after about 5000 miles in two months, this what I noticed about this Truck.

This morning, I went through slow but not completely stop-n-go traffic on northbound 101 (towards San Francisco), and I got 21.6 mpg. This was on a 21 Mile drive. Because I drive a manual Off road, the factory EPA rating was 20mpg, so I am very happy with my MPGs.

I make sure to cruise around 1.5k rpm unless I am at 65-75mph or accelerating.

I also shift non-sequentially . So I may go 1st and then 2nd gear, but depending my speed on second, I may jump to 4th, 5th or even 6th.

Furthermore, If I am in 5th or even 6th, and I need some immediate power, I may drop down to second with a rev blip.

I am still learning to adapt, but after putting a few 100 hours behind the wheel, I am beginning to get muscle memory for this engine. Feels great now

 

I can tell you from my experience that the howl is real. The diagnosis for my repair was ring and pinion misaligned in differential. They replaced the differential under warranty and now the noise is completely gone. When I purchased the truck there was no howl and it begin to howl on light throttle and gradually was there constantly. My concern that there is a unknown factor that is playing into the pinion issue that will again present itself after a period of time. I am just happy at the moment that the howl is gone and hopeful that it won't return. Something had to cause the determined misalignment adding stress causing wear or what?... probably a combination of poor parts procurement, failure of design, sacrifice of quality for profit.

 

Sit down... let me tell you a story about ~2 years and 33k miles on a 2016 Tacoma.

 

I'm catching up smitty!

 

I hear ya brother... may see you on the road up and down that miserable 101 some day.