What Have You Done To Your 3rd Gen Today?

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Yesterday, temp in John's Creek was 96-97 I think ?? I get heat from a big stone wall in the back ... sun hits it all day from a small lake in the back and turns back are into a broiler ... don't need heat in the winter if sun is out ... but need lots of AC in the summer.

We fly out of PDK ... I am in S/Springs.
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Replaced the stock TRD Sport grill with a Customcargrill. I selected a white bezel; I felt the stock grill appears too large and the body color bezel would help reduce the size of it visually. Customcargrills built it as shown (except for the TRD badge), altogether took about 30 minutes to install, piece of cake.

 

For when you're NoPro.

Don't work for Transcend, however GPS equipped, 1,3,5 min video settings, good enough for me. Also had the camera a few months before the truck.

 

Yes they came stock on the TRD OR

 

Are you guys referring to the caliraised bar and harness? I installed the bar and ditch lights yesterday and ran the harness for the bar (I guess the ditch lights don't come with any harness / wiring, aside from the foot or so coming from the lights?), but haven't had a chance to test them yet since I'm waiting for my switches to oem style switches. Somewhat concerning that people are having g issues, if we did in fact get the same ones.

 

Yes, I quickly realized when putting the air dams back on that the lower fins needed to come off since they used to take the space that the light is now in.

 

Finally have some time to say a thing or two on here.

About 2 months ago I went in for my 5k service and had been lurking on TW for a while to see some of the issues 3rd Gen's are having. When she (yes it's a she) went in for service I mentioned that I added grease to all the U-joints (bone dry as usual) and that I had been having some power steering problems and even had to add fluid to the reservoir. Even brought up the dreaded (Low Transmission fluid) talk. I told him that I work in IT (which I do) so I'm used to things being buggy in new releases but that this was starting to become unacceptable. After the service manager and I had a nice 20 min conversation about how this brand new 30+ thousand $$ truck of mine has had all these issues before 5k even hit the odometer he was more then helpful and polite.

After a long 6 hour wait for the service to be done the outcome was more worse then I thought. The first issue they addressed was the transmission fluid being low, after about 2 hours of sitting they went through and did a visual check and he said it was about 3/4 a quart low and that they will want to check it visually again when I come in for 10k. As I asked him for an answer to if this "transmission" issue was getting annoying, he shook his head in a up and down motion for YES as he said "no these issues are not getting old for our service department and that we take all issues seriously blah blah blah". I took this as a joke when he assured me that they had many cases open with Toyota about the trans issues. The second thing was that I did in fact have a steering problem. The official response was that "there was a internal leak in my rack and pinion". As for the U-joints he said since I had just added grease not much could be done by the mechanic.

skip forward a week...

Back at the dealership for week two of service. This resulted in a 2,000$ warranty job and a 9 hour day that really turned into a pain in the ass since I had to be truckless for the second Friday in a row. Not to mention that after driving home I noticed that there was a slight pull to the right when the wheel was straight, apparently the alignment wasn't done right when the tech replaced the parts so I made another appointment for them to fix the alignment, as I'm now becoming the pissed off customer. So I parked the tuck for a week (I work nights 4 days a week and sleep during the day) and had an appointment for the following Friday.

2 weeks ago I left for a 10 day road trip up through Northern Idaho, Flathead lake WY, Banff Canada, Vancouver BC, Seattle, Portland, Crater lake OR, and back over to Idaho. All in all it was about 3k miles of driving and I was damn skeptical at first that something was going to go wrong (had that voice in the back of my head). But I think she's broke in and took the trip like a champ. Average fuel Eco was about 23 mpg. We stayed at camp grounds most of the trip, my new favorite feature is that outlet plug in the bed, made airing up the tent mattress so easy. Also If any one in the US makes any trips to Canada I suggest switching the center display for mph to kph as it saved my ass once on the highway where I would have gotten pulled over for speeding (which is weird because everyone in Canada does 20 over the speed limit).

To sum up this long bit, I'm hoping that this 3rd gen will last 300k or more. Because this is just the beginning of the PNW exploration.

 

nice set up, looking to do this exact same thing, just wanted to know what is your tire size, I currently have toyo at2 265/70 on mine but I'm not sure if a 3 inch lift would be to high for the tires I'm running, the KO's you have look a bit bigger
thanks in advance

 

Yeah my tires that I'm running are 275/70s they fit fine no rubbing... I tried on my buddy's TRD wheels with 285/70 BFGs and they didn't rub ether.

 

thanks hopefully I can find a 2 inch lift then, I cant buy another set of tires this quick lol

 

Yes. The harness supplied with the Caliraised light bar is a POS. Several shorts and connection problems. Hope you have better luck with yours.

 

Where in the PNW? I'm in the Seattle area, Maple Valley specifically.

 

Boise, ID. Seattle was great. I'm glad I spent 2 days in the city to see the other side of life (city walkers) but my SO and I will be going back to WA for some exploration in the Olympic National Park.

 

I am sad to say that I am the only person who gets' an average MPG of 15.5 or so.. I don't get it. Everybody else here gets better gas mileage than me.
I always buy the premium fuel from Shell stations alone. For my last fuel up, I got 261miles (18gallons).

 

I find the area where I gain the most out of my MPG comes from stop lights. My daily driving consists of 50/50 between city and highway. When I'm rolling up to a stop light (with or without vehicles in front of me) I tend to start breaking way early and try to time it right where the light will change and I can roll through evading the *start from a dead stop* to conserve what momentum I can. This doesn't always play out but it does help. If you drive the same route(s) every day, I suggest taking a solid week of really paying attention to the lights you go through to see if you can figure them out. I know that on Mondays when I head to work I always know when 4 lights on the main way to work will change to green.

This just puts me ahead of the traffic game because I have figured shit out.

 

When you say premium... Do you just mean Shell gas?

Or are you buying higher octane gas than the truck was designed for?

Too high of an octane rating will reduce your mpg's

 

...I was out in the Phoenix area last week......and last Monday it hit 118...and it was HOT!....

...In fact, so Hot it melted my nipples off!.......( NO! Seriously!.......my radar-detector is held up on the inside of the windshield by suction-cups....and the nipples melted off of them! )...


...There is supposed to be a radar-detector unit hanging from these!

...It was SO HOT that we went out to a restaurant, and they had to wrap the metal door handles with towels to keep patrons from burning their hands trying to get it!...



....But...like they always say out there....it's a dry Heat! .....

 

Hi. I buy Shell 91 Supreme, the premium grade. The V-power Nitro + one. I did not know that higher octane rating will reduce mpg's. I saw this video and thought better octane is better for cleaner burn, and engine. In the video by motoring TV they say the only way you can keep your engine at its peak is by keeping it's insides clean.

 

The higher the octane the slower the fuel burns. They raise octane in fuel to prevent preignition knock in higher compression engines. The 3.5L in these trucks is designed to run on 87 octane fuel. The 91-93 octane will eventually lead to carbon build up in the combustion chamber causing detonation issues and premature wear. Simply put run 87 octane and the engine will preform better and get better mileage because it will have a more complete burn in the cylinder.

Edit: Yes I am an ASE mechanic certified in all 8 areas as well as a certified welder. I 20+years of experience in automotive/heavy truck/industrial maintenance. So I am not just pulling information out of my a$$ it's what I do on a daily to make a living.

 

That is a badass truck. What did you do to the grill? Plasti?