New to the Tacoma world

I just bought my first Tacoma yesterday (Black 2013 Double Cab TRD Off-Road) and I absolutely love this truck. It only has 80k miles on it and is very clean. I have a dumb question though, actually several questions. The steering seems a little bit tough as low speed and making turns when I'm in "D" gear. Tonight when I left the store, I slid the shift lever to "4" and noticed the truck seemed to steer much easier. Now I understand this is pretty much just a limiter in how many gears the truck will allow itself to shift up to, but that doesn't explain the better steering and what seemed to be better acceleration too. Please help a new guy out! Thanks!

 

Welcome to TW

 

Welcome to TacomaWorld! The "4" option means it limits the truck to just 4 gears. That's why the truck has better acceleration. I only use this option for when I am traveling up a hill or pulling a trailer. I don't think it should be used all the time but I could be wrong. My truck certainly has more power when using it.

 

Thanks for the reply. If it won't hurt anything, I might just continue to do in=town driving while in "4" because of the better steering and acceleration. Obviously on highway I would run in "D". I guess what has me perplexed is the steering. How could it make it easier to steer?

 

Welcome welcome!

It’s probably time to change and flush your power steering system, possibly change your serpentine belt too, your power steering seems better in 4 as your trans controller limits to lower gears for higher torque so your RPM’s and thus pump speed and thus pressure goes up.

 

Well that makes sense. Thanks!

 

Welcome Ryan, nice score on the truck.
Not sure what to offer on the steering, it's not stuck in 4wd is it?

 

I was literally just telling my wife that it almost felt like it was driving in four wheel drive, however the dial is on H2 and no indicator lights were on. I can't really explain the feeling other than it felt a lot like it came out of four wheel drive into two wheel. That is concerning to me if that's the case though.

 

Welcome to TacomaWorld

 

Hopefully it just needed to be limbered up after sitting on the car lot a while. Everybody wants to try the 4wd on the test drive and maybe something didn't fully disengage. I know mine is kinda finicky about coming out of lock from time to time.

 

Hopefully that's all it was. I'll have to investigate it a little further tomorrow. Maybe something to do with the transmission jarred it loose from being locked like you said. Maybe it's just the RPM's running higher in "4". Who knows, but I really appreciate all of your help on this! I'm excited to be a Tacoma owner now!

 

You should get a beeping or flashing light if something was stuck engaged from 4WD.

in 4WD you have a transfer case switch in and the ADD front sleeve slide over. (Automatic Disconnecting [FRONT] Differential) if your transfer case was stuck you should have the green 4WD light flashing on the dash, if you ADD got stuck I’m not sure if it would report an error but I suspect it would.

Something you can try is finding some grass and engaging 4WD then slowly reverse while gently sawing the wheel back and forth and disengage 4WD that may help get anything that could possibly be hung up to let go.

The 4WD system should be activated and “exercised” a few times a month even if you don’t use 4WD often; this is just to keep things lubricated so they don’t hang up when you need them.

Also check the front differential there should be a plastic roughly D shaped box attached to the longer side (shaft extension housing) with a nipple on it and a long rubber hose leading up into the engine bay see if that’s connected and then fallow it up to about halfway into the engine bay it should be attacked with a clip and terminate in a small plastic or aluminum cylinder, this is as breather pull that off and try to blow through it it should allow a small amount of air to pass through it, if that’s plugged up I could potentially see it causing a pressure in the ADD motor and hanging something up or causing condensate to corrode it and not disconnecting the engagement sleeve if the hose is disconnected or broken off.

 

Wow, thanks for the great advice! It's quite possible that the four wheel drive system was not activated for quite some time prior to me picking it up. I bought it from a very reputable dealership and maybe it got stuck when they tested the system. Anyways, I'll let yall know something tomorrow hopefully on how it's doing. Fortunately I signed up for the extended dealer warrant that covers most everything, but hopefully I won't have to use. I have a good feeling about this truck, and I believe it will be a learning process for me too.

 

So, did you test drive it before you bought it? I would think you would’ve noticed that something was wrong then...

 

Yes I did, and I didn't really notice anything that seemed out if the ordinary, I just figured the steering was a little tougher because it was a truck. I might just be looking to far into this. Everything about the truck is great and I'm very glad I bought it.

 

So no thoughts on my above comments?

 

??????? I don't see where you commented on this post.

 

I have to agree with this as there was a period I did not drive my truck and the steering became stiffer.

 

Go out and mess around with the transfer case shifting, put it in 4h, see how it drives, take it out of 4 wheel drive high, notice how it does this, smoothly? Stop the truck, put it in neutral, shift into 4low, see how it drives, should be reving up high and shifting real quick. Take it out of 4low, how does that go? Learn the characteristics of the drive system, and go 4 wheeling.

 

Whoops wrong thread