I know this has been discussed here, so please feel to merge. Not looking to duplicate, but present the issue and my (hopefully temporary) solution
Fellow turbo owners, if you’ve experienced surging at low rpm, hesitation at start (I see this the most) or at any speed with light throttle application, hesitation to shift, bucking, ect. I’m 95% sure it’s all tuning related. I’ve experienced all of these in a way over the past few months and 6700 miles and I’m able to almost reproduce it at a whim so long as traffic allows. I think I have enough data from my travels as I will present below, to prove this and hope a TSB is issued, or Toyota to rescind the 87 octane requirement and modify it to 91 octane+ (Spoiler: that’s the problem and the solution).
This is going to be a long post, so apologies in advance
To start, please for the love of god don’t comment anything about the 2GR 3.5L V6. It’s gone. Toyota is moving on to this being it’s already in almost a dozen cars currently (or will be) within the next year or so. Now that I’ve been running 93 and the tuning is working properly, this is a far better experience than the v6 that you had to rev out for the limited torque it had.
Since the start I’ve driven this HL primarily on the highway and continue to do so as it’s far larger and more comfortable then the RAV I have, so most miles on this are highway (80%/20% if I’m putting a number on it). With that being said, I also live in the hills of PA. So, I’m constantly varying power and gear requirements, which I think is why I’ve been able to reproduce these issues easily. Going up hills and applying 5-15% throttle is where my issue really is apparent with the surging, you can physically see the tach bouncing up and down in 500-800rpm increments before it either levels out, or I either let off, or apply more throttle to force a downshift. The surging also occurs at 30-60% throttle after 3500rpm, where it just won’t rev out smoothly. The other issue was on takeoff, most were claiming turbo lag, as it does in a way make sense where you step and then it takes a moment before anything happens.
Enter the dealers. Obviously, this isn’t ideal. I’ve contacted the dealer I’ve bought it from, one where it was serviced last, and another in my area that I trust. Most of them said the same, bring it in so we can see. Fair. However, one did vaguely acknowledge that he has heard of one or two others having this issue. Trying to probe this gentleman for as much as possible, we arrived at the same conclusion. Because this powertrain is essentially from the lexus application where it needed 91+, Toyota must not have tuned it well enough under certain conditions to run 87 safely, so it’s likely pulling timing or assuming poor fuel conditions, but not enough to throw a light.
Knowing this, I decided to test it myself by switching between 87 and 93 (87 and 93 are at most pumps here, 91 is rare with the in between being 89). I was in the process of moving, so I was back and forth between Scranton PA and Lancaster PA. A journey that is quite hilly and has plenty of speed variation from 35 to a posted 65 (most do 75). The many times I’ve done this doing 87, I’ve averaged between 23 and 25 on the to and from journey – weather was fairly consistent mid to high 80s, decently high humidity, AC on. On this trip, I was able to pick 3-4 locations when the shuddering would occur very predictably. So, making this trip within the last 3 weeks, I decided to run 93 from the Sunoco I usually go to. Funny enough, there was absolutely no shuddering at all. There was no hesitation at all. It revved out cleaner, with none of the aforementioned hesitation on take off, nor when revving out. The shifting predictability was perfect. Even better, my combined MPG for the same trip resulted in 27.2 and 27.8. It drives like a completely new vehicle and frankly, how I expected it to be from the start.
As for now, just based on this performance I believe that is the issue is in fact tuning related and needs to be addressed or the minimum octane requirements updated. I am worried nothing happen and I have to live with paying the extra 70-80 cents a gallon – even though they make hundreds of thousands of these vehicles a year and the T24-FKS will be in everything soon. I have a suspicion others are indeed having these concerns, but either have not reported these problems and/or Toyota is not acknowledging anything.
I had my curiosity how they were able to get 265hp and 319ft/lbs on 87 with a 11:1 compression ratio and a turbo, where Mazda had to run 2 separate power figures using 10.5:1 with 87 at 227hp/310tq or 256hp/320tq. (Other manufacturers do this also, but I’m very familiar with Mazda specifically)
As of this morning, I am back and forth with the senior technician at my local dealer for next steps. As of our latest conversation, I am going to be running this tank of 93 out and putting 87 back to see if the issues present themselves again. They would then take my vehicle for testing to reproduce (I told them as mentioned prior I can do so rather quickly) and then report findings to Toyota NA. This tech as like the others, did not hear of this issue before, but did let me know the Tundra did have a TSB for a similar condition where owners were encouraged to run 91+ until the TSB was applied, so here’s hope.
Please let me know if you have had similar issues and have tried a higher octane and what that result was.
Thanks for reading.
Fellow turbo owners, if you’ve experienced surging at low rpm, hesitation at start (I see this the most) or at any speed with light throttle application, hesitation to shift, bucking, ect. I’m 95% sure it’s all tuning related. I’ve experienced all of these in a way over the past few months and 6700 miles and I’m able to almost reproduce it at a whim so long as traffic allows. I think I have enough data from my travels as I will present below, to prove this and hope a TSB is issued, or Toyota to rescind the 87 octane requirement and modify it to 91 octane+ (Spoiler: that’s the problem and the solution).
This is going to be a long post, so apologies in advance
To start, please for the love of god don’t comment anything about the 2GR 3.5L V6. It’s gone. Toyota is moving on to this being it’s already in almost a dozen cars currently (or will be) within the next year or so. Now that I’ve been running 93 and the tuning is working properly, this is a far better experience than the v6 that you had to rev out for the limited torque it had.
Since the start I’ve driven this HL primarily on the highway and continue to do so as it’s far larger and more comfortable then the RAV I have, so most miles on this are highway (80%/20% if I’m putting a number on it). With that being said, I also live in the hills of PA. So, I’m constantly varying power and gear requirements, which I think is why I’ve been able to reproduce these issues easily. Going up hills and applying 5-15% throttle is where my issue really is apparent with the surging, you can physically see the tach bouncing up and down in 500-800rpm increments before it either levels out, or I either let off, or apply more throttle to force a downshift. The surging also occurs at 30-60% throttle after 3500rpm, where it just won’t rev out smoothly. The other issue was on takeoff, most were claiming turbo lag, as it does in a way make sense where you step and then it takes a moment before anything happens.
Enter the dealers. Obviously, this isn’t ideal. I’ve contacted the dealer I’ve bought it from, one where it was serviced last, and another in my area that I trust. Most of them said the same, bring it in so we can see. Fair. However, one did vaguely acknowledge that he has heard of one or two others having this issue. Trying to probe this gentleman for as much as possible, we arrived at the same conclusion. Because this powertrain is essentially from the lexus application where it needed 91+, Toyota must not have tuned it well enough under certain conditions to run 87 safely, so it’s likely pulling timing or assuming poor fuel conditions, but not enough to throw a light.
Knowing this, I decided to test it myself by switching between 87 and 93 (87 and 93 are at most pumps here, 91 is rare with the in between being 89). I was in the process of moving, so I was back and forth between Scranton PA and Lancaster PA. A journey that is quite hilly and has plenty of speed variation from 35 to a posted 65 (most do 75). The many times I’ve done this doing 87, I’ve averaged between 23 and 25 on the to and from journey – weather was fairly consistent mid to high 80s, decently high humidity, AC on. On this trip, I was able to pick 3-4 locations when the shuddering would occur very predictably. So, making this trip within the last 3 weeks, I decided to run 93 from the Sunoco I usually go to. Funny enough, there was absolutely no shuddering at all. There was no hesitation at all. It revved out cleaner, with none of the aforementioned hesitation on take off, nor when revving out. The shifting predictability was perfect. Even better, my combined MPG for the same trip resulted in 27.2 and 27.8. It drives like a completely new vehicle and frankly, how I expected it to be from the start.
As for now, just based on this performance I believe that is the issue is in fact tuning related and needs to be addressed or the minimum octane requirements updated. I am worried nothing happen and I have to live with paying the extra 70-80 cents a gallon – even though they make hundreds of thousands of these vehicles a year and the T24-FKS will be in everything soon. I have a suspicion others are indeed having these concerns, but either have not reported these problems and/or Toyota is not acknowledging anything.
I had my curiosity how they were able to get 265hp and 319ft/lbs on 87 with a 11:1 compression ratio and a turbo, where Mazda had to run 2 separate power figures using 10.5:1 with 87 at 227hp/310tq or 256hp/320tq. (Other manufacturers do this also, but I’m very familiar with Mazda specifically)
As of this morning, I am back and forth with the senior technician at my local dealer for next steps. As of our latest conversation, I am going to be running this tank of 93 out and putting 87 back to see if the issues present themselves again. They would then take my vehicle for testing to reproduce (I told them as mentioned prior I can do so rather quickly) and then report findings to Toyota NA. This tech as like the others, did not hear of this issue before, but did let me know the Tundra did have a TSB for a similar condition where owners were encouraged to run 91+ until the TSB was applied, so here’s hope.
Please let me know if you have had similar issues and have tried a higher octane and what that result was.
Thanks for reading.
