Enough Already! Your Truck's T, HP and RPM Explained

I really felt like the "new tune" reverted back to its old ways after about 2500 miles on the tsb. Sure felt that way to me.

 

It may be different with the Manual

 

I'm sure your facts are right but I don't understand why Toyota can't tune the truck better. The Honda Ridgeline has basically the same numbers as the Taco, but drives way better and gets just as good gas mileage.

The fact is every mid size truck feels more powerful than the Tacoma.

 

Let's be honest now... if he started a thread of his own, you'd be in there on the first page declaring there is nothing wrong with the 3rd gen. Would you "go away bro" if he told you to?
Lol, btw the earlier poster is right. You CAN have missfires without throwing a code, it has to reach a certain threshold first. Is that what Mr Bidan was experiencing? Maybe. In my experience, that feeling of hesitations under load had everything to do with Atkinson/Otto functionality and VVT. Not making that up, OVtune saw it in my logs...and fixed it (on an earlier file).
I believe you when you say your truck runs fine. I also believe others when they say updated Toyota calibrations fixed their driveability issues. I've experienced that myself. Is the engineer in you not curious at all? It doesn't cost anything and there's NO risk to you if a dealer applies 04B13 to your 2017 M/T. Why not ask to have it done at your next service? It certainly won't make your truck worse, because TOYOTA ENGINEERS created it. Not some fly by night tuner in Virginia who apparently sells snake oil and has a license to print money.

 

Well, the Frontier M/T I drove a while back certainly did. Yep, it's a 4.0 with better torque numbers than the 2GR, and yes it drinks more gas. No, I'm not going to go buy one.

 

My truck runs fine without any TSB tunes.......

Shocking?

L O fucking L

 

The OP's post is mostly correct, though there are a few statements in there that I disagreed with about the relationship between torque and power. But the jist of it is that this engine has to be revved to make power. There are a lot of reasons for that and most are not due to the tune, and can't be changed easily. So live with the idea that the engine needs to be in the upper part of the tach to make power. My problem is not with the engine itself. I'm very happy with the power it makes across the whole rev band. The issue, for me, is with what I would call "gas pedal tuning". When I drive a manual, I think of the gas pedal as a throttle pedal. I push it down and the throttle opens. At any given RPM, I've only got between 0 and X power available and if I want more than X, I downshift. But within any gear, I can choose any power output I'd like within those limits. Once I know the car's power band, I don't even have to think about this. It's totally second nature.

When I drive an automatic, I think of the gas pedal as a power pedal. I want more power, and the truck should do some combination of opening the throttle and shifting to provide the amount of power I'm asking for. I don't care about what that combination is - I want the truck to figure it out (hence "automatic"). Most other automatics I've driven have a wide enough powerband and closely-spaced gears so that you can leave your foot in one spot and get roughly the same acceleration before and after a shift. This truck doesn't operate that way. The shift from 3-4 highlights this the most for me. I can be at 1/3 throttle accelerating pretty briskly and at roughly 38mph, the truck will shift to 4th and stop accelerating. This is due to 3rd and 4th being too far apart and the powerband being too narrow for that rev range, so you get a drastically different power output after the shift. I have to give it more pedal to get it to keep accelerating at the rate I wanted earlier, sometimes so much pedal that I get a downshift back to 3rd (and takeoff like a rocket in traffic). The truck should know I want the same amount of power as before, because I haven't moved my foot. So it should upshift to 4th and open the throttle at the same time so that I keep accelerating.

I actually have to be more involved mentally in driving this automatic truck than I do driving my manual car. That is completely counter-intuitive and I think it's a lot of the reason why people bitch about it. I didn't buy an automatic to be constantly playing within my foot trying to get the truck to do what I want. Taco, I told you how much power I wanted with my foot, now YOU go figure out the rest!

 

The whole "278Hp/265T at 6000/4600rpm" thing doesn't even come close to telling the true story of this engine. 100% throttle dyno numbers are not real world, they are only good for bragging rights and drag strip times. Real world is down in that 10-40% throttle range, and that is where the new 3.5 engine is getting smoked by the old 4.0. The Atkinson cycle is killing part-throttle torque, (by design) and if I had access to the cam timing tables in the ECU I could fix it in a heartbeat.

 

Well the new OVtune has a pretty much full Otto tune(calls it "modified Otto"), and a "modified Atkinson tune". But from what he's posted it's way more than just the cam tables. And took a professional tuner more than year to fix it.

Bottom line is Toyota could have done better. It's a fucking mystery why some people's trucks behave so badly when compared to others which are seemingly fine.

 

Sigh... If I am at a bar and I am on my 3rd beer in 20 minutes, there's a good game on and I am surrounded by friends, chances are I feel a bit buzzed and content with life. As a matter of fact, it does not get any better in my book.
Now, this stranger walks in and starts talking to me. He asks to talk to me in private. I go with him across the room. He pulls back his jacket and shows me some special smoke. He has MaCallum 25 single malt. He has a flash drive of the greatest games ever played. He has pictures of boobies even!

Now, I was totally content and happy before I came over here. If I take his cool stuff, am I going to be "more" content and happy? Of course not.

I'll give Bidan a huge benefit of the doubt and say there are 100K people who are not happy with the 3rd gen Tacoma. THOSE are the people who need the special smoke and the 25 shot and pics of boobies. The other 700K people are just fine with beer, a good game and some friends.

I didn't do this rambling metaphor for you lol as you already know this. Maybe people like Bidan will "get it" after reading this.

 

I have the new tune, so I understand perfectly how flawed the original tune was.

 

Try the new tune. It might change your mind.

 

OP:

I lOvE iT sO iTs FiNe AnD eVeRyOnE iS wRoNg


Just because Toyota has a blind following no matter what kind of shit they pump out doesn’t mean it’s good? Lol.

 

Don't you have a Bro F150 to put 22s on with low profile mud tires? Go enjoy the f150 forums.

 

How do you know it wouldn't be more enjoyable with the TSB? It's all relative, of course.

 

Yep....I agree 100%. I have been "on the road" for over sixty years (age 76), I have never had a vehicle (car, truck, SUV, Jeep) with such an erratic shifting automatic transmission...even after the most recent TSB.

 

That's all fine and understood. Let me add a few things.

The guy who walks in isn't actually a stranger, you've seen him at "the bar" multiple times. Now you're rolling your eyes because you don't agree with what he says about your team, he's always shitting on the D, or maybe the fact the forwards turn the puck over in the neutral zone too often is the problem. Before things get into a shouting match (because you're starting to feel the 3 beers you just knocked back), the guy with a different opinion calls you over to talk in private. He offers to show you the stats that back up his outlandish claims, but you just wave that off. You part ways because you'll never agree. You both like the on-ice product and will buy tickets to see that team play over and over again.

Again, all of this is fine. You both like the team overall, just one of you is being more critical of it. It's not "your" bar, both of you can drink there.

BTW, who doesn't like a good single malt and boobies? You're GODDMAN right you'd be "more content" and you fucking know it lol.

 

Question: What qualifies you to determine an OEM's offering as "shit" or "good?" Are you a scientist who does cutting edge metallurgy or an engineering manager in charge of a team of designers or are you a master tech who has worked on thousands of vehicles or even a market analyst who can spot trends in a specific industry?
Just curious.

 

No comment lol.

 

Beautiful logic from both sides of this argument. My day is better for having read them. Thank you.

Instead of replying on a different post I’ll add my negativity to the end of this one. If you are posting on here that you have to work harder to drive your AT Tacoma you are retarded. Don’t ruin a great discussion, either side of the aisle. Comments like that make us all dumber. That’s like saying I have to work harder eating corn on the cob that was shucked for me versus having to shuck it myself.