Why buy TRD OffRoad with manual?

Everyone starts somewhere, not everyone is an expert wheeler. As far as torque mulitplication, it is irrelevant as a wheelin advantage but makes a difference in terms of towing, which is what some people use their trucks for more than offroading.

 

I'm not completely understanding that, wouldn't torque multiplication depend on gear ratios?

 

And so goes the argument on every truck forum in the world since the dawn of trucks. Or man. Or something.

Manual transmission drivers are died in the wool manual transmission fanatics. They eat with shift forks. Put gear oil on their corn-flakes. And bitch talk autos every chance they get.

It's 102% driver preference and perceived utility.

I drove test drove an AT Taco and know I would never be able to live with it.

My off road adventures will be pretty low impact, unless I find a group of y'all that are near me and aren't all a bunch of tool-sheds.

So for me, driving without a clutch makes for a boring drive. And I spend 50% of my week driving between client sites. I don't want to be bored at my job.

 

I think he is referring to how you can control the torque on your truck by engaging a certain amount of clutch with a certain amount of throttle?

 

I was assuming that he was talking about the slipping torque converter allowing a higher torque from higher rpm translating to the slower spinning tranny, i.e. not getting bogged down in gear (in an MT lugging the motor).

The slipping torque converter allows an artificially higher gear ratio compared to the gear you are currently in. Of course you could do that in a clutch too, but you'd burn it up in short order.

 

It's a give and take in my experience. If I had to really give the auto one thing over manny, it's that breakage is a lot more prevalent with a clutch. Trying to finesse it through a rock garden is more of a headache than it's worth, for me.

 

but first gears in manual tend to be much deeper than 1st on auto's so you're not going to be short on torque. I always imagined towing with a manual will require a lot of clutch slippage, especially from a dead stop. But I quickly learned other wise and have come to prefer manuals over auto's for the mild towing i do occasionally just because u can stay in the power band much better and can engine brake better as well, taking some of the load of the brakes.

 

Basic torque converter operation -

A fluid coupling is a two element drive that is incapable of multiplying torque, while a torque converter has at least one extra element—the stator—which alters the drive's characteristics during periods of high slippage, producing an increase in output torque.

This isn't possible with a standard clutch disc/pressure plate setup. DSG style transmissions are the best of both worlds in this regard.

 

Actually, manual transmissions used to be the preferred standard for towing. Auto's are more capable and functional now for towing because torque converters and electronic controls have gotten light years better.

 

Interesting, I'll do some reading on that.

 

I think what he was talking about was more cruising speed while towing, say up a hill or something that would pull down the vehicle speed, automatics "may" slip out of lockup and slip allowing rpm to climb and provide more torque, whereas the manual bogs down. At least that's what I think he was implying.

as far as my second gen, I'm a little disappointed that my first gear ISN"T deeper than it is, pretty high for a MT IME.

 

I was pretty stoked when I learned they went with a 4.3:1 on the 3rd gen. But that can potentially come with it's own problems. 1 to 2nd is the most common shift and a larger difference between the two gears puts more wear on the synchros. Hopefully these last as well as other tacomas that dont rot out.

 

I'm not sure if this analogy applies or not, but it seems relevant. For those of your that ride dirt bikes let me ask you a question. Could you imagine climbing mountains, tight trails, floating around fire trails, jumping, navigating tight trails or hills will rocks, or anything with an automatic transmission? The lack of control of your transmissions and gears I would feel would cause a lot of error and unprepared spikes when a computer is trying to make decisions for you based off how much throttle you give...

 

HAHA I had to go back and refresh my memory on Q converters and I see the cut and paste from Wikipedia . lol. Yeah forgot about the stall speed characteristics.


Here's how torque multiplication works in a manual. Lets say, at 1000 rpm you engine can make 40ftlb of torque if at full throttle. if the clutch is out fully you have 100% transmission of Q. so, 40 ftlb at full throttle. Now slip the clutch and rpm up to 3000. Max torque there is say, around 225 ftlb, and varying the clutch pressure you can get any percentage of that Q from 0-100%. Say at 50% you get 112 ft lbs of torque. Which is more than the 40ftlbs with the clutch let all the way out, but at the expense of burning the disc.

Now what you were talking about is that at stall speed, torque converters actually transfer close to 100% of torque all while slipping and staying in the higher power band due to rpm. Which you wouldn't do in a manual because you'd fry your clutch. But that would only come into play during high acceleration, taking off from dead stop, steep obstacle maneuvers etc. At cruise speed and gentle hills the effect is much less a factor because you're in "coupling" mode which is akin to a simple fluid coupling in performance and stator is irrelevant.

 

Agree but now you have the automatics that can have crawl control which negates that advantage manuals used to have and manual transmissions can have a horrid clutch setup that makes smooth applications difficult to do. It's not like Toyota has been without detractors as far as their clutch goes in the last gen [5 speed], hopefully they fixed that this go around. The complaints were enough to keep me away from Toyota's manual when I bought my Taco and FJC, especially when the same issues cropped up again 30 K down the road after they were ''fixed.'' These are the first Toyota's I have owned that were automatics, all others were manuals. [6]

 

Crawl control uses the brakes without your input or knowledge, so that scares me a tad bit in the mountains not knowing how close my brakes are to overheating and boiling.

 

We have lots of long water crossings in my neck of the woods, and I come from the school of "dont fucking shift in water". The Auto has been much more fun than my XJ 5 speed in the water, I can start in 1st and bump it into second. Where most manuals you gotta decide based on experience which gear you want before you head in.

I've been told not to shift for a few reasons, the biggest is the water will flood into the clutch material and not allow it to reengage. Next is the lack of torque when upshifting. You gain speed but lose torque when shifting in a manual, where the auto has the multiplier advantage of the converter.

 

Yep there is that good points for the auto.

 

First gear low range is going to take some time to get to that point. We're talking what, a couple miles an hour here at the most? Engine braking, even in an automatic, is considerable at that gear ratio, it is not freewheeling.

 

Same here, I couldn't remember the three component names so I just swiped the whole passage because it was pretty well worded.

I think the basic sentiment here is user preference. I had a 5MT in my 02 Jeep TJ with a 2.72:1 2spd xfer case. That was miserable to crawl with. My JK had the lousy 42RLE mated to the same 2.72:1 and it was a million times easier to point, throttle, and power through almost every obstacle. The auto was a more pleasant wheeling experience because my focus was on obstacle line, not stall speed and lugging. Just my take away from similar setups with different transmission choices.