What Have You Done To Your 3rd Gen Today?

Hope you do a review.

 

Had to use the 4WD to navigate through some wet snow / ice crap in the Catskills. (Well, last night, anyway...)

 

I wish could dislike this.

 

Ugh. My condolences. Not a fan of Teslas, but I do like their cameras for events like this...

 

There are quite a few but I’m afraid I might have been in one of the spots they don’t see much of. They weren’t allowed to pull footage for me without police there, so I filed a report and the cop said he would go watch the footage and see if he finds anything.

 

This sucks. So aggravating. Who does this?

 

Not sure it matters where you park anymore. There's always someone.. always

 

Well, I tend to wander my truck around potholes to avoid them. And in general I've found larger and boxier vehicles (like SUVs and trucks) to be more susceptible to wind. I've also found that with wider tires contacting more of the road they can pick up more variations (the worst for me are the ruts from semis). Finally, a 70 or 75 tire is going to absorb more bumps while not handling anything like a 40 or 50 series tire.
Obviously I'm not a suspension expert but these seem like truck things (especially an off-road capable truck) more than issues. It's all about tradeoffs for the conditions. A quality sports sedan will handle much better on the highway but won't get me to my favorite rocky mountain spots.

 

does your battery go dead sometimes?

 

How long has it been doing this?? No my Taco is pretty rock solid so far, but I do know from other vehicles I have had as well as worked on as well as done alignments on, it is possible that the front tires are toed out (negative toe) a little too much, it would be in the total toe specs and could be at the max end of toed out, generally when a vehicle wonders it is in the toe, the caster/camber will make it pull one way or the other not both... I have found that to much neg toe makes the vehicle follow any imperfections in the road, like the pave line may not be even and can cause a drift... I have not yet checked the specs on my Taco, but I know that I always run -0.02 to -0.03 total toe on my Vibe/Matrix...

 

sum beeches

 

Will have to figure out something there. Not fan of messing around with the OBD II system without knowing what I am doing there. Need a wiring plan, then I would probably add a switch.

 

Once, on day two! Not ever since. Separating stock and leave it on the starter batt while running mods over the house battery helps reducing starter batt discharge. Installed the trickle charger because batteries need TLC to last. Installed the connector because I am looking into adding a block heater and was fed up of opening the hood for connecting/disconnecting the charger. But my research has not gone far enough yet to purchase.

 

Thanks, really appreciate it.

 

Yes . Not constantly, but on occasion depending on the severity of the potholes/general road conditions. I believe this is largely due to suspension. For instance my cushy sedan-like SR shocks are much more friendly than a set of 4600s that are setup a bit stiffer on bumpy street terrain. The stiffer the shock/spring combo the more jarring those potholes will feel. I also noticed when my first gen was lifted any bump or pothole required me to "correct" the tracking, but that truck had a stiffer shocks/springs.

Yes on occasion. More so than my first gen, but this truck is also a little bigger all around.

 

same thing happened to me with my old truck. I wasn’t as lucky as you, I didn’t work in a body shop, so I drove around with that pesky dent until I traded it in on the Taco. I agree with the other member, people suck.

 

That connector is there for service and inspection/monitoring tools. It is power and ground and some communication wires. As long as you don't short the communication wires together or to anything else, you are not going to hurt anything.

There are two photos below. The one with the red is the current schematic for the DLC (datalink connector, OBD II plug, whatever you want to call it). The red wire, pin 16, is battery. Pins 4 and 5 are ground. You can cut that red wire, cap off the battery side so it doesn't short to anything, and splice a new wire into the DLC side of that wire.

The second photo shows part of the radio schematic. The wire circled in yellow is ignition to the radio. You can splice into that wire to get ignition and then run it down to the DLC. You can add an inline fuse if you want, but there is already one for the radio so no real need unless that dongle is pulling some serious power.

You could also put a manual switch on the power to the dongle if you wanted. The sky is the limit.

As long as you are comfortable, cutting, stripping and crimping wires you'll be fine.


Keep in mind, you may have other parasitic draws too and this one was just the one that put it over the top.

 

sucks to hear that Scott.

 

Thanks for this! When it warms up a bit outside here I will attempt to put a switch on the red wire. Gotta do some wiring anyways. Thanks again for your great help!

 

Put this badge overlay from Upturn Prints on today. Not sure if I’m gonna keep it on or not. I feel like it looks a little ricey, and I like a cleaner, OEM+ look, plus there are a few small creases that you can see if you’re right up on it. I have a different, more minimal HD front plate coming to hopefully help clean it up, but we’ll see.