need some off-road advice...

So i went to this open space by my house to run the 4x4.
It was very muddy because of the rain.

So I was in 4Hi going thru the mud, it was slipping and making this shaky noise... I dont think is the transmission, maybe the differential? the VSC light was flashing when I was trying to push the truck out of the mud in 4 hi... did it cause any damage????
I was pretty much not moving in the mud, so I thru in 4lo and backed out. Luckily i was able to back out. The mud was everywhere especially on one of my front brakes. I had to drive it to a self wash place to get clean up! Man the mud was all over the place...

any idea guys??!

 

I was like really nervous like I f-ed my truck or something, I dont want anything happen to my beautiful truck. I was planning to lock but 4lo got back out in reverse!

also if the brake has mud in it does it make the noise like ABS noise when slipping???

 

Dude, welcome to world of traction control. When I first got mine I took it wheeling in semi-deep snow and went up a difficult hill, when I went to hit the gas on a tricky section the Tacoma started shutterring, beeping, and not going forward... the wheels weren't even spinning and I had it almost floored. "What the F!"

It turns out our 2009 TRD's have a bunch of fancy electronic traction controlling stuff that is great for when you hit some slippery on the highway but not great for 4wheeling.

BUT, we conveniently have some buttons that can turn some of this stuff off and other things on. You'll need to study up on the owners manual to see what these buttons do. The button you could have used is a picture of a vehicle with little squiggley lines under it and "off"; that's the thing that made it shudder etc, turn that off; also if you hold it down for 3 seconds it can turn your limited slip off and on (read up in the manual). Also, if you find yourself in a situation where the ABS might mess with your driving, put it in 4lo and the ABS will be off. You also have the "A-TRACK" button, read up on that; and the DAC (Downhill Assist) is kinda neat but it took me a while to trust it (truns out it's pretty handy when you're going down extremely steep hills).

Basically your taco thinks you are driving on the highway unless you hit the right button. That hill I got stuck on the first day, once I hit the "OFF" on the squggly button, I went right up that hill no problem (after I spent 15min reading the manual on said hillside). The problem was that my advanced traction computer thought I was out of control on some slippery highway and was doing all it could to stop me from crashing but since I was wheeling it ended up just crushing my progress... untill I turned it off.

Read up on the manual, mess around with the options in different terrain, learn to enjoy all that complicated shit that makes the TRD so cool... once you figure out how to use it.

 

oh... so that's what causing the noise... man I knew that! I just needed a 2nd opinion!
seriously, thanks for answering, I was all freaking my truck was going to die on me!!

 

Yeah, that's also why you were able to get out of there in 4lo; the computer knows you are off-road in 4lo and automatically turns off all the road traction stuff. Pretty neat IMO.

 

yeah there are lot of buttons to push for my truck...
it gets a bit confusing sometimes...