Official TSB for automatic trans failure from Toyota.

when you pulled out and it "does nothing" what does that mean? no throttle response? engine revs but truck does not move" the one time when it happened for a second or two. what happened after that? like immediately after that? hard shift? bang into gear?

 

Never time to do it right but always time to do it twice. Toyota needs to stop being so cavalier and churning out problems like the other auto brands. At this point maybe a used cavalier is a good idea. Haha! Stop eating ass, Toyota!

 

Good questions - but in the moment the truck is not moving and traffic is coming towards us, I wasn't analyzing engine RPM, LOL (and I listen to music all the time, so I didn't hear if the truck was revving out like crazy or not). It all kind of happens quickly - pull out with plenty of room to make the turn safely, but the truck pauses, traffic is coming, panic sets in to get out the way. I'm sure I was giving it more and more throttle as the panic ramped up trying to avoid getting hit. I don't recall it "lurching" per se after it started to go again, but once it got going, I was on the throttle hard trying to get the truck up to speed.
Since I think we're trying to diagnose what was happening, there was a separate occasion where it did the worst shift I had noticed since owning the truck - it "banged" into a lower gear when downshifting when I was I just driving it normally coming to a stop light. Even my wife noticed it and commented on it, but that was a couple of days after the first "pause" situation occurred.

 

so it did the delay/lack of accel twice? and banged into a gear on a down shift coming to a light. how many times had it done that? hard to say its the trans when you cant explain what happened just that something happened and for 1-2 seconds something also happened but you cant remember that... i can understand why the dealer drove it and said theres nothing wrong.
when diagnosing a problem it is good to have a pattern of when and how. and remember exactly what happened.
a loss of comm with the throttle body could also cause what you described, and that is not transmission related. a roll into an intersection and then stabing throttle can cause a delay while the transmission shifts from say 6th gear to second gear . that would also fit into your story.
many of us have noticed intermittent harsh downshifts when coming to stop light. usualy happens when slowing down quickly for a stop light. even GM transmissions do this.

 

Yep, did the "pause" twice. Both times, I was at a stop sign, turning from full stop from a parking lot onto a road.

The worst of the hard downshifts was only observed once, but I'd experienced other less rowdy downshifts previously. But this one time was the worst one. It reminded me of when a new driver shifts from 'Drive' to 'Park' before the vehicle has fully stopped. Harsh and immediate.

My oldest son is a tech for Kia, and I talked with him about it too. Truck didn't perform as expected for the consumer, dealer couldn't replicate the issue in their presence, no codes to pull apparently, so that's that. I've had other similar experiences with service departments when an issue doesn't repeat itself regularly (or trip a CEL), so I wasn't shocked or upset. Not much they can do but document it and wait for it to get worse. But I wasn't going to wait for it to get worse when it was sporadic and unsafe when it did happen. Thought I'd share my experience since my truck had 8k miles on it before my symptom's appeared.
I had the means to fix the problem a different way... and happy with my '22!

 

This exact behavior is why I ended the lease early on a 2023 Tundra and moved to a Tacoma.

VERY pronounced in the Tundra (SR5 twin turbo 6), and happened about a quarter of the time. From a dead stop, if you depressed the accelerator aggressively, the truck would do a small lurch, and then just coast at a couple mph. After anywhere from a second to three (yes three), the truck would suddenly "wake up" and accelerate as normal.

It would do this about 25% of the time, and I was able to replicate it for the dealership techs twice. All they ever did was tell me there was not TSB for it, and then reflash the ECU.

Initially we had a few close calls, especially turning left in intersections under an unprotected green light. That happened twice before I learned not to trust the truck to accelerate reliably. After all the games with Toyota, I traded it on a Tacoma.

I'm not happy to hear about this same behavior in a taco. FWIW, it hasn't yet happened to me in my 24 OR Hybrid.

 

Joining this thread to relate experience with transmission in 24 OR Hybrid.

Haven't had any warning lights, but I have noticed that the transmission shifts fairly harshly when cold, and seems to smooth out after warming up.

I only drive the truck in S8, as I can't stand the constant cutting in and out of the engine in other modes. So this isn't related to the hybrid system.

Jarring shifts seem to happen into and out of gears 1 and 2. Not noticeable between the other gears.

 

11 months and 21,000 miles no problems. The Gen 3 Tundra hasn’t been pretty!! Seems like they learned a lesson? I had a gen 2 Tundra, looked at the gen 3’s but there were too many issues for me, and I didn’t need a 1/2 ton anymore.