POLL: OVTune Reviews (3rd gen)

Apps->Eco

 

God dammit I thought I wasn't going to modify my Tacoma like my Golf R...

These reviews all basically say what my impressions are of the driving manners of this truck not even a full day into ownership. I didn't fully cross shop against any of the competitor compact trucks (besides pricing out online) to see how those drive, but I assumed it was just inherent to all trucks.

This has probably been beaten to death and someone might flame me and say use search but coming from the VW world, your car can get the equivalent of the scarlet letter, forever marked by VW as an adulterer defiled by tuning and certain aftermarket mods. VW apparently has very sophisticated ways of detecting tunes, which I won't pretend to understand fully.

Does this exist for Toyota? From reading the first 10 or 11 pages of the 890 page thread on OVTune it seems like the answer is a resounding no. I haven't been around for long so appreciate patience with the newbie.

 

First, don't ask this in the REVIEW threat. Ask it in the alpha thread. Second, many people have taken their trucks to dealers with the tune and have had no problems

 

Sorry for clogging up the review thread; I'm off to a good start here.

As I implied the 800 page thread is un-navigateable and not much use to someone coming here for their first time with very limited knowledge. Maybe I'm the idiot for not checking out forums before buying the truck and reading 800+ page alpha thread, and the other threads people make showing off these trucks, but I just want to say there are beginners who just land on buying this truck and want to learn more. After about 10 pages into the Alpha thread you get tired of all the fun banter and just want to find the "facts" you're looking for there.

I'll post my question in the alpha thread, but it would be easier for newcomers if there was a summary thread stickied/managed by a member of the community who has been following the whole time and is very well versed on it. Or OVTune could make the first page summarizing known facts currently for newbies; videos on procedure to tune and update are not really helpful in my shoes as someone who has never owned a Toyota before and just a regular car enthusiast diving into ownership. In an effort to not clog the review thread probably best to just leave it at that.

 

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads...gine-ecu-reflash.515190/page-49#post-17547520

 

I understand installing this tune is hard do you need a laptop? Currently the website is saying the tune is on back order anyone have any idea when the tuning will be in stock?

 

Installed 91 1.04 trucks is buttery smooth . No more more heavy footing, the truck drives normal. 5/5 all I can say is the truck drives like a normal car. I say it drives like a 2018 4 runner.

 

• Order number - #2511
• Date purchased/date installed - 2/27/18 - 3/17/18 (1.03 tune)
• Version / transmission of the calibration you're running currently -
  • 04B03 2016 TRD Sport AT Currently running 1.04

• Star rating you give it - 4.5 Stars (subject to change)
  
• Any mods that would impact - 265/70/17 Falken Wildpeak AT3 tires

I'll give my preliminary review, I still haven't had enough miles to give a full review, so I'll update later.

I started with the 1.03 tune and like most others though it was great, such an improvement to the stock tune, shift points were improved and overall felt like you aren't dragging a 2 ton trailer behind the truck. Got rid of that sluggishness feeling. But it didn't feel quite refined, there were some shift points that didn't feel quite right. Along comes 1.04, this was a nice refinement to the 1.03 tune, shift points felt better overall, but one exception. I don't believe this was the same on 1.03, but it definitely holds 3rd gear to long. When cruising in city traffic at 30 MPH it shouldn't be holding 3rd gear, seems it should shift somewhere between 25-30 MPH, and downshift back to 3rd given appropriate throttle. I can't comment much on MPG, most of my driving since tuned has been the commute to work, 6.5 miles and literally 25 traffic signals along the route, so my MPG varies on how many green vs red lights I hit, but I can say it hasn't had a negative impact as far as I can tell. I have a road trip planned in a few weeks, so it will be good to see how it performs on the interstate. I'll post an update after more miles logged.

 

My review updated after getting about 1,000 miles in on 1.04. Loving it!

 

My update after running 1.04 91 for approx 750 miles. Not quite as responsive as 1.03 87 was, but definitely better MPGs. Avg 17-18 city and 20-22 freeway on 1.04 whereas I was at 15-16 city and 19-20 on 1.03. Not sure if 87 be 91 is making much difference there. I am going to try 1.04 87 for a few hundred miles as a comparison next.

 

Guys, just wanted to come back on here and say how satisfied I am with the tune. It took me a while to get, and a little bit of back and forth with Matt to set up. But man, 1.04 91 octane, is fucking awesome.

I don't want to go crazy here, but it really does feel like Matt went in and gave the truck a 10% boost in power. Down low it seems to idle better, and has quite a bit better pedal response, and if you get the RPM's to mid-high, this thing hauls ass. Now don't get me wrong the truck always felt good once you get it up in the RPM's, now it just feels like someone (Matt) pulled out all the annoying delays, and rev hangs, and stupid shifting. On the highway, I feel like I can easily cruise at 90mph if I wanted to, but I also feel like I can cruise through a neighborhood and not have the constant rev hangs that ETC mode gives you.

Props to Matt and anyone that had a hand at OVTune. Shit's A+.

 

Keep All Questions in the alpha thread

 

Tune:
1.04 AT 87 octane tune

Truck:
2017 dcsb 4x4 offroad 6,000 miles.

Lift:
2.75” lift up front
2” lift in rear

Armor/weight
Front and mid skid
Front 75lb steel bumper
Sliders
Prinsu rack

Tires / Gears:
4.88 gears
285/70r17 Falken wildpeaks

Old mpgs /new mpgs with tune:
14.3 / 15.8 so far.

Review:
Ok so only reason for 4 stars and not 5 is the confusion with latest batch instructions that took a bit to setup. Matt is fixing this.

Product alone is five stars. Off the line it accelerates smoothly and much more responsive. If I mash the pedal the truck doesnt downshift it just goes faster. I have not noticed a downshift while in cruise control at 70mph yet but no crazy nasty hills so far. With 33” tires its hard on the foot to stay above 70mph. Now with tune im cruising 75 no issues.

I couldnt be happier. I currently have no recommendations for improvement and love the way the truck drives now.

 

Tune: 1.04 91
Truck: 2017 OR 4X4 DC SB AT
Lift: 3" X 2"
Tire: 32" BFG KO2

Last Tune: 1.03 91 on 3-17-18

I have about 300 miles on the 1.04 tune and it's getting better. The throttle is not as sensitive as 1.03. A lot of people didn't like the sensitive throttle, but I did. I'm getting used to the 1.04 throttle so not a big deal for me. I'm getting about .5 to 1 MPG improvement on mileage, it's a truck so that's not really my goal with the tune, but I'll take it anyway. I wanted the performance of the truck to be unleashed and Mat has done a great job with waking up the truck. If I had to give a short explanation of the 1.04 tune I would just say it's a refined 1.03. The truck power is readily available and for me the vehicle does not drop into 6th gear unless I'm up around 70 MPH. For me this prevents a lot of the gear hunting on the freeway.

Truck runs better on the 91 tune with Shell or Chevron fuel

The tune makes the truck a different vehicle and fun to drive. I would advise anyone that it's a great mod and worth the money. I love it.

I had a few issues downloading the tune. When flashing the PM Flash program didn't see all the tunes that were downloaded. Mat helped me change the search to look for All Files and then it showed up.

 

Order #2588
Purchased March '18
Loaded May '18
5 star rating
Tune version: 1.04 (87)

Toyota should be embarrassed that they released an unfinished and unrefined product. After owning a manual truck 11 years prior to the Tacoma, I guess I felt that the stock ECU/TCU operation was how it should be.

This truck is everything I wanted and really is a pretty well built machine. But now after 1200 miles after OVTune, with about 24000 stock I'm still puzzled. How the hell could TOYOTA release this truck with such a poorly performing or programmed engine/transmission.

After installing this tune the wife and I hit the road for a long vacation. At first I really didn't notice any major changes, but believe bad gas and not giving the tune enough time was the issue. After four tanks of Shell 87, this truck is now so smooth and refined on the highway and more deliverable for city driving. The last leg of this trip we drove 320 miles averaging 72 mph and got 20.35mpg, and the experience was so smooth it was hard to stay awake.

I've watched Matt with OVTune since July 2017, and completely impressed with his product development especially considering the non-stop pings from TW. I will recommend this tune to anyone, and wished we had someway to show that our trucks have the tune. 2 reasons, one to get the word out even more and second to keep throwing it in Toyota's face.

Cruse control is a bit better after tune but it's still crap. After tune I have no issues feathering throttle to maintain speed without having to drop two gears or constantly hunting the gears. Again another half ass attempt by Toyota, but perhaps Matt can reprogram that algorithm for Toyota too.

 

I see a decent number of 1 stars but no one wrote about it. Would like to hear that opinion.

 

Yeah, that was the reason I asked for folks to leave reviews including order number and whatnot. My guess is that some folks voted low who don't even have the tune...

 

It's a pretty penny for a tune. Some reviews seem to contradict others. I want to hear good and bad reviews.

 

I too was pretty skeptical about spending $700+ on a tune. Until this tune, I've not heard of truly day/night transformations of the driving experience in non-turbo charged engines. So the cost felt extremely steep. It wasn't until I read OVTune's website where there used to be (but no longer) a pretty comprehensive list of improvements to fueling, throttle maps, shift points, and a host of other parameters. I was convinced that enough things were changed where there could be a large net difference. I was so dissatisfied with the stock driving experience that I decided I'd try it out.

I've only run the 87 octane tunes for 1.03 and 1.04. I now have more than a few thousand miles on the tune. Both are enormous improvements over stock in terms of throttle response, shift points and general driving feel. Most complaining you'll see are due to aggressiveness of throttle tip-in, various shift points here and there, cruise control and reluctance to hold 6th gear - I have my own opinions on those but we've reached the point of diminishing returns of needed improvements into personal preferences. If the truck came with 1.04 from the factory, there would be little to no market for an aftermarket tune.

It appears that OVTune has moved onto his twin turbo project for his R&D Tacoma so I would guess there are going to be no substantive changes to past 1.04 unless somebody provides a test truck. OVTune has previously mentioned that he would customize the tune (probably some sort of fee?) for individual tastes. We have all seen he's a one-man shop and really busy so you're probably not going to get a personalized fine-tuning session with him.

My review of 1.03 is on page 4 of this thread. Maybe I should go update that for 1.04.

 

I've been on 1.04 87 octane for about 1k miles.
Stock Limited Edition truck.
This tune saved me from getting rid of the truck, period. It drives like it should now.
My mileage is up a bit.
The tune was expensive but cheaper than the loss I would take trading out so soon.
Thanks Matt!