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Not all V6 auto Tacomas fall under thus right? Vin has to match....

 

From what I understand it's all 2016 V6 automatic Tacomas. Could be wrong but after I disagreed they spent another few minutes at the computer and agreed to do it.

 

If your dealer fights you on this, push to have it done. Mine gave me some weird pushback on it. "It won't fix all the issues" "Toyota didn't want to agree to do it, but we confirmed X symptom, so we can do it now".
DO IT. It made a huge difference in my truck. This was the only thing that I was sorta ho-hum about with the truck. Now it's fun to drive! The dead, squishy pedal is gone and it now when I punch it, it GOES. Before I always felt like I was fighting the transmission and frequently shifted to S mode when I got tired of D and it's antics. Now I just leave it in D because , so far, it's performing like I expect it to.

 

My ECU report

I had an appointment yesterday at 730 am to have it done along with fixing the howling noise and changing the blinkers to 5 rather then 3 flashes. I dropped it off and got a call an hour and half later to pick it up. The service tech said I got good news and bad news. They did the howling noise fix but they couldn't do the flash because they didn't have any stickers. As you can imagine I was not happy at all. I was nice but firm and asked to speak with the manager. He stated that they wouldn't get paid unless they had the sticker installed/assigned to my truck. WTF He was very adamant about it as was I. After 10 minutes and some determination by me he realized I wasn't leaving till it was done. They took it back and 2 hours later I got a call to pick her up. When I came back the second time I asked the service tech if he had the blinkers changed. He was very apologetic and took full responsibility and said no. I was still nice and they took it back immediately and fixed it in 15 minutes.

My impression of the ecu change is now I love my truck for the first time since owning it. The change is dramatic!! You no longer have to mash on the pedal to get it to maintain upper speeds on the freeway and it shifts much better than before. No more lurching and as has been previously mentioned it seems faster almost like in ect mode. If you have a 16 you owe it to yourself to get the update. I'm happy Toyota finally did something about the software flaw. It's sad it took so long and they got so much unnecessary press from everyone about how the new Tacoma performed. If they would have had it installed like this from the beginning they would have won the truck of the year for 2016. I no longer want to get rid of my Tacoma and enjoy driving it now. Sorry for the rant but I think anyone considering the Tacoma should know that the flash makes this truck a great choice in the mid size truck market now.

 

I meant that Toyota took unnecessary heat by not doing it right the first time. It was a major issue. My bad if not clear.

 

Gentleman,

Could you not do this procedure, let the vehicle assume ambient temperature drop pan capture and measure fluid replace with equal amount? also at ambient temperature.

Sorry in advance for my naivety.

Gary

 

Yeah that'll do a fluid exchange however if you were low to begin with you'll still be low.

 

I had mine done Tuesday. Definitely smoother and shifts better and performs better in 1st and 2nd. Initially thought my fuel economy suffered, but given that I have a camper shell and went up a size with the BFG KO2's and got just over 20mpg on a 60 miles roundtrip the other day that was about 85% highway, I can't say that it's suffered much, if at all compared to my mpg before the TSB update. I just think in general you have to drive this truck like a Grandma to get decent MPG (and keeping in mind that it's a truck!) plus the tires and camper shell factored in.

I still get some pretty harsh, clunky down shifts, and got one really bad one last night. Was dropping a friend off after a concert and he even comment on it. FWIW I just think this truck is what it is, and you like it or leave it. I'm pretty sure I'll trade the truck in eventually. I already have "equity" in it (owe less than I'd get on a trade in) but just don't want to deal with the hassle. That on top of the 7/100 warranty, like I've mentioned before I'll just ditch it before the warranty expires. At least I know I'll have that amount of time of "worry free" driving since anything that could go wrong will be covered. I don't necessarily "need' a truck, although it has proven nice to have, but thinking this will be my first and last Toyota. I won't comment on what I'll be switching too down the line, but it probably won't be a truck since I'm not into any of the other mid-size offerings from other makers, so it will either be back to an AWD wagon or SUV for me (like the utilitarian attributes of a vehicle that can do quite a few things, haul small loads inside, on top of or rarely towing, performs well on mild off-road stuff, is good in fowl weather, snow, etc). Toyota hasn't really impressed me. The Tacoma is a great looking truck, but the 3rd Gen seems to have fallen short in performance, at least when the automatic transmission is concerned.

 

ugggh

 

I was pissed since it hadn't really done anything weird since i had the update done. I was driving around in the city, coming up to a red light and was a VERY harsh downshift with a noticeable "clunk". I'm tempted to seriously just stick it out, just out of curiosity just to see what comes of tis symptoms since I'm covered to 100k!

 

You won't get the fluid in the torque converter and probably other places. A drain and fill is only a percentage of the total fluid, and typically less than 50% I believe. So I don't think you would learn much from the exercise.

For clarity, fluid level is not related to the TSB tracked in this thread.

 

Personally I'd never do a flush anyway, there's absolutely no reason. Do a pan service every year and you're way ahead of the game. Pan had a drain plug, don't even have to drop it unless there's a serviceable filter in this transmission.

 

Hey so does anyone feel the tranny almost holds out too long now before going into OD? Yes it feels better off the line, holds gears longer, downshifts much easier, but seems to hold 4th for quite a while before dropping into OD after passing someone. This is while driving with out cruise control on.

 

Better than it used to be so I'd say no

 

Guess we'll see what happens after 500-1000 miles when it relearns again.

 

Don't be a dick. You get more bees with honey. But be firm. Your truck came 25% low on transmission fluid. It was 75% full and you drove X miles on it like that. You can't be sure what kind of damage that did.

 

I got my truck back today from having the TSB update done. The truck drives great. There is definitely an improvement on the highway with the new update. I never really had any issues with the R to D delay, so I can't really comment on that. It works fine. However, the shifting issues are gone. They hold longer, the shift points are more natural, and it's much more managed on the highway. I ran 80 mph on the highway today for over an hour and still averaged 19.8 mpg on the dash.

I can say I'm pretty content with the truck. It's getting lifted with new tires on Monday, so there goes my good MPG, but screw it. It's a Tacoma and I didn't buy it to be fast or get stellar gas mileage.

I highly recommend getting the update. You will fall back in love with your truck.

 

My results:

I had the TSB flashed on Tuesday of last week during my 10k maintenance. I printed out the TSB and showed it to my service writer and asked him to apply the TSB during my maintenance. He said "no worries" and I dropped the truck off. I received a call 5 hours later telling me that my truck was ready. I picked my truck up and drove home which is about 23 miles of highway miles. I instantly could tell the difference as the truck shifted much better. This is the same route that I drive every day so it was easy to notice the times when the transmission would normally shift gears and how it stays in 6th now. This weekend I drove 5-1/2 hours each way from my home to Indianapolis, IN. The drive on Thursday was mostly into the wind and while it did shift out of 6th it mostly shifted into 5th now instead of 4th. When it did shift into 5th it was only when it needed to to maintain my speed of 68-70mph. My fuel economy was 19.2 for the tank. This was 90% highway. The trip home was the same route but I had very little wind, and the wind was slightly helping at times. I traveled on average 72-77mph (in a hurry to get home) and I averaged 19.2mpg. Transmission shifts were about the same as my drive on Thursday but it did shift a little more into 4th. Mostly because of traffic and the fact that I was running 75mph most the time.

Overall I would call the TSB a success as I experienced a noticeable difference to the shifting patterns (less shifts) and my fuel economy wasn't effected much. I have taken trips at highway speeds 68-70mph and got 20+ mpg in the past. I feel that if you keep your highway speeds less than 70 you can get close to the 20mpg rating. All my driving is done without cruise control.

 

Ok so here goes. Had the TSB done yesterday, took a 4 hour ride today. Definitely noticed more responsive throttle, cruise worked great with mostly downshifts into 5th rather than 4th. Transmission would drop back into 6th sometimes before the hill crest which then required it to drop right back into 5th which is a little frustrating. Hopefully that'll go away after the learn process is complete. It feels better over all and seems this is pretty much how it should have been from day one. It's not 100% perfect but it's a huge improvement.

To add to this, I'm lifted on 33"s so my results are probably different than those that are still stock.

 

Mineral oil is a broad term, but I did say 'as opposed to synthetic oil', mia culpa friend, for my poor choice of the word.
Moreover, I’ve always used API (American Petroleum Institute) with the recommended viscosity by the manufacturer. In this particular case, 5W20 motor oil (non-synthetic) and more specifically, Mobil brand, but all API rated brands should just work fine.
And btw…I’m not advocating ppl do as I do, follow the service schedule recommended on your manual. I can get sway with a lot that most ppl can’t.
But that's just me!

Hope that helps
Cheers!