Manual transmission Fan Club and BS thread (All Generations Welcome)

Yeah, agreed on that too. It’s most useful for our specific parking situation where we back out into a T on a busy street with a downhill segment and lots of pedestrians and bicycles. With a shell on, it’s easy to miss a small child, dog, bike, etc. I’m tempted to go with blind spot
cameras but it’d be ideal to see all 3 in one screen.

 

IMHO, the rear camera catches more than I give it credit for.

 

Since you’ve seen it for yourself, I’m specifically thinking of how my kids run full speed down the street on the sidewalk. As do some of our dogs. Easy to miss with the rear camera.

 

I hear you, but just being conscious of the situation is typically plenty.

I have known plenty of folks that should know better and just don't care.


In the past, when backing out was risky, I would back in. Easier to clear the baffles as I approached.

 

Yup, always look at a spot and think "is this worth trying to back out of?"

Usually I back in lol.

 

I have started backing into spaces more frequently when possible.

 

I backed in for a while. One problem is opening the back window / tailgate. Works ok with the garage doors open. Can be tight with the doors closed. Also the slope down vs up, up is a bit easier to get to things in / out of the bed. Also more likely to forget to close the garage door when exiting nose out. Last is parking nose in protects my fancy headlights from direct sun exposure so they might last a bit longer.

Front camera is a fav of mine for parking. For sure.

I have been told but haven’t personally confirmed that a friend from high school ran over his own kid backing out. The thought haunts me. I’m sure someone has done it. At least my kids are old enough now that I would expect them to have enough smarts to get out of the way.

At my house, it’s most likely to be a small dog but even that would be rather devastating. It’s that one time you aren’t vigilant that stuff happens. I was backing out the other day and a kid with his dad were stopped waiting for me to pull out before continuing on their bikes. I didn’t see him till I moved into their path, I try to go real slow and look around every few feet.

I do agree the BSM on the minivan is annoying in most situations but exiting from our driveway is the one time I really appreciate the extra digital eyeballs. Some of the traffic comes downhill at 35 and is on me quick. I’ve pulled back in to let them pass dozens of times.

I probably just need to buy an alternate property nearby, gut it, build my 8 car garage and shop on the lot, and leave my driveway for the minivan and nanny to park.

 

Yeah I think the clutch not killing cruise is a feature of the adaptive cruise control. If you just have regular cruise and/or put it in regular cruise mode, then pushing the clutch in will kill it.

I know you old fuddy duddys don't like the gizmos, but I love having all that stuff. The BSM is nice since I can't turn my neck very far, so I have an extra warning for my blind spots. And the rear cross traffic alert is great as was said for backing out to warn of cars and kids etc, again because I can't turn my head well and because my topper does mess with visibility. The adaptive cruise is nice, I can just set it and not worry about getting too close to the person in front of me and of course being able to shift when needed without dropping out of cruise. Even the MTM has been useful for pulling in as close as I can and not having my butt hanging out if that is a concern, especially with the not-great front/nose visibility. Even moreso if I ever track down a skewped hood again. One of the draws of the Tacoma was that I can get a manual and still also get all the options!

 

Dude, this is the dream.

 

An ex-girlfriend from HS backed over her baby in a car seat. Knowing her, all the gizmos in the world would not have helped.

Nothing with being a fuddy duddy but more about personal responsibility. I have used these gizmos on rentals. They work. The place that I enjoy them are on other people's vehicles. I enjoy seeing BSM working, esp when I am on my bike.

I purposely hurried my purchase when I saw that the 2018s were all coming with TSS-P. We would have been in it deep with sensor damage issues from being hit while parked (never a note) or wheeling. I still don't believe that auto braking is working for deer strikes. Certainly many reported on 2018+.

For me, give me full, certified autonomous driving or leave me with what my Taco currently has. I do not like middling approaches.

 

Fuddy fuddy here (well, close in age to Tony anyway).. I don't mind all the "gizmos", in fact the only feature of TSS that I don't use is RCTA in parking lots. It just goes nuts and is more of a distraction than anything. The auto high beams are meh, not entirely useless just meh.

 

Y'all should see the auto reverse braking on the new Frontiers... Hook up a trailer, put it in tow mode and you think it would turn that feature off but nope... About broke my neck backing a trailer up yesterday. Luckily it turns off with the push of a button but still...

 

RCTA has saved me a couple times

BSM is ok.. when it works. Mine randomly died for 6 months then started working again. No idea what it’s problem is / was but if I were to guess it has something to do with living on a gravel road

Wish I had adaptive cruise..

lane centering on the new tundra is kinda cool

 

I have adaptive cruise, but not BSM and RCTA (did not pay for the tech package that includes that).

I rarely use lane keeping as it beeps for the solid white line with several foot of shoulder, but not for the dotted white line that is more important in traffic.

I'm not sure if auto breaking is on, if it is, I have yet to get into a situation where it activates.

I turned auto brights off the second day I had the truck. It does not flip the brights off soon enough in my opinion and will keep them off longer than needed. Plus, reflective signs will confuse it and result in brights off on empty roads.

The rear camera has been really nice. It cannot replace side mirrors, but it still makes backing up easier.

Adaptive cruise is really nice. On long stretches of interstate (not an issue in Alaska, so until recently I had not played with it) it helps curtail my tendency to creep up in speed. I dislike when someone passes me, only to drive slower than I was before they passed. Cruise helps me not accidently do that to someone else.

 

Anyone able to enlighten me on something?

Im off to another horse haul tomorrow. My bro in law insists on clutchless shifting of his 10 speed Freightliner. I’m getting better with it. I think a new clutch is $5k or something so he wants it used only for starting from a stop.

I played around a bit in the Tacoma now that I’m more comfortable doing this and it feels about the same. But I know the Tacoma has synchros and the Freightliner is entirely different in many things, particularly the red line at 1700 rpm or so.

What kind of wear / damage am I potentially doing with this approach on the Tacoma?

 

Grinding and gnashing of teeth.

There's really no benefit to doing it in our trucks, the clutch isn't going to prematurely wear out from normal use. You do run the risk of snapping a tooth though if you grind them too hard too often or end up with metal shavings floating around in your transmission fluid...

 

So, worst possible case, I’m stuck doing the ~5k hilux transmission mod? Hah.

it’s a little bit of a trick trying to switch my brain between the two.

Anybody know why it’s less troublesome for the Freightliner? Because RPM is such a small range?

 

I'ma guess because the Allison transmission in there weighs as much as your taco, aka is super heavy duty af

 

*eaton-fuller.

A big diesel has lots of flywheel which makes the engine change speed much more slowly. It’s significantly easier to float gears due to it staying in the sweet spot longer. Not having synchros means if it’s not lined up, it ain’t going in. The synchros in the taco will try to make it work until they wear out.

 

"Toyota explores manual transmission for modern EVs in new patents"
https://www.teslarati.com/toyota-electric-vehicle-manual-transmission-patent/