Purchased a 2020 Tacoma Sport V6 with automatic, notice tranny hesitation

I purchased a pedal commander. Problem solved..

 

Add me to the list of those having this issue. I have a 2020 with just over 1,300 miles and for me when I'm maintaining a steady speed, say 30MPH the truck stutters/hesitates just a bit. This is an automatic, but it feels like a manual would if I had it in 6th gear and pressed on the pedal just enough to maintain speed. It feels like the AT is in too high of a gear and the truck stutters with just a little pedal to maintain that speed. If I press on the pedal and get above 2,000 RPM everything is fine. If I let off of the pedal while at a steady speed the truck feels just fine. I was also told the truck is learning how I drive and to give it 1,000 - 2,000 miles and the problem will go away.

 

For those interested, I would watch and read reviews of other vehicles in Toyota's fleet.
The:
"It's sluggish"
"It feels ancient"
"It's slow"
"It's hunting gears"
"it's MPG sucks"

I have heard the same things in the most recent iterations of: Camry, 4runner, Tundra, and the rav4.

It seems like this is just trait of their vehicles, and has been for decades. For better or for worse.

My parents 2005 camry has crappy throttle response, and my nephews 1997 corolla is a dog.

 

I don't know about the truck learning how someone drives. If this were true wouldn't they have stated this in the owner manual? I installed a pedal commander problem solved.

 

The ECT button makes it shift predictably imo. I bought the MESO TRD shifter with the button to make it easier to hit every time. Only thing better would be a permanent switch so it was just always on.

 

Even with the ECT on? My '20 has 5k and shifts what I would consider normal with the ECT on. I use it so much that if I forget to hit the button, I feel it as soon as I start accelerating hard. It also feels better now than it did when I first started driving it. My '14 also seemed to accelerate better after a few thousand miles.

 

The ECT really doesn't do anything, I've tried it. The hesitation is still there whenever you accelerate from a start or a rolling start. ECT will help in higher gears but that's all.

 

That's not my experience. My issue with the '20 was accelerating from a stop. Hate the lag taking off and unpredictable shift points. ECT fixes that for me.

 

I thought the same at first to...bunch of bs....1200 miles later i'm believing it may be true. Either that, toyota has a break-in chip in their cpu that protects critical components from abuse until a certain mileage, or hrs.

 

S-mode, use it. Problem solved.

 

Agree!!

 

Always in S mode. "Control Freak ".

 

Having ScanGaugeII, i can see what gear the truck is in at all times. This thing loves to get into 4th and 5th as soon as possible. Even on residential roads going "residential speed", it gets into 5th. I honestly haven't noticed hesitation on mine and even see and stay in the elusive 6th gear on the highway. Throttle response could be better though, makes you miss the time before machines ruled your throttle body.

 

this is normal. I have a 17 OR and it does the same thing. Try putting it in S mode that may help a bit You are right once she gets going she rolls

 

Good idea. I think this is normal for these trucks but once she gets going she goes. I mean I beat a dodge v8 while at a stop light but then he caught up with me

 

I've never need S mode except for towing. With the truck empty it drives fine in the normal D mode. Way too many rpm's running S...truck still needs another gear on the flats if in S5.

 

ECT + S4 is perfect for driving before you add 33’s and 1000 pounds of armor.

then after that you’re limited to OVTune + 4.88/5.29 gears if you wanna go kinda fast

 

Put some ass in your driving (not to be confused with “be an ass while you’re driving”)

Just stomp on it. Throw it in ECT and S4 and go flat out.

 

So this is a hard acceleration from a stop, more pronounced when doing it while making a turn?

Sounds like the delay is a combination of new transmission and traction control kicking in.

As for running sluggish, you realize 5th and 6th gear are overdrive gears right? When the truck is in D the transmission programming will try and shift to those in an effort to maintain best fuel economy. Later programming releases reduced the aggressiveness of that function.

I think a lot of the transmission complaints regarding shiftiness would not be so prevalent had Toyota labelled things differently. If they programmed S4 to be "D" on the transmission selector, S5 as OD1 and S6 /D as ECO and a little light turned on the dash indicating such, people wouldn't be complaining as much. They would probably use D (S4) and OD (S5) all the time and think the truck shifts fine, when they set it to ECO they think the shiftiness is normal due to the truck trying to save gas at all costs.

But because everyone wants to set it to D and forget about it, people are complaining because in this case D doesn't drive like other cars or trucks in the past, not many have two OD gears (5th and 6th) like the Tacoma does now.

What the owners manual says regarding the transmission.


Anytime I know I need a burst of speed merging into traffic from an on ramp I bump to S4 and hit the ECT button.

 

I f i still wanted to go kind of really fast, i would of kept my 66 gto with the transplanted 421 super duty motor in it.