Hi All, It's been a long time since I was here. I'm considering a TRD Pro and read the following from a TRD Pro review at Motor Authority and am wondering if it's your experience:

"It didn’t take long on a highway road trip for my wife to demand I turn off cruise control. To keep momentum at over 70 mph the transmission constantly dropped from fifth to fourth gear and then back again. It’s grating. This occurred regardless of whether I was driving alone or with the family and luggage."

Any thoughts will be appreciated!

The Pro has the same tranny as all auto 4 Runners.
Does it drop (change down) gears on some smaller inclines yes. Underpowered it is - by todays standards. Remember, our drive trains and bodies are a decade-plus old.

So, back to your you q - "...hunt above 70mph..." - depends on the road. I have a 2023 ORP - and its cruise control is a little wild. I think it is worse than the 2013 FJ Cruiser I sold a few years ago - and the FJ and 4R have the same bones.

Power really isn't the issue with this truck. If Toyota would have simply dropped in their 8 speed auto which has been on the market since 2008, they could have remedied this shifting issue a decade ago plus the truck would be much quicker and would get 15-20% better mpgs.

Toyota is an ultra conservative brand that is totally risk adverse and typically 5 to 10 years behind in technology.

Living in Western Washington and driving in the Cascades quite often and before I switched to 35s, I always switched to S4 when trying to use cruise control. It is less wear and tear on the drive train to drive-train to run the engine a few RPMs high and alleviate the gear hunting on the transmission.

No that I'm on 35s, have yet to regear, and have an "empty" weight around 5200 lbs - I'm in S4 all the time. I don't even bother with overdrive - it won't stay there more than a minute or two even on the I-5.

These transmissions hunt better than my English Springers and they are no slouches.

I don't seem to have this issue.. Mountain, Freeways at 80 etc. Only time I use the manual side is a steep downhill in 4wd(not bad enough for crawl) or I want to put rubber on the ground.

Yes. It does. On cruise. Use cruise or don't, it's your choice.

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While using cruise, if I see a modest incline up ahead I feather in a little extra throttle to gain a few MPH to avoid this, by the time you get to the top of the incline you're back to your cruise speed (if you time it right). But yes it'll downshift on hills.

Will it hunt around on flats in normal 75ish mph driving using cruise?

It should be fine, unless you find yourself driving into a strong headwind. Then it could shift in and out of overdrive.

No; at least mine doesn't and I live in Kansas so we have the "flats" you speak of. It does in areas with a lot of hills and grades somewhat like others have said. It also depends on wind (it isn't exactly aerodynamic) your speeds, type of tire (the more aggressive, the more rolling resistance) AND how loaded down you are (weight, roof racks, etc).

We recently took it to the Ozarks in MO. On the smaller highways in the hills, it hunted a lot, but I've also had that happen driving every other vehicle I've taken through there. I always turn CC off going through that area.

Thanks everyone. If I recall correctly, there used to be a transmission shifter position for "4" which would keep it out of overdrive. Does something like that still exist?

Yep...that's what I do too. It's the cruise control. I really noticed it heading west through South Dakota into a headwind, really long rolling hills. With the headwinds it was even reluctant to shift back to 5th after cresting hills too. When we tow the teardrop I won't use cruise and almost always keep it in "manual" 4.

Upon buying my 2023 I almost immediately noticed how pessimistic the transmission is of the engine's ability to provide enough power at low RPM when using cruise control. If I'm in full control at 70mph, it'll stay in 5th gear on 3% grades or so, no problem. If cruise control is dictating things at 70mph, it downshifts at the first sign of any uphill. It's annoying enough that I don't use cruise control in slightly hilly areas--flats only. I am curious if trans behavior on cruise control was always like this, or if Toyota recalibrated stuff for 2020 to make it all work with the adaptive cruise control. Do 2010-2019's also exhibit this "downshift out of fifth on a 2% climb" behavior when the rig is totally stock?

Yup cruise control blows on this car with gear hunting and holding low gear too long. Doesn't matter the trim or year. Sucky sucky.