2001 Tacoma Transmission

I have a 2001 Tacoma Prerunner V6 Automatic. 200k miles. I have been having issues the past couple winters when it gets cold. I will put the truck in drive and more often than not it will take between 2-10 seconds for the truck to kick into gear once I accelerate. Only has this problem when Im stopped and accelerate. I also noticed something the other day as well. When driving I can now notice very slightly when going at a constant speed that the truck feels like it's building up some power to go faster but then releasing that buildup. Kind of like it should be going a few mph faster but doesn't. Usually around 45-50mph it will hesitate to shift into the next gear and then shift.

Any help or suggestions would be appreciated. Will check fluid level later today but have not noticed any leaks.

Thanks.

 

@gearcruncher saw a post you had with tons of transmission info. Thought you might could help. Looking through info now.

 

Bump and @gearcruncher . Thanks.

 

Hey Bryan .
You have a lot of mileage on this old critter .
Here is hoping you kept up with the transmission services at the recommended intervals .
First things first . How is the transmission fluid level ?

 

That's high mileage, hopefully it's just a tad low on ATF and will work fine once topped off but if not you've probably got some issues to look into and they aren't cheap! These are solid little transmissions though and last a long long time properly maintained. If all checks out good, I'd recommend getting a full service done on it, flush, new filter and the works. Toyota doesn't recommend ever changing the ATF under "normal" driving conditions but they are full of shit and probably want people to think that so they buy new transmissions/cars more often. It even says on the ATF dipstick collars to never change the fluid. To me, that's like never changing motor oil, dumb idea! Maintaining a trans is cheap, buying a new one isn't, those guys got a wild hair up their ass big time.

 

Even though this post is from January, ill contribute. red flags going off in my head. youre saying

This is generally bad news. Your torque converter is allowing too much slip, meaning that for every moment the engine output is faster than the transmission input, the temperature increases dramatically. You may have burned up your ATF, and hopefully not your tranny. It could have just been a little too old or a little too low. If nothing on the inside is damaged, you should be able to fix the issue by servicing the tranny with new fluid, driving easily around the block, then changing the fluid again. You may want to do this a third time just to make sure you get as much "old fluid" out as you can.

 

at that age, if you have original rad I recommend a new rad to prevent milkshake


I would immediately test and eliminate the possible milkshake issue, then
once confirmed no oil in rad, and no water in tranny, diagnose the rest

symptoms could be

water in tranny due to bad rad cooler (milkshake is starting)
tps sensor old typically the affects low low speeds 2-10mph
maf sensor dirty
low tranny fluid
stale tranny fluid
burnt

otherwise it is known and documented that when cold, and the first start of the day, 340's
may take a 1 or 2 seconds to hook up from P to 'D or R', but that should be one time, once warm should be
smooth

 

You could also put an addon tranny cooler. Hayden makes one that's more than enough for our auto-trannys. all you really do is reroute the tranny cooler lines to wherever you put the cooler. mount this thing on the radiator, remove the cooler lines from the radiator, and hook it up to the add on cooler you just mounted. you may have to use the hose that comes with it to extend the lines, thats about it. It will probably work a lot better since it isn't being "cooled" by whatever the temperature of the coolant is at the bottom of the radiator.