Crawl Control... is it all it’s cracked up to be???

is that from personal experience? because it dose not look like you have one!
the way i see it i am fully locked when crawl is active!

 

I tried it once when I was on some loose rocks (mostly grapefruit sized) going uphill. All it managed to do was shake the hell out of the truck. Not sure what happened there...

 

Shake the hell out is different from driver to driver, but with A-trac I'm not scared. By nature the truck is working against itself in one area to provide traction in another.

 

It didn't feel too bad, but it didn't actually end up getting me any further on that trail. I just turned the locker on and up I went.

 

For sure. Just another tool in the belt.

There's also been times I couldn't have afforded to lose momentum (even at a crawl) and A-trac inevitably will never be as instant as a front locker.

I do a fair bit of climbing if you can't tell. Because who wants to hike to a remote trout pond I'd there's a fun road (trail) you can take. Haha

 

Theres literally a computer driving around mars... pretty sure they don't have any roads...

Also : https://www.landrover.com/experiences/news/all-terrain-self-driving-research.html
https://www.darpa.mil/news-events/2014-03-13
https://www.darpa.mil/about-us/timeline/-grand-challenge-for-autonomous-vehicles

The DARPA stuff is from 2002!!!!!! This stuff is just getting blown up in the news now because its finally becoming available to your average Joe.

Self driving cars are already better than humans. The fact that we are talking about off roading doesn't mean that computers are not better there too. The reason we use computers is because they excel at things that humans do not. They are not emotional, they are able to process their surroundings faster than us, they are able to feather the throttle and brake all 4 wheels individually based on thousands of inputs perfectly every single time, they dont overestimate their abilities. Does it remove the fun? Hell yea, part of offroading is getting stuck and getting to use that awesome way too expensive recovery gear but don't lie to yourself about any persons ability vs a computers that was designed for the task at hand.

 

To add on to this, the computer is not navigating, but simply applying traction to the proper wheels. The computer has information that the driver does not. It knows what rate each wheel spins at what torque amount and can adjust to that. The computer also has the ability to apply the brakes to each wheel independently which the driver does not. Maybe if a driver had these tools available to him we'd be able to do some type of comparison, but at present we do not.

Therefore we can only assume or presume which I don't like to do.

 

Put a locker on your front diff with IFS and see how that works out lol ...

 

This is exactly why I asked the question. It seems to me that if power is getting to both front wheels it’s as good as locked. Right?

 

Not in a big hurry to grenade my front end. Lol. Just wanted to know if crawl control had the same capability traction wise as a front locker since it does transfer power back and forth between the two front wheels or at least transfers power to the wheel with traction. Theoretically.

 

I live in rural New Mexico and I use my truck, 2017 trd off road, as a work truck. Where I live and work, the pavement is only the highway through town, everything else is dirt. I have one client I go to at least once a month, where I use the crawl control. I have to go up and down a short but very steep stretch of road, it's rutted and full of loose rock and gravel. I use, Low 1st gear, MTS on the way down the hill, and then I use the crawl control on the return trip, to go back up the hill. (I am taking a short cut, on this route, I could go around, approx 20 miles more.)
I'm carrying tools and possibly materials, there and/or back. In order to have my truck, and tools, last as long as possible I need to drive as carefully as I can.
Crawl control is perfect for climbing the hill, it's consistent, with no wheel spin, or rocks flying. Sometimes the stuff in my bed doesn't even shift on the way up the hill.

 

Someone correct me if I am remembering this wrong, but I’m pretty sure you can step on the gas or the brakes when in crawl mode, and it will stay engaged and resume crawling after you are finished stepping on the pedals. So you can use gas to pop over something, or hit the brakes if you need to.

 

Great example

 

Here is a good video of crawl working with a newer Land Cruiser. I’ve not needed it yet in this sort of situation, but I think the hill in this vid is much steeper than it looks (like anything you film with a camera phone). Without crawl control, the driver would have either had to take a run at it (much more risk of breaking stuff or bouncing) or hoped like hell his traction control worked flawlessly as he perfectly applied the exact amount of gas. Having to back down a hill you’ve driven part way up is one of the most dangerous, if not thee most dangerous action you can have to do when wheeling, so it’s good this guy avoided that.

The safety advantage here is this guys truck has the brakes and the throttle applied at the same time, using crawl control, so the truck is basically stuck where it is at any given point in time. Crawl also works in reverse as well, so if this guy could not make it all the way up due to lack of traction, he could crawl back down in reverse, with maybe a little more safety as well.....who knows.

I think the whole idea of crawl control getting you unstuck is overrated and just something that Toyota came up with to market it, because it’s easy to demonstrate. It’s true value, I believe, is as a hill ascent and descent system that adds a degree of safety you wouldn’t have otherwise.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NZ-Cq_b_UbI

 

Very similar to The newer Subaru's "X-mode" . We love it on our 15 Outback. I would have got it on my 17 SR5 if it were available on that model.

 

Oh?

 

It's another took in the shed. I value a locker greater than cc for strictly off-road use, but that doesn't mean cc isnt awesome.

 

Wish this were available in my bar hoppin’ days.

 

Give me a break.

 

Running an ARB in the front diff of my wife's 3rd gen. The dude from Marlin Crawler with the 40s on his 3rd gen is running front and rear lockers. Like anything, it takes skill to use them correctly.