Anyone use the auto-transmission to manually shift gears?

What the hell is a “manual “?

 

I have to admit that paddle shifters on my Taco would be awesome in S mode given the transmission shiftiness. And I never thought I'd say that I thought a truck could really use paddle shifters...

Edit - I am a long time MT only driver. Every vehicle was MT until I stupidly traded in my '09 ACMT with a TRD blower, Icon and Dakar lift, etc. for the lure of a v8 Tundra that I ended up never driving except for towing because it was so big (OK the 4" lift, etc. didn't help).

Now both the car and the truck are AT. At least the RC isn't shifty.

 

Had a 08 and a 10 Miata. Paddle shifters in a Miata is a crime. Now in a WRX, not so bad.

 

Paddle shifters for wheeling would be great!

 

I used to do this all the time in my camry (B.A. , I know). It didn't have sequential sport shift, but it had "L, 2, D, and O/D".

I heard engine braking can put unnecessary wear on torque converter, which is expensive and time consuming to replace. Especially when you can just use your -brakes- for braking. But I wore the engine out before the TC had any problems.

I will likely be nicer to my Tacoma. However, manual shifting/engine braking is always great on snow/ice. It allows much better feel for what your tires are doing, and you don't instantly unleash all hell when one tire starts to spin with an open diff

 

I have had cars before which has a slap-auto trans. When I switch to "manual" or 'sport' mode, the car would choose an appropriate gear for the speed which I am driving at. But this is not the case in my 3rd gen taco. It doesn't matter whether I'm driving at 10miles an hour or 90. It always shifts to 4th gear.

Secondly, when I shift down in manual mode, the response is instant regardless of my speed, the car would engine-break and slows down. This is fantastic (not advisable to do this at high speeds). I used do this all the time, as it allowed me to slow down enough to make turns etc. But on my tacoma, the truck won't allow me. If Im at 3 gear going at 45 and if I desired to go to 2nd gear and if I tap to 2nd, I could count 1 second, 2 second,.. and instead of shifting to 2nd., I get a beep. "Oh, You want to go to 2nd? Haha tricked you. That's not happening today... yep, FU too" .

The same thing happens on any gear you're on trying when you try to shift down. It won't shift unless you step on the breaks and drop the speed way below the gears minimum cut-off. But it don't have any restrictions to go up. You can drive at 5 miles an hour and still shift all the way to 6. all it does is beep, I hate when it does that.

Another thing is, this one time when I gave my truck to the dealership for service, they gave me a loaner Corolla. It's a 2017 model sport. It had paddle shifters and automatic slapshift. And the things I mentioned above works fine on this one. I could shift down to slow down enough to make turns without having to step on my brakes, it would shift to an appropriate gear automatically when you switch to 'sport' mode., it has a 'sport-auto' mode where it would shift up or down if you don't do so yourself. So it's not like Toyota doesn't know the concept. It's just that moron Mike Sweers wanted to take an excellent product and bring it down to crap .

 

Yeah, I've noticed that horrible delay as well. Both while shifting up, and down. Letting off throttle a bit helps

 

I agree. What is the point of having a manual gear selecting device that decides for it's self what gear it should be in?

 

This has been asked and answered before. It's for towing apparently. I wouldn't know why because I have no plans to tow anything ever.

 

Right, but even then it can be annoyingly slow. I get that the "pcm n pals" (control modules/nanny logic) usually know whats best
(and let's be honest, sometimes protects the truck from the driver)
but the gear shifts sometimes feel sluggish like I'm shifting up too early in a manual trans while driving on a steep hill.
While your towing I get that you dont want to buck the thing while shifting, but you don't want to drop onto the next gear at 1k rpm either