Gear Indicator for 2023 V6 Auto?

I took my Tacoma on its first trip out of town over the last three days. It involved two days of driving in temperatures ranging from 99F to 112F in choppy and mountainous country. Highway grades ranged from normal to as much as 12% for short distances.

I got the cruise control figured out, which made flat road driving more relaxing. In choppy country, the transmission was always downshifting and upshifting. So I tried the manual-ish shift where I could drop it a gear or raise it a gear. That was both handy and dandy. Unfortunately, what most people would call a flat road, the Tacoma's computer determined that numerous downshifts and upshifts would be needed. So the tachometer would bounce often from about 1200 RPM to 3400 RPM. And strangely, the indicated fuel economy was a little better when the transmission was hunting around for the right gear.

What I liked about that option was there was an indication that would tell me what gear it was in! That's the spot that usually shows only P for Park, R for Reverse of D for Drive.

Is there a setting of a mod that would show what gear the truck is in at all times? Even if the mod would involve putting something like an "Edge" gauge on the dash would be helpful. I am tagging one of our electronic mega experts, @caribe makaira, in hopes that he'll have some ideas.

 

You can run an obd2 scanner and app to see which gear it's in if you're in D, if that's what you mean. Search 'OBD Fusion' app. $20 for app and Toyota PID displays and $20ish for obd dongle.

 

When the shifter is pulled to the left (S mode) it limits how high the transmission shifts. The number displayed isn’t what gear you are in, but rather which gear you have the transmission limited to.
There’s no way to display your current gear stock. Like the other comment said you can use obd2 add ons to display that datapoint either on your phone or on a separate display like scanguage. Alternatively there are aftermarket head units that can run the OBD fusion app and display different datapoints on your stereo

 

Thanks. I had that mostly figured out from reading the owner manual and also by the way the truck behaved. I did a really awful, terrible job of explaining that in the original post.

 

@I-Give-Up I got the scangauge 2 to monitor gear and transmission temp. You can program it to show 4 different types of readings. I like it.

 

Sorry just making sure, didn’t mean to come across as condescending if I did

 

Nah, no worries.