2016 gear ratios. AT awesome, MT now with double overdrive.

Boo. (technical opinion)

 

Haha, I was a production engineer in a transmission plant for 4.5 years. I learned more than I care to know about how transmissions work. It is why I'm such a fan of the torque split device in a Prius. It is so simple, so elegant.

 

Explains why the Manual has such poor MPG compared to the auto. It's really going at 75 mph compared to the auto.

 

In other words, the transmission will hunt constantly and shift on any slight incline or minor acceleration. Sounds annoying to me.

 

It's made to do that, and at low speeds, it won't overheat it.

 

I'm aware of that, I just said it sounds annoying! Lol

I've driven a lot of 6-8 speed transmissions and find them obnoxious. It is fine on open flat freeway at constant speed, but I can't stand them in traffic or mountainous/hilly terrain. Constant shifting and never ready to make power and accelerate. Trying to pass means you have to wait to shift through several gears to get in the right power band, especially with low torque engines (like the new 3.5 with low torque and high rpm).

Like I said it is just annoying to me. I understand they are generally increasing fuel economy by using smaller engines with narrow power bands and adding more and more gearing, I just can't stand driving them. I'd rather have a little lower MPG and better drivability, but I live in a mountainous area.

 

Maybe the ECT Power button will make acceleration possible on demand

 

ECT power mode is like a miny turbo.

 

A parallel question would be why doesn't the 6MT and the 6AT have identical gear ratios and use the same differential? If you look at the final drive ratios between the 6MT and 6AT, the first three are pretty close to the same. This basically translates to both transmission setups having identical torque multiplication and equivalent 0-60 acceleration, all else being equal. They diverge pretty significantly on the top end and they clearly did this on purpose. The MT gearing will be more responsive at 4th and above compared to the AT gearing.

I suspect they designed it that way for driver comfort. If you're cruising along in 6th at 70mph and you hit a slight incline its probably a better driving experience if you can continue up the hill without losing speed and the engine lugging out. A super-overdrive top gear I think would end up being useless in all but the flattest, windless-est, and zero traffic-est circumstances. That is rare for a lot of drivers thus it would not get used that often. The rest of the gears are spaced to get you to that top gear nice and smoothly, as closer spaced gears are easier to shift.

With an AT it doesn't matter as much if there's some gear hunting happening because the driver doesn't need to do anything about it. Although like @Brjw says it can be super annoying. If you had to do the hunting yourself you'd just say fuck it and put it in an over-revving gear and be done with it rather than go back and forth. Thus you end up with MT gear spacing that is over-revved compared to the AT.

There might be other considerations too such as availability of parts, physical size and weight of the gears in there, towing , off-road low range, and shit like fuel economy and emissions. I think those all take a back seat to the driver comfort argument.

 

If this motor makes a broader torque curve than the 1GR-FE 4.0L found currently in the 2nd gens (which is gonna be hard to do, but i think they manged it dynos will tell the entire story) then that super overdrive 6th can be used.

 

I went ahead and ran numbers for the 5MT. I'll edit this info into the first post so it's complete. The 5MT has not changed, the gear ratios are the same as before. The only difference is it uses a 3.91 rear end now. It previously used 4.10. This might be useful if you want to have a sense of how the 6MT and the 5MT compare.

Code:

5speed MT      1st     2nd     3rd     4th     5th
Gear ratio     3.95    2.06    1.44    1.00    0.81
Final drive    15.4    8.05    5.63    3.91    3.17
                 
                 
RPM     1st     2nd     3rd     4th     5th
1000    5.88    11.3    16.1    23.2    28.6
1200    7.05    13.5    19.3    27.8    34.4
1400    8.23    15.8    22.6    32.5    40.1
1600    9.40    18.0    25.8    37.1    45.8
1800    10.6    20.3    29.0    41.8    51.6
2000    11.8    22.5    32.2    46.4    57.3
2200    12.9    24.8    35.5    51.1    63.0
2400    14.1    27.0    38.7    55.7    68.8
2600    15.3    29.3    41.9    60.3    74.5
2800    16.5    31.5    45.1    65.0    80.2
3000    17.6    33.8    48.3    69.6    85.9

edit from the future: This post is wrong. new documents released show the 5MT has different gear ratios for the 3rd gen. See this post https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/a-bunch-of-technical-info-about-2gr-fks-and-the-3rd-gen.391218/

 

My wife's Venza has the Six speed auto with the same control shift pattern as the Tacoma. When driving in areas where the transmission will hunt, you move the trans over to the S ( sport mode) which eliminates the two OD's. Then, you are free to select the upper limit for the transmission. After a while, you get to know which gear is the best limit for driving conditons. 4 which is standar in the S mode, is good for speeds 40 mph and lower. 5 for 55 and lower etc..... In town with soeeds lower then 30, 3 works well....etc. we live in a mountainous area too. We just don't leave it in D all the time. Cars and trucks with with five or six or more gears should have this option, just maybe with slightly differnt pattern selectors. It still always works as an auto, but you select the upper gear to eliminate excessive hunting.

 

This model requires yet anothe frame size. The comfort level in the standard short cab just means they didn't sell enough. We saw a lot around here and I had four of them. They S.u.c.k on trips and with the cheapo bench, you are totally at the mercy of the driver ( short ones) for leg room. They have huge advantages off road but most drivers never used them that way.too bad....just another merchandising decision. Personally, my access cab is the shortest version I would get now. In 4 wd, they are great off road but more prone to roll over.....

 

I like the RPMs at 75mph for the 6AT V6. That would be much better for my commute to work.

 

the mini truck launched Toyota into the US truck market,there will always be a market for utilitarian,economical ,affordable reliable trucks,by discontinuing a great legacy Toyota just handed that over to its rivals who will gladly sell those types of trucks

 

If that is the case and it very well may be, than it is a strange gearing decision as shifting gears in a manual transmission is the whole point of it. Whats wrong with downshifting to 5th or 4th when needed?

 

While I can understand the intent, it does depend on the degree of the "lugging" and in what situation. I would like to have a choice to use a nice low 6th for good mpg when needed, and just shift when required also.

 

Yeah I don't know. Your point makes sense to me.

Id be interested to know if there ever was a manual transmission that had some kind of super-cruise overdrive gear, and how the drivers liked using it. I bet at some point in history someone created it and it sucked for reasons outside of the transmission, and the automakers remember that failure.

 

Cruze Eco has 3 OD gears. I don't recall what the final drive is, though.

"Upon setting off for the first of my 552 miles in the Cruze Eco, it became almost immediately apparent that this car makes its numbers largely on the back of its gearing. Despite there being six ratios to choose from, they’re spaced pretty far apart. The upside of this is that sixth gear at 70 miles per hour hums along much more quietly than any other small four cylinder car I’ve driven before (about 2,000 RPMs). The downside is that you have to shift. And shift. And shift. The diminutive 1.4T mill, though it certainly produces adequate power and has a turbo-boosted flat torque curve, can do nothing resembling acceleration without dropping from sixth to third. If you’re going up a hill in sixth gear at 55 MPH, be prepared to either lose speed or drop to fourth or fifth gear. Sometimes, I get lazy and don’t feel like rowing through all six gears so I attempt to go second to fourth, skipping third gear. In most cars, that’s not an issue, but in the Cruze Eco, depending on my speed when I do that, the engine falls way out of its powerband and either my acceleration slows dramatically, or I begrudgingly go back to third gear to finish what I started"

I don't mind shifting a lot in my FR-S but it is a joy to shift. Clutch in, rev match, clutch out, BWAAAHHHHHHHHH goes the TRD exhaust. The gearing in the FR-S is aggressive enough that I only have to downshift when I want to get around someone in a hurry. It pulls grades just fine in top gear at highway speeds.