Any cons to having ECT power on all the time?

i'm still dumbfounded about how anyone can think the ECT button is placebo. why would Toyota put a button that doesn't do anything?

 

what, you mean it's not like those elevators with the close door button that isn't hooked up?

 

I had a dealer loaner 2022 Tacoma when mine spent the night to get the remote connect activated. It was not working when I picked up my truck. The loaner ran like a raped ape compared to mine. I think its because everyone beats the crap out of a rental or loaner and the car learns the driving habits. Mine I baby so it had no where near the pedal response or early gear shifts.

 

Because my 2018 drives like a normal truck with a V6 and automatic whether the button is in or out. Its not that I thought the truck needed any improvement in how it drove or when it shifted, I just tried out the button to see what the difference was and didn't notice any. Perhaps if I had been convinced that there was going to be one I would have paid more attention, but I was, you know, driving at the time.

I don't drive aggressively though, maybe it is different for those with different driving habits.

 

Yeah It's not gonna make a difference when you're paw paw on the way to the post office to mail a strongly worded letter to the BBB.

 

I turn it on when I need to gun it, otherwise it stays off.

 

It creates a big difference on my 2020 v6. You get stupid long shift points, a difference in engine tone, and you can watch you gas gauge needle drop like a v8. If yours isn't making any of one those changes i mentioned somethings wrong.

 

2018 with 58k miles. ECT on 100% of the time, S4 or S5 99% of the time. No problems here, and I'm consistently getting 20-21 mpg tank averages w/ 32" ridge grapps.

 

I only use it in traffic.

 

I rarely use mine. I can notice a difference when it's on. I haven't noticed any issues from running it sparingly.

 

Not placebo. Simply because the truck drives the same from 0-60 when you mash down the pedal in each mode doesn’t mean that the truck doesn’t drive totally differently in 90% of driving situations (in lower gears for longer) when ECT is on. It’s night and day.

When I don’t have it on and I need to pass someone or accelerate in an emergency situation, I hit the pedal and the truck seems to think for a whole 2 seconds about the meaning of life and then all of a sudden it downshifts and gets to 6,000 RPM. I fucking hate that lag and drama. When ECT is on, it’s always in a lower gear so I get power immediately and then it downshifts calmly and delivers more power in a smooth band. To think there’s no difference is astonishing to me.

 

Hmmm, my "ECT PWR" button.

 

lol … wtf

 

Sorry, I was just messing around; my Tacoma has three pedals under the dash, so no "ECT PWR" button.

 

You manual guys just love to opine in AT threads lol …

 

LOL, I just couldn't resist. Prior to yesterday I didn't even know about the button; an individual on another thread said he purchased a TRD Pro so he wouldn't need to look at button blanks; that's when I looked at my dash and tried to figure out what I was missing. He didn't appreciate it when I told him there was no way to configure a Tacoma from the factory with no button blanks; using a TRD Pro as an example, the automatic models will have a blank where the Clutch Start Cancel button goes, and the manual models will have a blank where the ECT PWR button goes.

 

i find the truck drives a lot better in s4 if under 55-58 mph. save overdrive for the freeway.

 

Makes sense. I think ECT kind of does that by preventing early shifts

 

I struggled at first, to see what ECT even did. After a while, I finally figured out it seemed to help when going up long uphills, or when heavily loaded.
I seldom use it.

 

There is another tangentially related thread from today which may benefit from this discussion. The other thread is dealing with what I call gear hunting while driving a 4-Cylinder Tacoma in urban Texas traffic; do the I4 versions of the Tacoma have the ECT PWR button, and if so, do y'all think it might benefit the OP of the other thread to engage the button?