HATE the 3.5 motor set up in my 2016

Steam engines, as in steam railway locomotives, most certainly do have pistons. That’s what those large cylinders on either side of the boiler, pushing on the drive rods are!: Steam pistons, almost exactly like inside a gasoline engine. 99.9% of all steam railway “engines” have pistons, excluding a few very rare steam turbine locomotives. Not to be a “know it all”, but if you’re going to argue details, get the details right.

 

I can only speak for myself, and for me, this truck was a wake up call.

I used to speed everywhere all of my driving life, whether it’s going to work, for groceries or to go for a run at the park. My excuses were always my life is busy, there’s never enough time. It was a character flaw. That changed. Seeing my old mom struggling to climb in my truck once, I realized even if I don’t care much for my life, others lives are far more valuable than mine and that they are all better people than I. Nowadays, I’ve learned to go anywhere the way my truck wants to go slowly. I don’t even put the ECT on anymore. My truck is making me a better driver, i plan my schedule efficiently and I’m early to my appointments.

Besides, Tacoma’s have good value, and I’m going to flip mine a yr or two later for a newer model or something better. Hence I try to keep mine in pristine shape, and low miles. It’s cheaper to take a $2 ~ $4K hit than spend $$$ on mods and upgrades to this truck. That’s my plan.

 

Huh that's interesting-they detune it for reliability but then are coming out with a SC lol!

 

My 3.5 goes if I press the throttle. Maybe yours is broken?
In fact, mine makes so much power, my truck vents the excess hp out the rear diff to prevent wheel spin.

 

I guess I’m in the minority around here...I love my truck. It has things about it that could be better, but for me, in the midsize truck class, it was the clear winner.

It’s a V6, and a 3.5L at that...not sure why everyone expects the low end to be that strong in a 4500lb vehicle. If its not accelerating fast enough, push harder on the little pedal on the right. If that’s not enough, you either need to buy the OVtune, or you bought the wrong truck.

 

ok so help me understand. Not all of us are familiar with these different mods.
Mine is an automatic.
What options are available to me and not by order of price but by whether or not they work and make a difference
2016 TRD off road auto

 

If you’re throwing price out the window, get the OVtune....huge thread here about it, its around 8 bills, and by all accounts dramatically changes the truck.

 

The fly-by-wire programming has a lot to do with the dissatisfaction some owners experience. Add that to the fact that the 6 speed auto has a double overdrive makes direct comparisons to the 4.0 tenuous at best.

1. There is no cable from the accelerator pedal to the throttle body. It's a electronic signal generator that is coupled to the ECU AND uses fuzzy logic to determine how much to open the throttle based on conditions. Drive it like there is an egg under the accelerator and you will be disappointed. Drive it like you stole it and you will be rewarded with brisk pace, but will soon tire of it unless you enjoy acting like the classic boy racer. There is a middle ground and it is easy to deal with it...once you quit demanding that it act like you want it to. It won't. But it performs pretty damn well once you understand how it works
2. If no one has told you 5th gear on the 3rd Gen V6 autos is virtually the same ratio as 5th gear (top gear) on the 2nd Gen 4.0 auto. 6th is approx. 58% overdrive, by anyone's measure that's damn tall gearing. S4 is my default gear selection, I select S5 when going faster than 45 mph, S6 when over 60-65 mph.

I have followed the OV Tuning thread with mild interest, and see that it is probably a good value if you just can't get along with Toyota's programming. If you want to blip the throttle and make the truck slid around a corner or counter steer through a curve on a snowy road, the OV Tuning is probably the answer you seek.

 

Spend a little time reading the threads on the shift sense, pedal commander, ect always and OVtune. Whether or not they “work” is entirely dependent on your expectations. From the sounds of it you will be disappointed by anything other than a different truck.

 

Good information thanks. Let me ask, I never thought about this but it sounds like you are referencing specific gears and it makes me think you are shifting manually and manipulating the shift points. Im not accustomed to doing this but it may be a great idea as I think about it. Is this how you drive your truck around town? and do you generally use that option for the "EP" or that electric tranny thing??

 

When I was test driving 2016s and 2017s for the past two years, I found that the automatics all felt the same to me, be it the AC, DC, LB, SB, Off road or Sport. They all felt the same.

I test drove every combination available many times over to validate my Pros and Cons for each combo.

Same deal with the manual transmission combos. Not quite as many combos to work with, but enough to validate.

What was weird with the manual transmission trucks is the rev hang between gears. Being that it is fly by wire, I was not accustomed to this.

Even more noticeable, was that of the dozen or or manual trucks I test drove, a few had way more rev hang pronounced than the rest.

With that, I deducted that manual was going to be my transmission of choice over the automatic when I finally purchased mine last week.

Worked out in the end that my new truck has only a slightly noticable rev hang, but not much different than my 1997 pedal/cable/TB truck has. So to me its really not even a thing at this point.

One thing for sure, my new truck has similar get up and go as my 1997 does, until you reach 3.5k rpm. Then like a switch it takes off like a 2 stroke!

 

You are correct and it has nothing to do with the motor being a passenger car motor! If you want proof then rent or test drive a 2018 V6 Camry XSE or 2017/18 Highlander V6 from a Toyota dealer (mechanically it's the same exact V6 engine that is in the 2016-17 Tacoma, but with different tuning/exhaust/emission, etc systems) and you'll be shocked at how pleasingly quiet, responsive and powerful that motor can be.

 

Back when I was a young lad I didn't have much money and could not afford a car with guts, so drove a '67 VW Beetle. It had a 52hp engine. I floor-boarded that thing all the time, the pedal pressed against the firewall, and it still went pretty slow. But I got what I could out of it.

Now I'm an old geezer. I have a 485hp Dodge Challenger and I have my 3.5 Taco. They are different, although they weigh close to the same. The Challenger has a lot of power and the Taco has less power, but still a whole lot more power than the old Beetle did. If I want to go fast in the Taco, I gas it. Then it goes fast, or at least as fast as I want to go. I don't think I've ever felt the need to hit the firewall with the accelerator pedal yet like I did with the VW.

If you want a truck that goes like a muscle-car, get a Raptor. If you want one that tows an 18,000 pound horse-trailer, get a Duramax. Get what you think you need, don't buy an old Beetle and then bitch because it won't go 0-60 in 3.9 seconds.

 

So it would follow that MOTORcycles have electric motors and MOTORhomes must be named for their toilet pumps. It all makes sense now...

 

We are now so far off topic, it's gross, but it's nerdily cool that the pistons in a gas engine produce power for a motivator while the pistons associated with a steam engine ARE the motivators that make the power useful.

I'll throw in that I really like the power delivery of the stock 3.5L with MT. Much crisper than a steam engine...

 

It took me a while to get used to it, once I did, most everything is ok now.

I have had about a dozen Totota pickups and my 2016 is one of the best.

Had to learn to limit the shifting at times by keeping it in S.

It would be nice to have a “Grip Handle “ on driver side, like passenger has.

 

I'm ignorant about "rev hang" (and lots of other things). Can you explain/ describe that for me?

Of course, I'm blissfully ignorant and enjoying the hell out of my MT TRD Pro. Maybe I should stay uninformed...

 

Read my sig

 

"Rev Hang" is where the engine will "hang on" to revs even after you let off the gas.

In other words, when driving a manual and you shift, you let off the gas between gears. The ECU in the Tacoma (and many other vehicles also) will keep the engine revving to reduce emissions.

In practice it feels like the throttle is sticking and is very annoying.

 

Slightly different angle on it but how many of you shift the auto.manually on a regular basis to improve performance?