2014 2wd limited gear ratio

[quick]

Group:
Recently bought a new 2014 2wd limited and when it gets in final Over Dive it is a dog!! Around town, to quickly accelerate, you really have to get down on it and it ALWAYS downshifts (okay you would expect that when getting down on it that hard). Around town, putting it in S4 it works pretty well. Engine is responsive as I would expect.
On the road with the cruise set it is constantly downshifting for every little hill that comes along. My old 2004 4wd V8 was not like that at all. Pretty disappointed with all the downshifting.
It came with 20" tires, my old one had 18's. Is this what is causing the problem?

Is the final ratio too high? BTW how do I find the actual rear gear ratio? Is there a code on the door and a decode book somewhere?

Thanks for any suggestion.................Quick

 

[BigredTEX]

All V6 5th Gens are 3.73. The I4 was 3.90.

The lack of oomph at moderate highway speed has been discussed many times here, along with the cruise control logic and transmission shift logic. All those combined make for a really poor highway cruising experience. If you're driving a lifted T4R with off-road tires and other mods it gets worse.

I just bought a V8 4th Gen for my son and the performance difference is eye opening. It's not just the additional torque, but much better shift logic in the transmission. The 5th gen is set-up to get into the highest gear possible as quickly possible, all in the name of fuel economy. With cruise control it tends to stay in OD too long and then down shifts one or two gears, racing past your set speed. Most have found it workable to preemptively downshift to 4th gear when approaching a hill and then shifting back to 5th once you crest the hill.

 

[adam2562]

did you test drive it before you bought it? even when i purchased my 2nd 5th gen, i took it on an extended test drive. They make a kit where you can re-gear it to 4.56's i believe.

 

[Ol'Baditude]

did you test drive it before you bought it? even when i purchased my 2nd 5th gen, i took it on an extended test drive. They make a kit where you can re-gear it to 4.56's i believe.

My next mod; can't friggin wait. Honestly offroad in 4lo the 3.73's are perfectly fine, but on the highway and around town, yeck.
You can get the full 3rd in 4:56 with bearing kit from ECGS.

 

[DigableKid]

Read through this thread... http://www.toyota-4runner.org/5th-gen-t4rs/163913-slow-slow-acceleration.html

 

[quick]

Thanks for the info. It sounds like I'm stuck with the poor performance on the highway. Keeping it in 4S in town solves the problem, but that seems impractical at highway speed. The engine has high rpm HP but very low RPM torque, nothing like the 4.7 V8.

Is there a chip mod for the transmission logic to cure this design flaw? I've seen the engine chip mods that might help, but I'm shy of these. Not sure if it would help or not and I'm concerned about the warranty.

 

[1engineer]

Thanks for the info. It sounds like I'm stuck with the poor performance on the highway. Keeping it in 4S in town solves the problem, but that seems impractical at highway speed. The engine has high rpm HP but very low RPM torque, nothing like the 4.7 V8.

Is there a chip mod for the transmission logic to cure this design flaw? I've seen the engine chip mods that might help, but I'm shy of these. Not sure if it would help or not and I'm concerned about the warranty.

There are no "chip" mods. It's only a design flaw to the guys who don't like it lol. I drove 1600 miles last weekend and got 21 mpg because of this "design flaw." I doubt they would sell very many 4Runners if it was optimized for pure power and got 12 mpg.
With that said I do think there are room for improvements in a few areas. I am going to start a new thread when I get a bit of time on ECU and TCU variable parameter sampling rates. Sounds exciting right? I think one of the reasons so (like you) are sad over the perceived lack of performance is the sampling rate of the variables being too slow. This is also a possible explanation for a gear "hanging" at the top of a hill for a short amount of time. More on this later but just use sport mode around tow and in the mountains to ease your pain.

 

[Speedy Gomez]

It sounds like I'm stuck with the poor performance on the highway. Keeping it in 4S in town solves the problem, but that seems impractical at highway speed. The engine has high rpm HP but very low RPM torque, nothing like the 4.7 V8.

Can I make a suggestion? Next time you buy a vehicle, take it for a test drive first. I did, and I took the guy for an hour long joy ride. :lookout:

 

[FrontRange4Runner]

All V6 5th Gens are 3.73. The I4 was 3.90.

The lack of oomph at moderate highway speed has been discussed many times here, along with the cruise control logic and transmission shift logic. All those combined make for a really poor highway cruising experience. If you're driving a lifted T4R with off-road tires and other mods it gets worse.

I just bought a V8 4th Gen for my son and the performance difference is eye opening. It's not just the additional torque, but much better shift logic in the transmission. The 5th gen is set-up to get into the highest gear possible as quickly possible, all in the name of fuel economy. With cruise control it tends to stay in OD too long and then down shifts one or two gears, racing past your set speed. Most have found it workable to preemptively downshift to 4th gear when approaching a hill and then shifting back to 5th once you crest the hill.

Just FYI you can bump the the transmission over to S4 (only) while in cruise and it will not disengage. I have found this useful in hilly areas where I know cruise is going to try and hold 5th until I slow to like 30 mph, then jump to 3rd and go full throttle until I'm going 10 over my intended speed.....

 

[JB.]

Keeping it in 4S in town solves the problem, but that seems impractical at highway speed.

What makes it impractical?

You obviously don't care about squeezing gas mileage so it sounds like a perfectly good solution to me.