rough crack-filled Highway 95 that runs north through Searchlight, NV, and the smoothness reduces the sensation of speed so much that I found myself easily creeping up over 90 mph when not using cruise control (Oops). The 5.7L V8 and 6-speed automatic transmission didn’t help with my lead-foot driving style either, as it delivers 381 horsepower and 401 ft-lbs of torque with finesse despite having been introduced many years ago now, and it sounds meaty with the TRD Performance exhaust system. One place where the Sequoia does show its age however is efficiency—although I did my best to drive economically most of the time, I received an average of 13 MPG over the whole trip which is just below the EPA’s 14 MPG combined rating. Not so good in this era of full-size vehicles with small displacement turbo-charged engines.
The Sequoia TRD Pro is up to date in the technology department however, coming equipped with Toyota Safety Sense P, or TSS-P for short. Utilizing millimeter-wave radar combined with a forward facing camera capable of shape recognition, the TSS-P system offers Pre-Collision and Pedestrian Detection warnings, and will even slam on the brakes for you in the event of impending doom. TSS-P also offers Dynamic Radar Cruise Control with Lane Departure Alert and blind spot monitoring, which can be a life saver should you get too lost in the music blasting from the fantastic JBL 14-speaker sound system. The 7” touchscreen mounted in the dash is compatible with Apple CarPlay, Android Auto, and Amazon Alexa, and features Dynamic Navigation that’s actually pretty user friendly… I still found myself using navigation through Apple CarPlay as I utilize my iPhone for everything.
The Sequoia felt at home as we cruised down the Strip in Las Vegas, but come race day it was time to venture out into the brutal desert that stretches out west of the city. The Sequoia TRD Pro features 2.5” Fox Internal Bypass shocks up front, which include seven compression and two rebound zones to give fine control of damping performance throughout the range of motion, 2” Fox shocks out back, and boy do they work. When traversing over the nasty washboard bumps and rocky hard packed trails that led to our shoot spots, the suspension worked incredibly well in combination with the lightweight BBS forged aluminum wheels to provide a smooth, quiet, and comfortable ride.
Even when charging into some of the rougher terrain at speed, the heavy weight of the Sequoia was well controlled and braking performance was much better than expected—a testament to the tires remaining well connected with the ground. While very comfortable, the TRD Pro suspension is still no long-travel as the Sequoia would easily find the bump stops, or even the ¼ inch aluminum skid plate when hitting bigger bumps or rolling through whoops with too much enthusiasm.
Despite the occasional bottom-out over the two days of driving back and forth across the desert, I felt perfectly comfortable leaving my cameras sitting loose on the center console or rear seat without having to worry about them being violently tossed about. When faced with a steep and windy rain-rutted hill climb we locked the transfer case and selected 4WD-low, and the Sequoia TRD Pro easily tractored its way to the top. We even managed to three-wheel the beast when crossing through the rain rut (scaring Elizabeth who was driving at the time), but the Sequoia wasn’t even phased.
After a long week and over 400 miles I was sad to hand over the keys to the Sequoia TRD Pro. But at $67,029 with accessories and fees, this SUV is far too big and expensive to be the desert basher that I require on a daily basis. While the TRD Pro suspension does ride very well on really rough terrain, the overall size and weight of the Sequoia combined with the still-not-great ground clearance definitely limits the places you can go when compared with something more nimble, like the 4Runner. Having the ability to tow 7100 lbs and comfortably seat 7 people however, makes the Sequoia perfectly suited for the off-road family that’s loading up the kids and towing the toys out into the dirt for a long weekend of fun.