What Toyota got wrong with the 2.7 AT

Now ain't that the truth!

Tacomaworld has actually been one of the better internet experiences in respect to technical information. As opposed to opinions, that is pretty much no different than anywhere else. I've got mine, they have theirs, and people suck no matter what they drive.

 

Not my first taco either, actually my 4th and my 3rd with a 4 banger. This 3rd Gen with the 4 was the worst.

The truck came to me as a private party sale, with 33's, lift, and other stuff. I bought it because it was under book with low mileage, and the previous owner did a bunch of upgrades - so I had leftover money in the truck budget to make it right.

Your experience with stock tires seems to make sense. Going up to 33's would have been corrected by a "roughly" 4:30 gear. I went yet another order of magnitude past that to 4.88 and saw improvement in the overall utility of the truck on both highway and trails. It doesn't change the fact it is still a 2.7l 4 cylinder. But it is much more in line with the previous Toyota 4 cylinder trucks I've owned.

Of all the snake oil stuff people spend money on to improve their truck, add up several hundreds of dollars for cat backs, fancy air filters, or things like pedal commanders - the gear actually made a noticeable difference.

I suspect something like the OVTune for the 2.7 would help a lot too.

 

I have not done a speedometer correction. I can confirm the speedometer is off by exactly the same amount in the same way as before the gear change. The gear made no change there, seeming to confirm the idea that the speed is taken from wheel rotation sensors instead of the transmission.

I have noticed approximately a 2 MPG improvement for the tank average after the gear. That is mixed driving, up hills, down hills, fast, slow, mountains, and some trails.

 

The 2.7L is made for a MT. I can't even imagine what a slug that must be with the AT. The 3.5L AT isnt isnt going to win any races, especially in DCLB configuration.

 

I get triggered when people blame the engineers for this shit. This is not an engineering issue. This is a business unit decision.

Marketing/finance/compliance/etc decided they needed a configuration that is cheap and gets good fuel economy. Doesn’t matter that the result is an under powered turd. Maybe it should have been reconsidered but I’m 99.9% sure this is not engineering fault.

Engineering plays in a very small sandbox and many issues with products aren’t because of the engineers. We don’t get to make every decision about a product. There’s lots of pencil pushing that stacks up to cause this situation. Stop blaming engineers for everything. Shit is annoying.

 

Do you know what Joe - I think you are right. I think I was trying to express an idea and you said it better. What you said makes perfect sense.

It makes me wonder if the EPA test track is perfectly flat.

 

Yeah, perfectly flat, no turns, no wind, perfectly straight I bet.

 

Pfft what test track? They do it on a dyno, then apply aero fudge factors based on coast-down testing. This is necessary because the test includes cold starts in subzero temps https://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/how_tested.shtml

BTW the pencil pushers may kill off the 2.7L soon (they already did for 2020 in Canada). No point in carrying a cheap model when you can sell every V6 you make and still have a shortage, right?

 

The 6MT is geared lower for more power and comfortable cruising when pulling loads. UPS trucks have the GM 6.0 and those spin at 2500rpm at 65mph in top gear for the same reason.

 

Yeah, though it’s more complex and sophisticated than that little .gov blurb suggests:
https://www.caranddriver.com/features/a15388892/the-truth-about-epa-city-highway-mpg-estimates/
Manufactures generate basically all of the aero and real-world driving data during design.