The 2023 Toyota Sequoia Is a Totally New, Surprisingly Cool Full-Size SUV

This is the new 2023 Toyota Sequoia and it's a full-size SUV with muscle. I'm referring to the styling of course which is bulky and brawny and pretty cool for a family SUV but there's a lot more to the new Sequoia than that so today I'm going to review the new Sequoia and show you everything. Before I get started be sure to check out Cars and Bids which is my enthusiast car auction website for cool cars from the modern era with free listings. You can list your cool car for free and auction it on Cars and Bids and we've had some great sales recently including this new Acura NSX sold for almost $150,000, this wonderful BMW M4 Coupe sold for over $46,000 and this great Honda S2000 brought $27,000. If you're looking to buy or sell a cool enthusiast car from the modern era, the 1980s and up, Cars and Bids is the place to do it with daily auctions and great selection at CarsAndBids.com. So let's talk Sequoia. The Sequoia first came out in the early 2000s, 20 years ago as Toyota's full-size SUV alternative to the Ford Expedition and the Chevy Tahoe. The last time the Sequoia was redesigned is 2008 so the old model was old with an ancient design and ancient technology but now there's a new one with new brawny styling and a big upgrade under the hood, hybrid power for better fuel economy and today I'm going to show you everything. First I'll take you on a thorough tour of the new Sequoia and show you all of its interesting quirks and features then I'll get it out on the road and drive it and then I'll give it a Doug's score. Alright time for the quirks and features and I'm going to start with maybe the most significant upgrade of all for the new Sequoia and that would be the powertrain. Now the old Sequoia used a 5.7 liter V8 that was beloved. It was reliable and muscular and had lots of torque and it could pull stuff but it was also outdated and inefficient. The new Sequoia no longer offers a V8. It's gone. Instead you have a twin turbo hybrid V6. This is the same powertrain that is optional in the Tundra, Toyota's full-size pickup. It has a base level twin turbo V6 or you can step up to this engine which is standard in the Sequoia and before you go thinking that a turbo hybrid V6 is too wimpy for a big brawny SUV like this, listen to some numbers. For one thing power 437 horsepower and 583 pound-feet of torque. Those are serious numbers on their own and they're way more than the old V8, about 55 horsepower more and 180 more pound-feet with this V6 compared to that outgoing V8. So more power and torque and there's more. How about fuel economy? Although the official numbers haven't yet been released, the Tundra that has this engine gets around 22 miles per gallon in combined city and highway driving so you figure the Sequoia will be about the same. That's a huge improvement over the Chevy Tahoe with its V8 gets about 16 to 18 miles per gallon so this will likely be four to six miles per gallon more than the Tahoe with its twin turbo hybrid V6 and it has a lot more power. Now it's worth pointing out that Chevy does offer a diesel powered version of the Tahoe that gets fantastic fuel economy around 24 miles per gallon but this engine will only be a couple miles per gallon below that and it has 160 more horsepower and 120 more pound-feet of torque. So significantly more powerful, significantly more torque and only a little fuel economy penalty even compared to the diesel Tahoe which sounds like a pretty good trade-off. And the new Sequoia can tow. It's rated to tow around 9,000 pounds which puts it in the middle of the full-size SUV segment. So a lot to like under the hood and some interesting little easter eggs under here as well. If you look over at the side by the headlight you can see it says R&D with a map of Michigan. That's a nod to the fact that this truck was developed at Toyota's facility in Michigan but if you look over next to the headlight on the other side you can see born with a map of Texas which is there because this truck is built in Texas. So on one side you have the development and Michigan and the other side the production and Texas and a little easter egg under the hood which is kind of a cool touch. But in terms of easter eggs this vehicle has one of the most interesting and quirky and obscure hidden messages I have ever seen and it is located at the base of the windshield on the passenger side. You look there and you can see it says Toyota trucks with a mountain which looks kind of cool but if you look closer you'll notice the little dot windshield trim is inconsistent there. What exactly is going on? Well I recognize that this is morse code and so I translated it to the right of the Toyota trucks badge it says t-r-u-c-k-s trucks. So I figured okay to the left of the badge it must say Toyota but it doesn't. It says b-a-d-a-s-s badass meaning the morse code on the windshield of this truck translates to say badass trucks. That little message hidden in the windshield Toyota says badass in morse code. How could they? But anyway the other big noticeable change to the Sequoia while I'm out here is the styling which like I said is muscular and brawny and bulky and it just looks cool. In fact this truck created quite a hubbub when Toyota first revealed it online a few months ago which doesn't usually happen for full-size family SUVs. Most enthusiasts don't really care but people saw this and they liked how it looked and I gotta say in person it does have that brawny beefy look that you don't often get from vehicles in this segment but this is a look that's tremendously popular right now as off-road SUVs and trucks have been a huge success lately and I suspect the Sequoia will benefit greatly from its bulky muscular looks. In terms of specifics probably the most notable brawny athletic design touches on the outside are the square fenders over the wheel arches which really do give it a bulky look and also just more right angles and sharp lines you can see all throughout the design as opposed to kind of more basic simple flowing curves that don't exactly say aggressive SUV. Overall I really think the style of the new Sequoia is a big upgrade especially because Toyota has now canceled the Land Cruiser which was kind of their top-end off-road model and I think this will help fill some of the gap that the Land Cruiser leaves behind because it just looks tough and that's especially true because Toyota will be making a TRD Pro version of the new Sequoia which will be especially off-road oriented with standard four-wheel drive and a lift and some aggressive off-roader tires and some other major upgrades to make it more capable off the pavement. Combine that with this style and you should have kind of a Land Cruiser replacement on your hands. But while the TRD Pro will undoubtedly be cool this version is also pretty special. It's called the Capstone and it's a new top-of-the-line luxury trim level that's making its debut here in the new Toyota Sequoia and I gotta say it is gorgeous on the inside. Absolutely beautiful leather and wood and trim basically everywhere you look. A true luxury SUV in this interior fitting with the luxury Capstone top-of-the-line trim level. Some examples of the luxury in this Sequoia Capstone you get two-tone seats which have very beautiful perforated leather as you can see really does look luxury car. And you have nice leather all throughout the dashboard with stitching looks very attractive very high quality paired with a very nice flat wood that also looks very luxury car. They also didn't skimp on the door panels which as you can see are full of aluminum and wood and leather and stitching and gorgeous accents basically everywhere you can touch and see with the door closed it really is a luxurious vehicle and it really is luxurious everywhere. All surfaces are luxurious and nice which is important to mention because I sometimes criticize luxury versions of regular vehicles for not going the extra distance and making everything look good. A recent example is the new GMC Sierra Denali Ultimate which I just reviewed and there were some parts that just didn't look that nice like the center console as you can see here was a lot of cheap looking plastic. Well take a look at the Sequoia Capstone center console you have wood and gloss black trim and leather and stitching they really made sure everything was luxurious in here and it shows. Now one major focal point in this interior is the center screen absolutely massive 14-inch infotainment screen dominates the dashboard as you can see this 14-inch screen is standard in virtually all versions of the Sequoia except for the base model SR5 they all get the huge screen and frankly it's great really easy to use easy to read because it's so massive very responsive very intuitive it works pretty well although one disappointment of the screen I just don't understand why such a large screen can't show two different things at once you can't have the map and the radio shown at one time on this screen which just doesn't make any sense to me because it's so huge and in fact you go into the radio you can see you don't need the source display to be this large like the size of a license plate just to tap Sirius XM really make any sense why that's so big and why you can't do a split screen but that's a minor complaint for what's otherwise a fantastic system including a great navigation system you can see just looking at the map very easy to move it around zoom in out everything very responsive but destination entry is also tremendously easy just quickly type where you want to go the car finds it creates a route it's all very fast very simple and kind of what you're used to seeing and doing from your smartphone which is nice to see in an integrated navigation system now with that said one other bizarre drawback of this infotainment system is that it contains probably the most unusual 360 degree camera in the entire car industry you can turn it on and then it sort of rotates around the car but at its own pace you can pause it but you can't like go to a specific spot if you're trying to park you have to just wait for the camera to get there it makes absolutely no sense why they do it this way everyone else does it better but aside from that bizarre camera the rest of the cameras in this vehicle are fantastic high resolution very clear many different angles and you can do some things with these cameras you can't in other cars like for example focus more on one side or the other from the side view cans which can be very useful if you're parking up against a curb and you don't want to scrape the wheels or if you're off-roading and you don't want to go over certain terrain that's coming up on one side of the vehicle excellent camera system except for that weird surround 360 cam thing now i have to say i like the infotainment system a lot but i don't share the same sentiment for the gauge cluster you can see full screen full color high resolution gauge cluster which is a good thing except it's just not really all that usable only the panel on the left is actually configurable and changeable to what you want to see and so only this tiny part of this massive screen can actually really be used or adjusted by you and beyond that you can't get this gauge cluster to show you the navigation system or the map which would be very useful directly in the driver's line of sight a lot of automakers do that you can't hear and this adjustable panel is so tiny that you can see they end up having to abbreviate everything in order to actually make it fit onto the small part of the screen that's adjustable which isn't really very useful most people have no idea what these abbreviations mean you got to consult an owner's manual just to toggle these systems on or off a little disappointing this gauge screen but while the gauge screen and its displays might be a little small everything else in this interior is absolutely huge for example the gear selector old school big gear lever you move into gear instead of some new fangled twisty thing like a lot of new cars have how about the volume dial which is absolutely huge and even has like fake screws on it to make it seem like some really important screwed riveted dial that's just to control the volume of the stereo you have a similarly massive dial in the center console to adjust your drive mode you can see it here also with those little simulated screws and by the way it's worth pointing out this vehicle has six different drive modes which is pretty impressive for a large family suv that includes two different sport modes a sport and then a sport s plus just in case you didn't think sport mode was sporty enough for your sequoia there's like a track mode which really makes no sense but they have it now speaking of the center console another huge thing in here is all the adjustments and storage you have in the center console this little wood panel lifts up and reveals a small storage compartment you can put something in there directly below that you have a larger storage compartment in this plastic piece which you can move forward or backwards in case you want to hide your stuff or get into your larger center console and speaking of that you can open up this entire panel and then reveal this massive center console below for even more center storage so you got a lot of space to put a lot of stuff in this new sequoia and in terms of largeness in here worth pointing out that all of the buttons and switches in the center control stack are also pretty big these are the ones that adjust like the climate control as you can see some big toggle switches and below that the hazard lights traction control cameras all those buttons and switches are large toyota also does this in its pickup truck models and the reason for that is they want you to be able to use them while wearing work gloves they figure truck drivers or big suv drivers will be often wearing work gloves at a job site and so they figure making these controls bigger makes it easier to adjust with your work gloves on or frankly just cold weather normal gloves and so that's why they do that and by the way speaking of wearing gloves worth pointing out with this infotainment system you can adjust the sensitivity of the screen to account for wearing gloves which is a pretty cool idea a lot of people complain you're wearing gloves you can't adjust your screen and so that's why they hate so many functions on there well this screen you can kind of account for wearing gloves to make it easier to use while you're wearing them but anyway next we move on to the back seat in the new sequoia which i have to say is absolutely massive this is a big suv but it's not as insanely big as like a suburban or an excursion and yet the back seat is huge tons of space for adults anyone you want to put back here headroom legroom knee room hip room doesn't matter you got a lot of space back here it really is huge and another nice benefit back here it's just as nice as the front in back in this capstone model you have the same two-tone seats with the same beautiful perforated leather and once again you have nice trim on the door panels aluminum leather stitching everything looks pretty good even for your rear seat passengers now it's worth pointing out that this sequoia is equipped with second row captain's chairs meaning two individual seats in back but you can also get a bench seat back here meaning you can have eight person seating capacity in the new sequoia which is pretty nice some big suvs have given that up in favor of seven or even six but you can still get eight in here also worth pointing out that this version of the sequoia the capstone model has a rear seat climate control system you can see the adjustments here you can change fan speed air temperature all that stuff and you have heated and cooled rear seats back here that is pretty impressive you don't often see cooled rear seats in just about anything short of a rolls royce but here it is in the toyota sequoia capstone you also have power ports back here as you can see usb-a usb-c and a household port which is very useful for charging rear passenger devices by the way one other nice luxury touch back here is rear window sunshades they're not power operated you got to lift up this tab then you can kind of lift the sunshade and get it into these hooks and get it in place but it's nice to have rear sunshades for infants or toddlers in the back seat who may be more sensitive to sun but anyway next we move on to the third row in the new toyota sequoia now accessing the third row is quite easy you have a lever on the side of the second row seat you just pull it and the seat pretty much folds forward in one motion and then it moves out of the way and creates a pretty big space for you to climb into the third row which i shall now do very easily now the drawback of this third row access situation is that the entire seat has to fold down and forward in order to get you back here which means if you have a car seat in the second row seat you got to take it out first before you can move the seat forward and get anybody into the third row now before we actually get into the quirks and features the third row one cool thing still in the second row is this little button here on the side of the second row seat with like a seat and an arrow on it that button can fold up or down the third row seat from right here which is pretty cool to be able to do say you want to load some kids into the third row but you forgot that you had folded it down yesterday well you don't have to go all the way around to the back to the tailgate to fold the third row back up instead just press this button it folds back into place and then the the other important thing to talk about with the third row is seat room and i gotta say it's massive back here you have a lot of room in the third row even frankly for adults there's good space back here it's really pretty big now the third row can seat three across and i wouldn't really want to try that with adults but if you want to put two adults or three children back here you should have space it's a surprisingly roomy third row and one cool thing because this row is power folding like i showed you a minute ago you can also power adjust the backrest when you're sitting in the third row so a power seat adjustment for a rear and third row seat which you don't often see in most vehicles now one interesting drawback in the third row area of the new sequoia is the material they use on the sides of the third row area this cheap shiny plastic just looks incredibly unfinished and inexpensive it almost looks like it's a placeholder and they haven't yet put the actual material right here i guess they do this because this material is very durable and a lot of people are going to have this third row folded down and use this as a cargo area so stuff's going to bump around and hit it and they don't want it to get damaged but when you have the seats in place and people sitting back here it looks cheap but i guess toyota figure as well it's mostly kids in the third row they're not really going to care so we might as well just do that but it really looks like they cheaped out now worth pointing out with this third row you do have a usb-c port back here which is nice not everybody has charge ports in the third row but toyota does unfortunately it's only on one side the driver's side and not the other i'm not really sure why that is it would be nice to see two of them also worth pointing out you have rear sunshades back here which is nice so even third row passengers can be shielded from infants and toddlers that's a cool touch that almost nobody has but it's in the new sequoia by the way one other important item worth pointing out with the new sequoia is that all the seat belts for the rear seats second and third row have little belt holders attached to the sides of the vehicle on the inside you can see here this keeps the seat belt in place and i guess they do that for cargo space if you fold down all the seats and want to use the cargo area for storage then your seat belts won't get in the way so between that and the cheap shiny plastic they really did think through using this for its cargo capabilities in the back and speaking of the cargo area in the new sequoia a couple of interesting things back here worth noting for one thing you can open the glass separately from the tailgate you press this little button next to the toyota logo and it pops open and you can just open up the glass which is a very cool touch i wish more suvs had if you have some small item you want to load in you don't necessarily need to wait for the whole tailgate to open automatically just open the glass put it in and then close the glass right up and it's very simple and i love the toyota still doing that in the sequoia but anyway once you get inside the cargo area with the full tailgate you can see well the first thing you notice is there's not all that much space back here behind the third row i think in order to maximize passenger space which is huge they really cut down on cargo space as you can see however there are some clever solutions back here to increase your cargo space without folding down a seat and sacrificing your seating capacity one of them comes with these panels you can see on the side of the cargo area there's a few of them and the way this works is you can lift up the floor in the cargo area lift it up and then you can stick it in place on one of these panels and then you basically have two cargo floors the normal one and then the one you've just created which can hold more cargo which is a neat idea another nice benefit back here for maximizing your cargo space is that the third row seats can slide forward from the cargo area check this out pull this latch at the base of the third row and then you can push the seat forward now obviously this compromises third row seat leg room but it keeps the seat in place so you can sit someone back there and still increases your cargo capacity haven't seen that in other full-size suvs and i think that's a really clever idea but of course if you want to maximize your cargo space as much as possible you will want to fold down the third row which once again you can do with the push of a button over here on the side just press the seat you want to drop and then it goes down automatically and lowers itself as you can see and then you have extra cargo space in back because your seat is folded down and of course at any time if you want to bring the seat back up you can push that button i showed you over by the second row rear seat or you can push the button in the cargo area once again press it and then the seat automatically folds itself back up and back into place to become a seat once again all power operated by the way one other thing i really like in the cargo area of the new sequoia you have speakers on the inside of the tailgate you can see them here now those speakers don't really benefit interior passengers but if you're at the beach with like the tailgate open and you're playing some music those speakers actually do have a good effect of like creating a fun atmosphere coming through the open tailgate i have speakers like this in my older toyota land cruiser use them all the time love them and it's a cool feature to have here but anyway onto some other exterior quirks of the new sequoia one is undoubtedly the fact that sequoia is spelled out in massive lettering across the tailgate as you can see very big very direct very in your face which i think makes sense the sequoia has been such an outdated vehicle that i think most people have probably forgotten about it and don't really consider it anymore so now they're telling you with big lettering that the sequoia is back also interesting back here is the turn signals which you can see sweep they come on fully and then sort of sweep across which is a cool little turn signal quirk that makes them more interesting the same deal happens in front they come on and then sort of sweep to turn off which adds just a little bit of flair to an otherwise mundane item in the car also worth pointing out on the outside like i said this is the top of the line luxury capstone model and it looks it from the outside everything is either body colored or chrome trimmed here the door handles the mirror caps a lot of chrome a lot of painted stuff no cheap looking plastic on the outside of the capstone it all looks very luxurious which matches up with the positioning of this trim level and so those are the quirks and features of the new 2023 toyota sequoia now it's time to get it out on the road and see how it drives all right driving the new sequoia now a couple things before i get to the driving experience for one thing pricing a base model new sequoia starts right around sixty thousand dollars with shipping that's for an sr5 with like nothing on it this version the capstone starts around 76 000 so it's big money but it's a really nice luxury suv like i showed you generally speaking i suspect the most sequoia sales are going to kind of be high 60s maybe mid to high 60s low 70s that's where the limited and the platinum trims come in and that's where i think most people be buying these but you can step up to the capstone if you really want to spend all the money for the best one also worth pointing out a towing capacity toyota originally quoted 9 000 pound towing capacity when they announced this car they told me the actual towing capacity is 9 500 so 9 000 put them kind of right in the middle of the segment 9 500 is a little bit better of course not the very best but very competitive with rivals okay so driving experience first thing i want to discuss is the powertrain because that's going to be a big thing that a lot of people are focusing on the old school v8 is gone is this even still a worthy vehicle at this point and to me the answer is a resounding and absolutely certain yes so i have driven this powertrain or the non-hybrid version it's the same one there's a turbo hybrid and then there's a turbo non-hybrid but it's a similar kind of idea but i've driven it now in both the tundra and in the new land cruiser which is not being sold in the united states but i went and drove one uh and now i'm driving it in the sequoia and in each case and this just affirms my thoughts it is fantastic i love this engine um i like the sound it sounds good it sounds kind of throaty and muscly which is cool i love the power delivery it is incredibly potent you step on the throttle at you know zero rpm or at 5000 rpm and it delivers good power it feels quick now when you look at the power numbers on paper you know that that's true of course it's quick it has a lot of power it has good performance but you know you also see v6 hybrid you just think well i'm here to tell you this is maybe the best v6 replacing of v8 in the entire car industry that i've driven and i've driven a lot of those four cylinders replacing six cylinders v6 and replacing v8 this one is absolutely fantastic they did a truly great job um it's a great engine it's wonderfully powerful it's wonderfully potent good passing power good off the line power and of course you get the benefit of great fuel economy there are no drawbacks with this powertrain except you don't get the very craziest towing capacity like you do in a grand wagoneer with its absolutely massive v8 okay so the rest of this truck now this is an important thing to talk about the old one was old and i say that because this is like leagues better than the old one but that's easy to do it just is um the old one was ancient it lumbered around body on frame it was not a great driving vehicle it was slow to respond felt like a truck this thing is on such a different level that it's hard to even explain it is much much better much easier to drive much more car like now it's important to point out that it is still a large suv so sometimes people buy these with the thought that they're gonna you know it's it's oh it's they've made it v6 and it's got all this nice tech and it's got all this nice luxury it's going to be car like well it's not that but it's a lot more car like than other big suvs i've driven and i gotta say it was only maybe two years ago i drove the new chevy tahoe and i was blown away by how car like that was and now i'm in this and this is like on a different better level than the new tahoe like full-size suvs are starting to mitigate their massive size but what they can't control for still ultimately it is a hefty large tall vehicle and so you feel that heft especially when you're going around corners but it does feel more car like and more drivable and easy than other big suvs even though it's not quite on the level of like a crossover a ford edge or a honda crv now i also want to talk about like luxury and ride comfort in here ride comfort is another thing that's improving dramatically as these full-size suvs continue to grow and to become more luxurious they used to be just total trucks truck-based felt like a truck etc etc it doesn't feel like that as much anymore it now feels a lot more comfortable and car like now i haven't driven the other new sequoia models they might feel a little bit more truck like but this one the capstone it's just nice it's luxurious it feels nice in here it's quiet now it's worth pointing out the big suv market is not as big as it once was but there still are a few you got the nissan armada the tahoe the expedition um this is the best in my opinion it drives really well the tech is really great it's fantastic i like the new tahoe a lot but this is the best the expedition is getting kind of old the armada is ancient this has the best tech it's the best now with that said if you can stretch your budget to an escalade or to a luxury full-size suv you get more choices gls range rover lexus lx and those vehicles make a great case for themselves and if you can get up there financially those are probably the ones to do but this bridges a nice gap between sort of the mainstream big suv and the luxury big suv and i think it's the best full-size suv that i've ever driven that isn't wearing a luxury premium badge and so that's the new 2023 toyota sequoia this is a major improvement over the outgoing model with better technology new styling and improvements basically everywhere and with gas prices as high as they are this will surely get a lot more attention thanks to its hybrid powertrain compared to fuel guzzling rivals anyway now it's time to give the new sequoia a dug score and the dug score is here 53 out of 100 which places the sequoia here against some similar cars the big story here is the sequoia beating out the new chevy tahoe and gmc yukon which are its closest competitors on this list and they're also very new but the sequoia has leapfrogged ahead of them in quality styling and driving experience the other close rivals on this list are luxury models like the cadillac escalade bmw x7 and jeep grand wagoneer those are all better than the sequoia but they cost more too if you don't want to spend 100 grand for a full-size luxury suv the sequoia offers many similar luxuries at a reasonable price with attractive styling too