2016 Crawl Mode & Drum Brake Explanation, & Misc. Info & Hyjacked Back To Drum Brakes, BS & ???

Hows crawl control used just to crawl along. Notice how loud the brakes are going down hill.

 

Hey Fellas, first post is a doozy. Discuss...

http://www.torquenews.com/1083/2016-toyota-tacoma-rear-drum-brakes-thumbs

 

Just air down your tires and get your own self out .

 

I do a lot of driving in snow. The down hill assist traction aid in my 4 Runner was practically useless in snow and on ice going down hill. It relied so much on braking to keep your speed down which is deadly going down hill for steering control on ice and hard packed snow. You need to have your wheels free wheel and only the driver knows when to let up on the brakes if approaching a corner in these conditons.

So, if it's anything like the crawl control, wihere winter snow and is ice so variable, you could never calibrate it exactly. My guess is.....don't use it.

Lots of people will buy these trucks for winter conditons and find they are no more help.My OR is no better in snow and ice then a regular 4 by 4 unless it's real deep. Locking diffs are deadly causing loss of control and you must keep you speed up making 4 wd high preferable.

But, with demos like this Toyota will get some salesmen to tout it's use in snow and idiots will buy them up north and not put good AT or snow tires on them and they will think crawl control is good for winter travel.....good merchandising Toyota !

 

That's interesting, I honestly don't care much for the debate of drums or no drums. If my brakes continue to work I don't have problems.. But, it's kinda nice to hear one positive thing about them. Since I can't paint my calipers, I'm gonna have to paint the entire rotor.. It's gonna look so cool.

 

Sounds like a band of hippies hitched a ride.

 

I thought it was a good take on Drums. I had a 02 that I bought brand new. When I sold it to some lucky SOB with 299k on it I had replaced the fronts twice and the rears were still fine. That is except for the PB which conked out around 200K. Can not wait to get back into the family. Ive strayed the last few years, but never again.

 

Full disclosure it was a Manual, hence the long brake life.

 

Surely you jest ;-)

 

This completely explains the rear drums.

 

Even never having used crawl control, I would never think to use it on snow or ice while actually moving along (and for that matter the differential lock shouldn't be used while driving along on any terrain). I do have some faint hope that crawl control might be useful if you're actually stuck. But as I mentioned, I'm not very optimistic on that given that Toyota doesn't include snow among its terrain choices.

 

So, carry a bag of sand in the winter. You get stuck you pile sand around the tires and use the sand setting. BAM! Never saw that coming did you?

 

Yes, I forgot that option. In the snow, that would probably work better than crawl control. But finding out how useful or useless crawl control will be in my mountain environment is something only experience will answer. Right now I just see it as something else I can try. I only moved here recently, and last winter with two wheel drive I got stuck really good twice and had to be winched and towed. There's something ridiculous about standing around waiting to be rescued with a vehicle that has 4 wheels, but the only one that gets power is the one with zero traction. Never again. At least not again if the OR I have on order gets here before the snow comes.

 

Where I live every several hundred feet along the roads are barrels of grit to help people who get stuck. But it's of no use when your vehicle is in the rut adjacent to the road.

 

Nice picture. Where do you live? I lived in Vermont for 9 years and the picture reminds me of being there.

 

More explaining the 2016...
https://www.youtube.com/embed/FutBBbglZvo

 

"hills" look covered in shotcrete, if so, I've got a WRX I'd like to shoot up it....

 

Central Maine. This was from the back deck overlooking our shoreline on a lake. We had 127 inches of snow last year. We have lived here for 20 years. Cleared the land, built the house and became a hermit 1 1/2 miles into the woods.

 

My experience also. I have a Honda Accord that is 16 years old, and I've only had to have the rear drums replaced once, while I've had to have the front discs replaced several times. Discs are good for applications that require rapid heat dissipation, but otherwise they are better...because? Drums are old technology, true. But old doesn't mean bad, and new doesn't mean good. The wheel is pre-historic technology, but here we are still using it.

 

Good for you. You describe my retirement dream.