To tune or not to tune

Thanks. Tell him take it off as a sticky on his FB page. LOL!

 

I guess it's human nature to not be satisfied with what you have. We have this insatiable desire to make things bigger, stronger, faster (what is this pop culture reference from?).

But that is mostly a young man's game. My truck runs and drives like a 3.5 liter V6 powered pickup truck is supposed to IMO. Could it be better, i guess. But the out of the box performance is good enough for this aging Boomer.

Now where did I leave my car keys?

 

@atc250r

I'll pass the message!

lol

 

@Nirango kid

It's cool if you stay on the fence regarding a tune--if you are happy with the performance of your truck, why change it?

I had driven my truck for over a year before I set up appointment for my OTT Tune on May 23, 2022--I've had 2 updates since then (June & Sept).

My evaluation is: the truck has more torque! It accelerates much better and goes through the gears nice and smooth.

I'm still getting between 345-375 per tankful...measured by resetting the mileage meter...also depends on how heavy/light I apply the gas peddle.

It would be great to test one out on another Tacoma...but that's really not feasible.

 

I've had my Tacoma for two months. Last month I got tuned with KD Max Pro XT. The shifting was drastically improved. Actually felt like my truck wanted to accelerate for once. Just got the KD Max 9 update which has even smoother shifting. Mpg has improved too. I'm currently getting 22 - 24 mpg but this is with stock wheels/tires and suspension.

 

I wouldn't say it's a young man's fad...I'm 70 and just had a tune done earlier this year. The truck performs so much better than the stock set-up. The programmed shift points are so much better than stock that towing a 16' tandem axle trailer with 5000 lbs. aboard is now a breeze rather than a struggle.

 

It is an old men's fad. Old men who know how vehicles should respond and shift are the people who can't live without a tune. The stock tune will drive you crazy. I was ready to trade my Tacoma away or buy a Pedal Commander before finding the KD Max tune and a local tuner. Now it is like driving a new vehicle. Younger people seem more forgiving of this stock tune as they don't know where shift points should be to stay in the power band.

 

Curious which tune you got.

 

KDMAX PRO +...gonna' upgrade to XT when I stop procrastinating!

 

I get that's a lot of money but this isn't like buying some Chinese made crap heritage grill, that everyone but you can see except when you walk up to your truck. This is a mod that only you can feel and enjoy every time you drive your truck. Remember that all of the tuners that I have talked and read about are happy to tune your truck let you take it for a quick spin if you hate it they will flash it back to stock for free will cost you nothing. I know that's a gamble for people that don't have a local tuner close but it should tell you how well they stand behind what they sell.

 

When I run tune days, I am always there for 4+hours so if someone wants a different throttle response, they just come back and we reflash then they go out and drive again and let me know.

 

This is true.

I forgot to mention that!

So you can sample it in your own truck...woohoo!

It's FRIDAY!!!

 

I decided to go for it and recieved my kdmax 9.0 tune today. I recently purchased my 2019 Tacoma used and had a suspicion that it had been tuned at some point. After driving 2.5 hours home today with the new tune I believe my suspicions were correct. I don’t notice much difference in how it drives other than low end driving around town. It feels like it pulls better from a start. Shifting and everything else feel about the same. I opted for the lite throttle as it seems people are switching to that and enjoying it. I did try normal with the tuner and didn’t like how responsive the throttle was. I checked with kdmax and ott prior to my tune and they have no record of it being tuned. I also checked with vftuner directly and nothing. I didn’t have any gear hunting issues or really any complaints prior but figured what the hell I’ll try it. Im not disappointed in the tune in any way, but I don’t feel I truly experience many of the benefits of it. My truck has a lift and 285/75/16 tires on it and since it never hear hunted before I always figured it was tuned and I truly believe it was.