That gimmick called Crawl Control...

Buried mine in an offcamber sand burm in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. It wasnt going ANYWHERE in 4wd w rear locked. Then tried multi terrain select, nothing. As i switched it on (while im trying to remember which tote my folding shovel was in) it blew my mind in about 10 seconds it started to move and walked me right out of it in 20. I havent used it since but was happy i had it.

 

I've only used it in sand and i went from buried to out in 5 min. Confirmed it works.

Edit:
Forgot to mention i was hauling a light tower too. Night fishing on Padre Island.

 

I tested out crawl mode this past weekend on a rocky decent, not too steep but steep enough to try it and familiarize myself with the steps. Once I got everything engaged, i started crawling down and the truck was making a horrendous clanging/clanking sound from what seemed like the engine, front wheels. Is this normal? I watched some youtube videos where they got a truck unstuck from a sand hill with CC and reversing and don't recall any sound.

 

It's the brake booster making the noise, just like with the hill assist "feature".

 

I dunno, my OR doesn't have the crawl control gimmick.
I can tell you that A-TRAC is pretty nice when you need it though!

 

Thanks! It was very jarring and unexpected. Partly why I wanted to test it out before I actually need it. I knew TW would give me the info

 

Well no CC for me but I do have a rear locker. Do wish I had CC but would probably never use it. How useful is a rear locker in 2wd?

 

LOL this image is hilarious.

 

Crawl Control:
Is it necessary? No.
Is it cool to have and to use from time to time? Yes.

It's not without its (minor) drawbacks, but it has worked quite well every time I have used it, though I generally prefer to be hands-on.

Most people giving it grief don't have it and have never used it. Is there a correlation there?

 

I'd rather have both front and rear lockers than crawl control for sure. But I am glad I have it. It's pretty awesome.

Have you guys seen the new "trail control" in the 2019 Ford Raptor? Seems at least partially inspired by Toyota. Their system goes up to 20 mph though.

 

Not to poo poo CC, because if I got a new Taco I would be tempted to get an automatic instead of a manual just to have it, but hill didn't look that hard. Actually if that's the hill I think it is, on the Mojave Road, then I did it in my STOCK SR5 4x4 in 4 Lo. No locker, before my 3" lift, not even A/T tires, just a set of decent All Season tires.

So this video proves nothing in my mind.

 

The problem with these is that they aren't objective in the slightest and they rarely use people well versed in wheeling. I'm willing to bet if you included experience you'd (1) find yourself in these situations far less, and (2) could still escape nearly every situation I've seen in these videos with an MT Off-Road using ATRAC and the locker.

 

At least the Crawl Control is not faux... I really have no bone to pick with ya, as I respect those who like the hood scoop for it's looks, because it is nice looking. But come on....

 

Im a OR owner I don't have it.

 

I have it, it works pretty well for what it's designed to do. I'd trade the whole system for lockers and a manual transfer case though. The e locking is way to slow.

 

Normal as noted, quick refresh page 299 and then on in the manual for 4x4 details. DIFF P305 Crawl314 it talks about that noise.

 

The two times I used crawl control it accomplished nothing other than a bunch of bucking. It has its place, I just havent been effective with it.

 

Crawl control is just atrac + low speed cruise control. In the Gen 3 AT's, Atrac is now called Manual Terrain Select and it allows for varying degrees of wheel spin based on the terrain setting you select. It uses the same ABS braking to encourage power to the wheel on the opposite side.

 

I fly r/c planes, and when gyros really started hitting the market I mocked them. "Back in my day you learned by crashing!"

But I realized it helped new flyers progress and learn without giving up the hobby entirely. So if crawl helps someone decide to enter this hobby, that's a good thing. Being relatively new myself, I was looking at crawl control. But ultimately decided to go with a manual transmission, and pay for an instructor down the road. To each their own.

 

While I wouldn't say I'm a complete convert, I did find crawl control useful when we were in Colorado back in August. The three descents off the top of Red Cone are very steep, the final descent down to Webster Pass also being very loose. Had we been in our Jeep, I would have likely doubled the Atlas and let it crawl down in second gear; not having that option in my wife's Tacoma, I went ahead and tried the CC. It worked quite effectively on those descents, the truck never once felt like it was close to losing traction.

So, I can definitely appreciate the feature, no matter how infrequently I might use it.