Do you believe the Chief Engineer?

Just don't "test it/exercise it" (4L) ten's of miles from civilization on that random dirt, USFS Fire Road or "unimproved" road: it may not want to shift back again to 4H/2H.

Don't ask me how I know. (Disclaimer: It was NOT a Toyota.)

 

^^^THIS^^^
I believe him too. Why spin it, lie or sugar coat it? In these times, he would be busted within hours as the rebuttals on the internet came in by the hundreds.

For me, the "tell" here is the statement that this has been the only known case so far and they feel they know the cause: traction control under a specific set of conditions and choices, sent all/most of the torque to one corner to cope. I believe him. Again, if this was a common issue it would be lighting up the internet with same/similar failures.

 

Nothing wrong with PR: He's doing his job. I'm sure Toyota is paying him a crap-ton of money and flying him all over the world to do both jobs: Chief Engineer and PR when appropriate.

He must be doing a good job if they are sending him to the Far-East for some new "something-or-other" that is coming. Dunno about anyone else, but he impressed me both times I watched it. YMMV

 

I did similar stuff back in the day. Traveling, public relations, entertaining customers and expense accounts will kill you.

 

I was referring to the 70 pounds I gained.

 

Didn't watch the video, don't have a 4th gen, don't really care, but I'm waiting on my dog to take a crap so I have nothing better to do than offer some wisdom as an engineer who has worked for various companies.

He might not be lying, but I will never by default trust anyone a large company puts in front of the camera/press. If bloggers get blacklisted for, like, their opinion, man...imagine what happens if a direct employee goes off script...

 

In this day and age I don't believe anything if it is not on the internet.

 

Wasn't Sweeney spewing the greatness of the 3rd gen, its the best until the next gen. or until you sign on the line?

 

Every Chief Engineer does that. Sweeney got promoted though. He spews executive bullshit now.

 

Again, gotta say this. Show me the other guys even trying. I would really like to see a video. So I can lob peanuts at them.

 

Aren’t you curious? You know, see if it works?

 

Theres not really to much places to go offroad where I've. I really wish Canada still sold 2wd I had an 18 the last year and traded it a few years ago. I really like the look of the Prerunner in that underground color.

 

While I believe the chief engineer, I am still shocked over the fact that the part failed after being 1.7% over spec. I am not an engineer and I would love to know how close to spec the Gen 3 is in the same regard. Maybe they are all built to fail that close to spec, IDK. (Any car part engineers here?). However, considering how bulletproof Toyota's usually are (I am a fan boy) I would expect there to be a much larger margin over spec that it could handle. Additionally, it bothers me that they are now going to essentially de-tune the taco so that it does not exceed drive train specs. I guess I would have expected the answer to be that they would fix the drive train so that it could handle the Torque from the engine, instead of de-tuning the engine to meet the specs of the drive train. I am sure they do this all the time and I am not even aware, but now that I know, it bothers me. My perception now of the 4th Gen Taco is that it has a weak drive train (true or not). I guess time will tell.

 

First off all, one ADD broke. One out of 70,000. They are not going to "detune" it. They are going to limit when it is in 4LO, the locker is engaged, and that particular traction mode is selected. I wouldn't call that a detune.

Again, 1:70,000 Tacomas.

 

I don't disagree with your assessment. Just an "impression" at this point.

 

I’m interested in the instrumentation in the Tacoma. Sheldon acted like they can measure quite a lot, to a moment in time on a private vehicle. Are they really logging that many events throughout the drivetrain? I would like to know more on this, storage devices, etc.

Does the Tacoma send all of this data to the cloud? I would like to understand this triage.

 

Most car companies wouldn't give an F and just ignore this, but Toyota went above and beyond. Of course, companies like Ford and Chrysler don't likely have the manpower to keep up with every issue brought up on their new cars—the Bronco, anyone?

 

It has been a long time since I worked in an auto parts supplier QC and production but other news on this site and easy to find shows 70,000 or more of the new generation Tacoma have shipped now. In that time and job it was pretty well known that much smaller sample sizes would start showing broad problems fairly fast.

That sample size more than much other stuff said tells me this is probably not a big or broad problem.

 

I suspect Ford, GMC, and Stellanti do too. It's probably proprietary.

If there had been a second one that failed, it would have gone viral.

 

Yeah. You don’t need to smash the gas in 4LO with the locker on. If you do that you’re a knucklehead.