Transmission temp while climbing in 4H

[Muckle]

I finally got to stretch the legs of the Tacoma a bit. Took it up Hart’s Pass in the northern Cascades all the way to the Slate Peak Lookout. Absolutely beautiful climb and highly recommend it.

It was a sustained climb lasting about 1.5 hours with a few brief stops, gaining almost 5,000ft. The majority of it was in 4H.

I did notice the transmission temp increased a bit during the climb. Where it normally sits at about 50% of the gauge meter, it climbed up to 75% before I took a brief break and it cooled down. I tried bumping it down to 2WD but that didn’t seem to impact the rising temps much.

Is this to be expected when you’re in a sustained climb without relief? I can’t imagine pushing it much further than this without more breaks - I was in a time crunch so was pushing for the summit.

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[tacoboutit]

TFL Truck guys noticed that too while towing at elevation. Their conensus was the truck handled it well, as there were no symptoms of stress for lack of a better word. They concluded that maybe newer trucks are just built to sustain higher temps now? They did mention several other trucks had failed where the taco succeeded. I'll post a link to the vid here:

 

[Gfenza89]

I think be because the new tacoma has an oil and trans temp gauge people are able to actually see the temps and it’s alarming but completely normal. Prior tacos had no such gauge therefore without a warning light on it was no concern. Just my 2cents

 

[32spoke]

You are not alone in this observation.
I will be installing a transmission oil cooler with a fan attached to it, on the return side of the OE trans heat sink…Plenty of room to mount this underneath the truck. Fan can be switch actuated from the dash, or by a fan temp switch.
great photos and thank you for sharing your concerns and “content “

 

[batman900]

I'm not educated enough on the 2024 taco but I know with the previous gen Tundra, once they removed the proper cooler in 2019. Manually selecting a lower gear for higher rpms helped with the trans cooling. I also don't know under what situations the torque converter will lock but keeping it locked should help. I ultimately ended up adding a cooler to my 21 Tundra and stopped thinking about it.

Oh, and despite the higher temps and everyone worrying about them with the 19-21, we never had failures because of it.

 

[wutheck]

Same for me in 4 Hi. If I run it around in 4 Lo it stays cool.

 

[bking]

There was a video a while ago from Jace Robinette where he was having issues with transmission heat offroading in 4HI. It never did get dangerously hot.
Later he posted that when he switched to 4LO it didn't have a problem. I do agree that much of this has to do with having a gauge now where before it didn't exist.

 

[Sagebrush]

I think be because the new tacoma has an oil and trans temp gauge people are able to actually see the temps and it’s alarming but completely normal.

Exactly.

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