What Gear do you drive around town in?

[Sonoran_Desert]

For street pavement speeds around 40 mph and traffic lights, what gear are you in and why? D vs S1, S2, S3, S4, S5

Every night driving home from work, I must drive 1/2 mile up extremely steep paved incline to get to my house. Engine struggles in D and I want to check out Sequential options. Which S series would you choose for very steep uphill pavement?

 

[MyanRagahis]

Have you played around with it? You should be able to
get a feel for it and see what works well for you.

Sometimes I'll drive around city in 4th to keep some power. The quicker pull feels better too rather than waiting for it to downshift and let it do its thing.
With all the weight I've added I used to have to bump it down to 4th to not struggle up a highway like you said. If not, I'd have to mash down the pedal to get it going.

The pedal commander basically fixed all that for me though.

 

[ChrisJHarney]

I only use sequential operation to slow down or to transmission brake down an incline. Around town I just let it do it's thing, it's not optimal, but I drive it like a granny because I can't stand the acoustics when it's revving. Loaded up and out on the highway it really likes to kick down to 4 or 3 and hold it there until I've leveled out and/or have no headwind and am going downhill . I also haven't re-geared yet, and am running larger and much heavier tires so I can't expect much more performance until I do re-gear it.

As was mentioned, just play around with it on the hills, you'll quickly figure out what works best for you.

 

[BobsTrail]

As was mentioned, just play around with it on the hills, you'll quickly figure out what works best for you.

:iagree:

I'm on a steep hill too. I use S2 going down to get some holdback and not use the brakes as much. At the bottom I push the shifter forward for S5 and leave it there. On the way back up I go to S2 again to stop the shifting up and down.

S5 for most driving appears to help the downshift lag when entering a freeway or when needed to accelerate without the lag when in D.

 

[srsrogerissrs]

Whichever gear I feel is needed to keep the rpms in the powerband for whichever scenario I need or don't need the power for.

 

[Grug556]

Only use the gears for hills, descents or towing.. otherwise the slowbus gets D..

 

[Sonoran_Desert]

Thanks All. I found S3 works best on the way up and S2 on the way down. In addition to a very steep paved hill I have speed bumps to deal with. Not the greatest use case for a 4Runner.

 

[StuB]

I live in a very hilly area with no flat roads. It's all up or down and twisty. Use S4 & S3 almost exclusively (S1 on our 1/4 mile sloped gravel drive) until I get to the "lowlands", at which time I select D. The more aggressive shift points of S-mode make for much better transmission behavior ~ 2010 OR.