Troubles maintaining 110km/h (68mph) on the highway, have ShiftSense Pro v2

Hey all,

Bought my Tacoma a few months ago, love everything about it aside from the terrible MPG and the highway cruising. I bought a ShiftSense Pro v2 which completely eliminated the gear hunting/poor shifting of the truck. In fact, when I forget to switch into S and drive around in D, I panic for a second thinking there's something wrong with my truck... Thank god for SSP.

(My truck: 2017 TRD Sport DCLB Automatic V6, with all terrains, half size above stock)

Now, this truck is terrible to drive with on the highway. With the SSP, it's pretty much limited to 5th gear, unless I'm going 120km/h (75mph), which is fine. However, trying to maintain 110km/h (68~mph), which is standard cruising speed on the highways here (in the fast lane), is extremely difficult.

I have to REALLY lay on the pedal to get it to maintain 110, and if I let off in the slightest it drops pretty quickly to 60mph, and then I gotta downshit to get back up to 70. I drive a 2016 Dodge Caravan 3.6L VVT every day (2-3 hrs a day on the highway) and it is a total breeze. Getting into my truck and taking it on the highway is so incredibly frustrating I am banned from bitching about how it drives when my girlfriend is in the truck.

I use ECT mode all the time on the highway, even though the shift points conflict with the SSP, I need the extra throttle response. On that note... my ECT has less than half of the throttle response it used to. The dealership claims ECT never increased throttle response (horse shit), so they say there's nothing they can do.

Does anyone have this issue, and know how to resolve it?

Thanks

 

Here's an easy fix ditch the SSP and get the famous tune from @OVTune

 

Your issue is probably because of ECT running on the highway. I'm not 100% certain but I think that ECT limits to only the first 4 gears.

 

I believe that's incorrect. Trying to drive on the highway without ECT is impossible. It keeps me in 5th sometimes 6h.

 

I was thinking about it. I thought I'd try the SSP first. It does what it's supposed to the truck is just slow on the highway.

In what ways would it help this issue?

 

How are you reading what gear it's in? If you're looking on the instrument cluster where it says S5 or S6, that's not the actual gear that it's in, put it in S6 and come to a complete stop then start going again, you'll notice that it stays on S6 the whole time. The S# that is shown is just the highest gear that the automatic can choose from. If you have ECT on it's probably limiting you to 4th gear which at highway speeds will keep you around 3-4k rpm which means that if you take your foot off the gas you're going to have some major engine braking.

 

RPMs and counting what gear I'm in. I obsess about it when I drive.

I know what engine breaking is. That's not what's happening here. In every vehicle I've ever owned, you push the pedal down and can maintain 110. In the Tacoma, the pedal has to be down 80% of the way (still in 5th, NO ECT), if I let off to 70% it starts decelerating. I know it sounds like engine breaking but it's more like a lack of power. My MPG sucks too on the highway because my pedal has to be down all the way so I sit at 15mpg.

 

Well for one, the tune completely remaps the throttle, shifting, and torque maps. Which means more power on tap, less gear hunting, and snappier throttle response

 

How much is the tune?

Also, I've heard you have to keep flashing the tune because the ECU gradually defaults back to OEM throttle maps. Is this true?

 

The tune is 790-ish including shipping. Only thing is he ships everything out in batches and you can wait up to 6 weeks. Though most people usually get it in 2-3 weeks. And it's not possible for an ecu to default to factory settings because when you alter the parameters they stay that way. If they didn't then the factory tune would have to be reflashed too because the ecu didn't come pre-programmed to toyota

 

Your truck's double overdrive is geared so that you run at low RPM. This motor makes all of it's power at high RPM. No amount of fiddling or reprogramming will ever fix it... it simply doesn't have the power to run at that speed at less than 2000rpm.

 

I never use 6th gear. I am in 5th on the highway.

 

Mine is a 2018 limited. No problem holding any speed including 10 over what is legal. Bring truck up to speed,Set cruise,take foot off throttle and steer. Simple as that. Have not tried it with a 1000 lb load or towing a couple of tons. Yes it shifts gears smoothly.

 

5th is also an overdrive. You don't make enough power.

 

I was just on the freeway today with my ovtuned truck ....no problems holding gears , accelerating , and speeding

 

I've got a 2016 SR5 AC 2wd running SSP v2. Truck is bone stock otherwise, right down to the steel 16 inchers.

What mode is your SSP set to? Mine showed up defaulted to 3, despite it saying it would default to 2 in the instructions. I ended going with mode 1, as I enjoyed that the most for my daily driving.

For starters, I do not use ECT at all while driving. Not saying you shouldn't, just saying I do not. On the freeway I too drive roughly 68mph. To get the truck into 6th (because being in 5th bugs me for some reason), I have to accel to roughly 70-72mph, then SLOWLY let off the gas...and by the time I get to 68, it shifts into 6th (rpms drop to roughly 1,500) and then I hit cruise control and go. If that doesn't work, I simply switch to regular "D" select, then back to "S" ounce I am off the freeway, this keeps my blood pressure down while driving the truck

I'd verify which mode your SSP is in. Then work your way from stock, i.e. no SSP and no ECT. Try and replicate, if it doesn't do it, then switch on ECT and try just that, if that doesn't do it, then switch SSP on and ECT off...you see where I am going with this. If you go back to stock and it still does it, could be wheel/tire combo or something physically wrong with the truck.

Also, have you had the TSB that covers some of the trans problems performed on your truck? I bought my truck used a couple months ago, previous owner never took it in to the dealer. My truck would take about 3 seconds to transition from Reverse to Drive...and would do so rather violently. The TSB was supposed to address that, some cruise control hunting, and some other annoyances. Maybe you have had it performed, or maybe the truck came updated from the factory since you have a 2017, but just thought I would ask.

Hope you get this figured out. I too occasionally leave the trans in normal "D" select and I quickly get reminded of how much the SSP helps!

 

OP, what altitude are you at? Long shot, but if you're higher up these engines can lose up to 20% of their power.