Maintence schedule and intercooler coolant?

I took a peek today. The intercooler’s not in a place conducive to having photos taken of it; it’s between the grille and the radiator under the plastic shroud at the top of the engine bay. I couldn’t see it terribly well, but from what I did see, it’s the air-to-air cooler PDKTaco talked about. I wasn’t able to see anywhere a coolant line could connect to it nor do there appear to be any running to it.

So that’s good news, at least on the maintenance/simplicity/reliability front.

Also, it’s a pretty good size. It’s the better part of 36”x9”x5” or so. Bodes well for doing well to reduce charge temperature and hopefully avoiding heat soak.

 

Yeah it pretty big!

 

So is this good news for us 4Gen owners?

 

If you like the idea of not having an entire coolant system just for the intercooler you have to keep working and don’t mind that an air-to-water intercooler could have been much smaller to provide the same charge cooling effect, then yes.

Considering that they’re less constrained for space in the Tacoma than they are in the various Lexus platforms that use the T24A-FTS, particularly the transverse ones, it makes sense that they’d use a cheaper, simpler system in the truck. I’m supportive of this decision. I’ve never had a car with an air-to-water intercooler, but I have had one where the intercooler was stuffed in a weird place that made it difficult to deal with. I don’t care to repeat that experience.