Rev hang variability

Hi everyone,

First post. I'm a brand new Tacoma owner, bought and took home a 2023 TRD Sport a few weeks ago. Very much enjoying the new truck so far!

I have a manual transmission and am still getting used to it, generally speaking it is easy to drive, easier in fact than my previous car. What I'm having trouble getting used to, however, is the rev hang on the Tacoma. I expected it to be a part of the driving experience as my last car (a 2011 Subaru Outback manual transmission) had it big time so I didn't expect the Tacoma to be any different. What's problematic is that the degree of rev hang seems to vary quite a bit from shift to shift. When shifting from 1st to 2nd, for example, it will sometimes drop like a rock, whereas other times it drops at a snail's pace. It makes more consistent smooth shifting difficult. The rate that the RPM's drop at doesn't seem to correlate with anything obvious that I can see (such as engine temperature, time spent driving, A/C compressor on or off, how high I rev it up in the previous gear before shifting, etc...). I'm pretty sure I'm fully depressing the clutch pedal between shifts of course. I couldn't find much about this degree of rev hang variability when searching the forum, other than people generally complaining about rev hang being a problem in various threads, so wanted to start this new thread see if anyone else has experienced this. What I'm hoping is that there's a pattern/method to the madness that I simply haven't picked up on yet because I've only been driving it for a few weeks.

I'm sure over time I'll get used to it (I did on my Subaru and could eventually drive it quite smoothly nearly all of the time), but at least the Subaru rev hang was quite constant and predictable. The variability of the Tacoma is tougher because it makes smooth shifting tougher! Or perhaps I'm just having recall bias here, hard to tell.

If it helps, truck only has 1500 miles so far, so still in the "getting broken in" phase.

Thanks everyone!

 

Welcome to the forum

I drive & shift pretty slow, this truck is the most difficult vehicle I have ever had to be consistently smooth with. I don't know if rev hang is related or not.

 

The 05-15 models were more noticeable but you are correct, they will rev hang to maintain emission standards.

I find it's less likely if you don't snap the throttle shut by lifting off aggressively.

 

I’d say my revs fall at a relatively consistent speed. Every once in a while it may be a bit faster or slower than normal, but no pattern I can find. Sometimes my foot is unintentionally still on the gas a bit which affects how the revs fall obviously.

the more frustrating part of this truck to me is the ratio spacing in general. 2nd is half the gearing of 1st, and then 4-5-6 are so close together that you have to shift really fast or else the revs fall too far, unless you give it some throttle which is weird to do while upshifting. It is what it is, I’m used to it by now, but man it could have been so much better than it is. For this reason, rev hang is actually a good thing in the taller gears.

 

Thanks for the replies. Sounds like much of it is just getting used to the truck and with time behind the wheel I’ll figure it out.

Agree! The 4-5 and 5-6 shifts increase in very small increments. I skip 5 entirely and go from 4 to 6 in many cases, partly because I can’t physically move the shifter from 4-5 fast enough. Luckily my Subaru was basically the same way so that aspect has been easy to adjust to.

 

Never experienced rev hang in my truck. Only problem I've experienced is under reving when down shifting to second. That first blip is always low, so I always have to blip twice. Hate these drive by wire throttles. Give me a cable actuated throttle any day!!

 

Same experience here. If you're accelerating, you need at least 2k RPM's to keep moving in this truck, which means you have to rev to 4k in 1st to drop to 2k in 2nd, which is the only time I really notice the rev hang. All other gears are close enough together where I don't even pay attention to it, I just clutch in, shift, clutch out, and the timing seems to work out fine in most cases, except as mentioned in the 5-6 shift where you have to be lightning fast.

I don't understand gearing design, but if I could spread out 1-2 and 5-6 a bit more, I think it would be perfect. From messing around on a calculator:

 

Yeah, I've accepted it as it is what it is, but it's hard not to daydream about past vehicles that had better gearing spreads. Personally, only 1 OD is proper in my mind. 2 ODs is a waste because 5th has barely anymore power than 6th. I'd prefer gearing to be something more like this:

1 - 4.00:1
2 - 2.60:1
3 - 1.75:1
4 - 1.25:1
5 - 1.00:1
6 - 0.70:1
R - 5.00:1

And then an axle ratio of around 4.88 on stock tires for my preferences.

But, oh well. I regeared to 5.29s and now I want to get the Hilux transmission eventually, but I'm fine with how it is for now also. Hilux would improve a few things though.

 

This thing seems to have a really heavy flywheel. I don’t think much of the hang is software related …
Usually you need a heavy flywheel in order to
Maintain a tow rating and prevent stalling

 

Yeah, two OD's is awkward for sure, 5th as the 1:1 would be mint. I also wouldn't mind 1st being a lower granny gear for wheeling, but maybe I'll do a dual transfer case some day.

How do you like the 5.29's on 32's?

 

Agreed, for me it's the having 4 ratios before 1:1 that makes me want 1:1 to be 5th. Plus, then you only go from 6 to 5 for a good solid highway downshift, and if you really need more than 1:1, you would have an awesome 1.25:1 4th which is still highway usable. Overall just a more usable gearset. But, overall what we have is fine. In stock form with the 4.30s, 3rd is capable of very high speed, so the gears are there but you downshift further to get there.

Overall I really like the 5.29s and 32's. I've had the 32's for 2K miles, I had the stock size 265/65/17 tires (but Toyo ATIII) for the first 8K miles of the gears. I actually got better mpg with those despite the higher rpm (was 3000@70, now it's 2850@70) but overall either tire size is fine. The performance didn't really take a noticeable hit when I upsized.

I still wish for more down low though. This engine is just so gutless below 2K rpm, that I want even more gear down there. Hence why I want the Hilux, for a lower R-1-2-3. The downside with the Hilux is that 3rd becomes considerably lower and with my 5.29s, it would max out around 74 mph instead of 81 mph. But, I don't really use 3rd way up there anyways, the regear makes 4th good enough to just use it for passing typically. 3rd would be nice around town in that setup and 1-2-R would all be much better too, so overall would be a nice improvement, and would drop the highway rpm a tad. Maybe someday.

 

I think the gen 2 MT's get to 1:1 in 5th. They only have one OD. That's what my 2013 had.

 

I have never even noticed this "rev hang" people complain about and I have no problems shifting smoothly. I have noticed that every new vehicle takes a bit of time to get used to to though.

 

That’s correct, though they didn’t have much of an OD. It was like 0.84. So it was about as close to 5th as ours is. The 2nd gen basically had the same overall spacing as 3rd gen, but with a different axle ratio.

 

all these numbers is giving me a migraine

 

1 to 2 shift it feels like I have to wait so long, because the RPMs have to drop by half. The rest seem acceptable to me.
Every once in a while though, like twice a month maybe, when I go to shift 1 to 2, I press in the clutch and let off the accelerator the RPMs seem to actually go UP by 100 or so and then S L O W L Y start to come back down. I call that phenomenon rev hang, but fortunately it doesn't happen very often.

 

Yes! I’ve had that happen too from time to time. A painfully slow drop during the 1st to 2nd shift. It is most noticeable there because of the massive RPM drop. Always seems to happen when I’m accelerating with someone right behind me of course, pissing them off.

Good to know it happens to others, just gotta get used to the truck I guess.