S4 Question

Took our first road trip this week in our 2022 4x4 SR Double Cab 6 Cylinder. My wife took over some long haul driving . I took a nap and woke up to the truck screaming along in S4. We had switched drivers about 100 miles before at a rest area. She unknowingly dropped it into S4 and headed down a wide open stretch for about 100 miles at 75 mph in S4. I have looked everywhere for info on max speed for S4 staying in 4th gear?? The truck has about 4000 miles on the ticker .
Did we fu*# up the trans with that move? I looked in the book and have read just about everything I can find and no info? I dont know much about the S mode . I do know how it happened. So easy to drop it in gear with out noticing. In her defense she has not driven the truck much and it was super windy wide open area. Easy to not notice.
Has anyone else done this ? Did we smoke the trans? It seems ok after the incident.

Thanks JJM

 

Nahh, your wife just broke the engine in “faster”.
You’re fine, guys towing use S4 a lot.

Just make sure she knows what to “look for” next time.
And fill it up with gas, I bet it used a lot more?

 

Welcome to the forum. You are fine running in 4th gear all day long, 5 & 6 are both overdrive gears.

 

Thanks to both for the quick reply. Her response was why did they design it to hang up in 4th ? She was singing along to the radio lol I woke up with some choice words !@#$%^

Again thanks for the input. I have recently jumped ship from the Ford Ranger world and getting used to the Taco world.

 

you'd know if you smoked the tranny, you wouldn't have made it to your destination

 

Welcome to the world of tacos. They’re a bit quirky, but damn tasty. Take care of maintenance and it’ll run a long, long, time. Heck, it may even run a long time without maintenance. (But I don’t recommend that ).

 

I'm surprised the transmission stayed in S4 at 75 mph. My truck would of automatically upshifted into S5 at that speed, and stayed there limiting engine rpm.

 

You’ve experienced this auto upshift from 4 to 5 in S mode at 75mph? Is this a new feature for the 2020s or are you just having some fun?

 

No i've experienced it with all the S modes in my 2020 sr5. If you wind up the motor over a certain rpm, or speed in an S mode the transmission will upshift to a higher S mode gear. Its always been that way from day 1 in this truck.

 

So it’s a safety feature. Makes sense but it must be red line territory before it upshifts. I’ve never had that experience.

 

My 2020 stays in S4 at 79 MPH without issue. It's not that high of an RPM to push you into a different gear.

 

S4 or D ... both are the same for me 90% of the time - frigging transmission insists on 4th gear over 75MPH unless going downhill with a tailwind.

 

Last i could remember with my truck, S4 will upshift to S5 around 70 mph. This transmission imo works fine, i really like it. Idk why it gets such bad pr.

 

S4 hung in 4th . It did not up shift. I have watched a video posted showing the trans will up shift depending on the sequence of driving and or start stop ect? I am sure most folks on this forum have seen that video where the guy uses S mode in all scenarios. Worth a watch.

 

I’m not sure if your truck has a problem or if there’s just some kind of misunderstanding here. But, on another thread you said that you have no S6 at all, and now you’re saying your S4 will upshift to S5 at certain speeds. This is not how S mode works. It is a gear lock, plain and simple. It will downshift when it feels necessary, but it will never upshift. Mine will let the engine wind out to total destruction in S4 (and any other gear in S mode) if I let it. It will never upshift in any circumstance, ever. The fact you’ve mentioned you don’t even have S6, either your truck is broken or you are mistaken about what S mode is/does.

 

Sometimes I feel like there should be an aptitude test before buying a vehicle.

 

Are you confusing ECT? Because S4 should put you under 5k RPM's at 75 MPH.

 

I had a Ford 6 speed auto that would do a nanny upshift if rpms got too high in a manual mode gear and it was documented in the user manual. Haven’t seen anything about this in the Tacoma docs

 

No, you did not mess up the transmission. The lower gearing actually keeps the internal stress of the transmission lower than say 6th gear (within RPM reason), but regardless the transmission is built for this. The only concern I would have is the needless engine RPM and fuel usage...which is a done deal. Lesson learned....teach your wife how the vehicle operates and how to frequently look at the dash gauges to understand vehicle status. Obviously she must have bumped the shift level over to the left to put it into S mode. Probably down-shifted when that happened and should have been a clue for her.

 

S mode isn't meant for shifting yourself. It's a gear limiter. In S4 it will shift on its own between 1 and 4 all the while displaying S4 in the dash. Toyota needs to get rid of the S as it confuses everyone. S to most people means Sport mode, which Tacoma doesn't have.

Another fun fact on the Tacoma if you're rolling down the highway and put it in R, it turns the backup cam on. It's a feature to check your trailer as you tow I guess...