Supercharge 3rd Gen or Trade for 4th Gen?

4th gen. Get off the couch.

 

I wonder how expensive it will be to replace the hybrid battery when it fails?

I say supercharge your 3rd gen but I'm biased. The 4th gen looks great but I wouldn't buy the first model year of a totally redesigned vehicle. I've done that and regretted it. I'd give it a couple of years for them to work out all the bugs. If you buy now you're basically a beta tester for Toyota.

And I just can't get over how much they increased the price. It's way more than is justified even with a redesign and inflation. It seems as if Toyota overplayed their hand.

 

My supercharged 3rd gen makes enough low end power that i dont struggle getting up the steepest grades at the hollister hills SVRA here in California. My truck motors on up big passes and mountains it used to struggle up. I keep it at 1800 rpm 6th gear and it chugs at 70 mph. I get 17 mpg of i keep it that way with a fully loaded rig.

 

Nice! Any gears or aftermarket tune?

 

Agree, the cost is tough to swallow, if the price were comparable to when I bought my truck, I don’t think I’d be struggling with the decision as much.

 

LOL I can’t help but admire the Hummer EV, i think they’re ridiculously cool. I’ll go full EV once they start to invent quick change over power supplies or can get more range. Until then I’ll probably stick with internal combustion on my vehicles.

 

Congrats! What kind of lead time are you expecting?

 

I think options 2 or 3 are the only ones I’d consider truly practical. The Maggy SC is neat but I can’t see it being the final purchased to all of a sudden make the 3rd gen “fixed”. Per input from many folks, the torque down low is still going to be very minimal. I have no hard evidence of it but Toyota seems to build it into the ECM that it not let you lug the motor down low, which makes it feel like there is an extreme lack of torque (and as such, actually makes it feel like it lugs). To date, my testing with all the tunes on the market have helped with that a little bit; but not a lot. I don’t think the supercharger tunes can do away with that behavior either. And of course, naturally by design, SCs build more torque with more rpm, so again, the help you do get will be at higher speeds no matter if the SC was stock or aftermarket, that’s just how they boost.

I personally think the 4th gen is the best route. I want to go that direction, I’m just giving it some time for kinks and they are very expensive, which sucks because I rack up miles quickly. So for now I am burning miles on the 3rd gen. I also put a lot of money into my 3rd gen which is some of the motivation for keeping it, and adds to why I would probably keep it even if I did get a 4th gen.

Option 3 certainly is not a bad one if you can get past the revving thing. I regeared my manual to 5.29s 1.5 years ago and I have only run 30.5”-32” tires in the 33K miles since the regear. That means I have been above 3,000 rpm in 6th gear any time I’m going more than about 73-75 mph. I will cruise 80-85 mph all day long at 3500 rpm and it does nothing but take it and continue to run smoothly. My temps are lower due to the increased cooling from the faster fan speeds. I have absolutely 0 fear of rpm and personally, I believe my situation to be better for the engine than a stock truck trying to run 1700 rpm in 6th with absolutely no torque at all at that rpm. I will add that I choose to run a thicker oil which seems like a good idea for continued high rpm use, although the oil pump pressurizes any oil pretty strongly with any added rpm, so there isn’t much concern no matter what you run. But you might get a bit more protection out of something in the 30 or 40 weight range if you’re concerned about long term sustained high rpm.

 

What happens if the gasoline internal combustion engine craps out in full ICE off roader, and warranty, expired? Motor alone, cost more the ICE off roader itself.

 

told 4-6 weeks ill install my gauges and im still trying to decide if i want to tackle or just hand it over to a shop.

 

Haha the anticipation would be killing me. A few years ago I might have just done it on my own, but having done simpler repairs like replacing alternators, radiators, head gaskets and seeing how easily a quick job can turn into an all day type of ordeal, I’ll just give mine to a shop and have them deal with any unexpected headaches. Lots of folks have commented on how smooth of an install it was for them, but then others have also posted their troubles with it. I just don’t feel like dealing with it if it’s the latter. R4T seems to have a good reputation, stands by their work, and is certified by magnuson, so unless they quote me something absurd I’ll probably go with them.

 

I was quoted something absurd by a performance shop. 2x what Magnuson charges. Magnuson charges 2100

 

Yeah great points about the low end boost, I could probably study some SC dyno results a bit more to see what I could expect, just don’t know how to translate that into real world impact and if the truck could at least hold gears better.

How does your gas mileage hold up cruising at 3500 rpm? With regear and tune cruising at 80 mpg drops me down to 16ish mpg. Anything over 65 and it gets much less efficient.

 

Gross, I was anticipating something around the $2K range…good luck, hopefully you can find something cheaper!

 

A toyota dealer quoted me 2300 with the oil change and radiator fluid change. that seems pretty reasonable since i cant drive to magnuson

 

Probably 14.5-15 at 85. I drove a 4.5 hour trip on Saturday, 75-85 and my mpg was 16.1. My record mpg is actually a random tank I had on the 5.29s. It was 18.4 for 4 hours of driving 75-80 with stock sized tires, which means 3200-3400 rpm. 18.4 is not amazing, but the mpg has always been terrible on this truck for me. I never drive at a sustained 65, so I’m not sure what I could achieve if I really tried.

I think I actually did have one tank when I was stock tire size and stock gears that achieved 19.3, but it was a short trip (40 miles or so) and wind was helping me. I think overall my mpg average dropped by about 1 from the regear, probably because I use the acceleration so much more in town.

 

See below

I think we've seen MANY more brand new engine failures recently, across the various brands building ICE engines for 100 years, than battery failures... (And boy - there are many folks paying attention to EV Failures!).

Batteries in the first Teslas (OLD technology) are now starting to clock in with higher lifetime mileage than the typical ICE - without the ICE maintenance costs. AND warranties for EV Batteries are much better that any offered on any ICE engine.

Degradation is less than was initially expected. Used/ crapped out EV batteries are valuable as they have plenty of capacity for MANY other uses - I want one, but can't find any at an affordable price! - even a royally crapped out one.

Batteries are getting hugely better every day... (ICE tech is not). Solid state batteries are available now for some applications (Still not yet available for EVs, but they are coming!) - Dramatically lighter weights, much higher energy densities, faster charging... progress.

I recently ran into the below newspaper clipping from 1899. It is reacting to news of the spread of "Evil Electricity". It's unpredictability would result in all kinds of horrors in society.
Maybe some folks fearing the evils of EVs may recall it!

 

I hate to burst your bubble but one of my colleagues is on her third battery in her Tesla. And it has like 60k miles or maybe less. And when they have to replace the battery you have to be without the car for like 3 weeks.

Another coworker had the hybrid batter die; it was going to cost more than the car was worth to replace it so they just got rid is the car.

I don’t believe a batter will last nearly as long as an internal combustion engine. Can the ones in the future? Maybe. But not the current ones. That’s just dreaming. The reality is that current EV technology just isn’t where we want it to be.

hopefully when they figure out solid state battery technology that will be the big leap. But I sure wouldn’t buy an electric vehicle now. Sure they have lots of torque and are fun to drive. But burning coal is required to charge them and people just get rid of them before they get to 100k miles because of battery degradation. The resale value is atrocious. The depreciation is way worse than ICE vehicles.

until you can recharge one in the same amount of time it takes to fill up your tank with gas and the range improves and the prices go down, these will continue to sell in only relatively small volumes.

 

One of the greatest quotes people love to throw around and it’s just not true, like most complaints about EVs. Coal accounts for 16.2% of power generation in the US compared to 18.6% nuclear or 21.4% renewables. In other words it’s less likely that an EV is powered by coal than it is to be powered by clean energy.

 

depends on the state

it’s higher in some than others

there’s a map showing the percentage in each state; I’ll see if I can find it

But EVs aren’t as clean as Americans seem to think. I’m not saying they’re all bad and it seems like the government is going to force me to buy one eventually.