Manually shifting your auto

true true..but your going no where fast without a working trans..ive never had my brakes "go out" unless there is some serious racing going on.

 

Well said, also your transmission and engine are liquid cooled, your brakes aren't. Also it's not like we're driving kia's here... they're tacomas. Some of the toughest, longest lasting pieces of equipment on the road. I'll take a 50,000 hit on the drive train bringing it down to only 750,000 miles of life instead of rely on brakes only*.

*Note, all figures are completely made up and pulled out of my arse.

 

I agree, but people need to understand that they have to work together to slow the vehicle. You don't just downshift for grins. You downshift for safety. Brakes are made to slow a vehicle down, but there is a point when they become ineffective. You should be downshifting well before that point. A $4,000 transmission rebuild bill at 300,000 miles is better than being dead.

 

my dad does it to slow down or drops down to third to go past someone merging at 40

 

I have never heard of a transmission going out because of downshifting... (okay, maybe on a 1997 F350).

 

You obviously don't drive in the mountains under load. I have seen brakes fail on everything from Ford Excursions to Saturn SL1s in the mountains of Colorado. It isn't pretty.

 

we are not driving dump trucks!! ..I drive dump trucks and i would never just use the brakes alone..jake brakes all the way..But our tacos dont have the weight unless you are towing something big or a heavy load in the bed..i would say use the brakes unless you are towing something or heavy load..but i dont think i would use the tranny to downshift in a unloaded tacoma

 

The dump truck is only the most recent news worthy story. They don't report the everyday idiots that wreck. Big trucks make for more carnage and more story.

 

ok

 

It doesn't take a dump truck. I was getting a little to uh, comfortable with my speeds on some twisties in AZ with the G35 (Coupe, 6MT, Massive disc brakes)... Let's just say my play of flooring it down 6% grades and using the brakes + engine braking eventually started getting scary as you could tell the brake performance was sliced virtually in half from the pads starting to glaze from heat. Granted, that was all my fault and pushing the car, but on some of these roads just normal 'using hte brakes' to maintain speed can and eventually probably will fail on you. Slowing down into a corner, I rely on the brake. To maintain a straightline/overall speed, that should be the drivetrain's job. It scares me people still rely on nothing but brakes on those roads, everytime I see someone in front of me doing it I start worrying they're going to fail and plow into the guy in front of them. Then I think, the guy behind me might be doing the same thing.

Also, aside from brake fade, riding your brakes is NEVER a good thing to do from the perspective of the driver behind you. If you're lights are always on, when you actually do BRAKE, they'll be so accustom to your brake lights being on they might start braking harder later than they should. Yes it'd be their fault, but why put yourself in that position.

 

No worries. I do it all the time especially when towing my boat. 125,000 miles on my 05 & no issues with transmission.

 

Okay, so I am trying to retrain my ecu with my preferred shifting points. It shifts at pretty low rpm. Right now Im popping first to second around 3k rpm, 2nd to third in between 2500 and 3k rpm. Does that sound good? Also I figure I shouldn't let off the gas since that drops the rpm and it wont learn properly.

Finally rained and put some mud on a local road here, got to mud it up a little bit, fun stuff.

 

i think the rpm that your motor shifts at depends on how far you push the gas pedal down

 

Yep, it is based on the intake manifold pressure which is directly related to engine load. I found this out when I forgot to hook-up the vacuum line on the intake. It really didn't like that.

It matters how far and how long you hold the pedal down.

 

engine break saves your regular breaks.. wurd

 

*brakes. I dont not want "engine break" if you know what I mean.

 

The 5speed auto is used in the 4.7L Tundra. It can take the abuse much better than those 6speed nancy boys.

 

So many ways to look at it... i never seen a pickup 94+ that you could force to downshift and end up damaging it . Check you owners manual and look for the shift schedules,, look for the speed you need to go to shift say 5th to 4th ( i have a 5 spd manual btw). try driving in a safe spot and do that downshift at a speed SLOWER than whats listed.
All you are looking to do is downshift on a hill so you no longer accelerate, and minimize brake use... or ... bring rpm up by downshifting so you slow very gradually using compression.
Despite the use of the word brake, you won't ever really want to downshift so that the engine slows the vehicle at rate comparable to even normal braking (im sure you all do understand this part, might be just 1 person new to this).

 

Yeah I'm careful with the downshifting, my main goal was to find out about manually playing in first and second around town, which I am. Running first up to 3k, second about the same, maybe a little under. If I should be higher/lower let me know.

 

Big trucks do it all the time. It's called engine retarding brakes. So long as you don't have a manual that you're trying to downshift from 40mph into first gear you'll be fine.