One of the greatest tales in automotive lore is that of the “million-mile car.” Enthusiasts love hearing about odometer-spinning achievements by drivers so devoted to one vehicle that they cover more distance than back-to-back round trips to the moon. Make no mistake, clocking a million is impressive – but not as impressive as doing it twice.
A man in Louisiana has done just that. Victor Sheppard first found fame when he took a 2007 Toyota Tundra to a million miles on its original powertrain. Now he’s done it again with a 2014 model. The news comes to us from Pickup Truck + SUV Talk, which first wrote about the truck in 2023 when it was at around the 900,000-mile mark. Back then, the publication reported that the man behind the wheel, Victor Sheppard, was on track to hit the million-mile mark in late 2024.
The amazing part, aside from how a man can drive two million miles in less than two decades, is that both trucks had proven themselves to be amazingly reliable machines. Both are a testament to how great engineering and timely maintenance can work together to keep the wheels turning for mile after mile.
The Original Million-Mile Tundra
Nine years, that’s how long it took Sheppard to pile 1,020,130 miles onto a 2007 Tundra SR5 Double Cab with the 4.7-liter V8. He’s the kind of guy you hire if you’re an oil company and need a part delivered anywhere in the country on a moment’s notice. As MotorTrend reported in February 2016, when Sheppard’s 2007 Tundra crossed the million-mile mark, Sheppard would drive from Louisiana to North Dakota, California, Wyoming, Virginia, or anywhere else an oil company needs a part delivered pretty much yesterday.
Back in 2016, MotorTrend also reported that Sheppard wasn’t really willing to part ways with his beloved truck. Instead, he fully intended to pile on the miles. But Toyota eventually convinced Sheppard to trade his million-mile wonder for a fresh new 2016 Tundra Limited Crew Cab. If you run the numbers, when Sheppard finally sent his old truck to Toyota, it had averaged a remarkable average of 113,347 miles a year or a whopping 2,179 miles a week.
Tim Esterdahl, the journalist who has been following this story from the start, reported in 2016 that Sheppard has been a lifelong fan of Toyota. Sheppard got his first Toyota in 1988 after graduating from college and has been loyal to Toyota ever since. According to Esterdahl, Sheppard kept the new 2016 Tundra as his personal truck. At the time, Toyota noted in a press release that the 2016 Tundra became Sheppard’s 16th Toyota since he started driving the brand’s vehicles.
How big a fan is Sheppard of Toyota? During the original media blitz for his original million-miler, he said: “These trucks are safe and dependable. I think, if you see a Toyota on the side of the road, it might be a scam because they just don’t break down very often.”
A 2014 Toyota Tundra SR5 Double Cab with a 5.7-liter V8 picked up the slack from the previous truck. That’s the truck that just crossed the million-mile mark this month. Here’s an interview by the YouTube channel Enjoy The Ride when Sheppard’s truck had a still impressive 704,000 miles (skip to 4:31 if the embed doesn’t do it for you):
Why A Million Miles Is Important
Part of why hitting a million miles is such a huge milestone is figuring out just how the vehicle got there. It’s common for a heavy diesel commercial truck to hit a million miles, and it’s not unheard of for a heavy-duty consumer diesel pickup truck to hit a million. As I said earlier, history is also full of stories of diesel taxis and other assorted diesels hitting the million mark.
But Sheppard’s Toyotas aren’t diesels, and few people expect a common half-ton pickup truck to go that distance. Reportedly, not even the dealer that sold Sheppard the 2007 Tundra originally believed he was going to hit that magical number.
Toyota took that 2007 Tundra back to the Huntsville, Alabama plant that built its engine so engineers could tear it down and determine the condition of the truck and its drivetrain, and also learn about potential defects to correct in future trucks.
When Sheppard’s 2007 Tundra made the news rounds in 2016, he reported that the truck wasn’t just on its original engine and transmission, but that the majority of the work he’s done was just regular maintenance – oil changes, timing belts, and the like, following Toyota’s recommendations (sort of). He changed the truck’s oil once a month, which Sheppard says equates to about 10,000 miles for him. The only mechanical issue Sheppard reported was losing reverse at 776,000 miles, but that was eventually fixed, and Sheppard kept on truckin.’
Toyota’s inspection apparently surprised the automaker’s own team because not only did they not find defects, they discovered the truck looked and drove like one with a fraction of the miles. One of the immediate shockers was the interior. Sheppard is a big guy. In 2016, he was noted to be six-foot-six and weighed in at 425 pounds. Normally, that would be challenging for a seat, but Toyota said, “Not only was the frame unbent and the foam unworn, but the seat itself, consistent with the rest of the truck, showed only light wear and tear.” By that, Toyota means that the seat was stained and had a tear in it, but Sheppard was more than content to keep on riding in it.
The only real visible damage to the truck was a few dings on the body and heaps of dents, scratches, and light corrosion in the bed from Sheppard tossing equipment back there. Yet, Sheppard’s million-mile truck looked like a 100,000-mile truck would.
As Esterdahl reported, the team in Huntsville put the high-mile hero on a dyno meant for newer engines. Even when run up to its limit, the engine apparently performed better on the dyno than an engine fresh off the assembly line. The teardown caused another round of amazement, from Truck Trend:
Examining the parts in person is quite amazing. There is very little carbon buildup on the valve stems, the cross hatching is still visible on the cylinder walls, and the crankshaft journals have no visible wear marks. The only thing they found was one slight mark on a bearing.
“We remeasured the head, the block, and cams in our lab,” said Connie Roberts, Toyota quality manager. “Nothing was abnormal. It wasn’t within specifications, but after a million miles it isn’t going to be. The biggest surprise to me was the bearings. They are probably the cleanest I’ve ever seen come out of an engine.”
After examining the parts, measuring them against specs and testing the engine on the dyno, the team was pleasantly happy to discover as it sits, the engine would have scored a 99/100 on their quality tests—high enough to pass it as a good engine. “We have seen our durability test engines have a considerable amount more wear and tear than this engine,” Myatt said several times during our visit. Each time he says it, he smiles.
Toyota tore the truck basically down to its nuts and bolts and found that Sheppard’s 2007 truck had more or less the kind of wear expected from a truck with average mileage for its age. Based on the average mileage an American drives each year, that means that this truck had the wear of perhaps a truck with around 130,000 miles on it, not nearly eight times the mileage. Even the body and frame were rust-free, which was remarkable in itself as Toyota hasn’t always had a good track record of keeping rust away.
Since that exciting time, Esterdahl found one more Tundra with over a million miles under its wheels. That truck was a 2007 Tundra SR Double Cab owned by another hotshot driver, Aaron Morvant. According to Esterdahl’s report in 2020, that truck went through 20 sets of tires and was physically beaten from heavy hauling, but it was mechanically sound with its original engine and a rebuilt transmission. There’s a reported third million-mile Tundra out there, too. All of these trucks’ odometers stopped at 999,999 miles, so their owners keep tracking mileage using the trip odometer.
Sheppard Did It Again
On April 9, Sheppard crossed the million-mile mark again in the aforementioned 2014 Tundra. Once again, the engine made the distance with no wrenching beyond the regular, recommended maintenance. He even got all of his work done by the dealer. Sadly, the transmission developed an issue at 780,000 miles that allowed the engine to rev without actually gaining momentum. Sheppard couldn’t wait for the dealer to fix the transmission, so he drove on the bad transmission for over 80,000 miles before finally putting a new one in. But hey, 780,000 miles before the original transmission had any real issue is still impressive! You can view the most current photos on Pickup Truck + SUV Talk.
Sheppard’s two trucks join a pretty awesome club of million mile-plus vehicles, including a Ford Super Duty F-350, a Hyundai Elantra, a Saab 900 SPG, a BMW 325i, a Porsche 356C, a Lexus LS 400, a Nissan Frontier, a Honda Accord, and perhaps so many other passenger vehicles that reached that mileage without fanfare from automotive media. Of course, the most famous high-mile car remains the late Irvin Gordon’s Volvo P1800, which drove over 3.2 million miles.
It’s unclear if Toyota will use this one as another marketing vehicle, but honestly, it doesn’t matter. It’s just so awesome to read that this happened again. While many cars have been lucky to have surpassed a million miles, how many car owners can say they’ve driven two of the same model to over a million miles each?
You can put a zillion miles on about any car if all you do is run it up and down the highway 24×7 and rarely cold-starting the thing. In my youth I worked summers for a bank courier service. They would manage to get ~750K out of execrable late ’80s Ford Escorts in about three years before they would sweep them to the curb. You haven’t *lived* until you have experienced the joy that is a 2yo Ford Escort with more than half a million miles on the clock.
That said, I can’t imagine spending that much time in the seat of ANY car, never mind a pickup truck. Yuck.
Irv’s Volvo had the engine rebuilt a number of times over his mileage……
Just once, actually, at over a million miles. And not because it “needed” it, he just felt like he should. That car went over 3M, IIRC. Rest in peace, Irv. Got to meet him a feel times at Volvo events, heck of a nice guy.