4hi/4low, diff lock and gremlins - seeking advice (1 Viewer)

[CharlieS]

Hey all,

Looking for some advice or thoughts.

I have a 2016 cruiser, and I don’t generally have issues with the 4wd. I exercise it regularly, both making sure to use it on trails, but also in the driveway (since people have said this can help them avoid getting “stuck”).

I went on a drive with a group this weekend where we did sections of of technical tracks connected by dirt roads and even some pavement transits.

I had several times when I put the vehicle in neutral and tried to shift from 4low to 4high where it refused and just beeped at me. I turned the vehicle off and then retried and this worked each time I tried it (I could shift into 4high). This was hugely annoying since I felt like this was holding up the convoy unnecessarily.

Second, the center diff lock was temperamental. Unlike my older cruisers, the 200 doesn’t seem to lock the center diff automatically when shifting to 4low. I have to manually engage it with the console mounted button. It was being very balky - I could hear the actuator working but the CDL light would flash but not go solid. Eventually, after multiple tries it seemed to engage, the dash light went solid, and all was good with the world.

Any advice or insight on these two issues

For bonus challenge: can anyone step me through turning off ALL of the electronic nannies? Even when I thought I had everything off, sometimes I’d get the vehicle do that weird braking I associate with trac or crawl control helpers. I want that all off, or at least only on when I manually turn it on…

I have to admit that this ride made me miss my old 80 series’ and their relative simplicity.

 

[TeCKis300]

Frustrating for sure and I've been there. Also frustrating as this is our vaunted Land Cruiser with an apparent chink in its armor with gremlins holding up the group.

A bit disappointed this is happening to your 2016. Might be different things going on as I know Toyota has revised the system a few times electrically. But it sounds much the same as my electo-mechanical issues I had with my actuators

Transfer Case Tuneup and Fix

Transfer case actuator issues are not uncommon on the 200-series. Not much documented solutions other than exercising the mechanisms regularly. Here's my attempt to provide more information on where and what the actuator is, how to service the transfer case actuator motor, and potentially...

forum.ih8mud.com

There may be a couple other things from your symptoms.

For center diff lock - yes it doesn't come on with transfer case. This can be actuated in motion and is actually preferable as it helps it engage/disengage. If it has trouble, dial in some gentle steering. I use it separately from 4LO. A nice side effect is that this also disables stability control allowing you to goose the throttle without power cut, useful in loose surfaces (not sure if this is true on your 2016?)

Have you ever done a zero point cal? After lift or alignment? The VSC system needs to be recalibrated after suspension work. Without that, it can be hypersensitive and step in when not necessary.

We need to keep the gremlin stuff away for the Land Rover peeps.

 

[CharlieS]

Frustrating for sure and I've been there. Also frustrating as this is our vaunted Land Cruiser with an apparent chink in its armor with gremlins holding up the group.

A bit disappointed this is happening to your 2016. Might be different things going on as I know Toyota has revised the system a few times electrically. But it sounds much the same as my electo-mechanical issues I had with my actuators

Transfer Case Tuneup and Fix

Transfer case actuator issues are not uncommon on the 200-series. Not much documented solutions other than exercising the mechanisms regularly. Here's my attempt to provide more information on where and what the actuator is, how to service the transfer case actuator motor, and potentially...

forum.ih8mud.com

There may be a couple other things from your symptoms.

For center diff lock - yes it doesn't come on with transfer case. This can be actuated in motion and is actually preferable as it helps it engage/disengage. If it has trouble, dial in some gentle steering. I use it separately from 4LO. A nice side effect is that this also disables stability control allowing you to goose the throttle without power cut, useful in loose surfaces (not sure if this is true on your 2016?)

Have you ever done a zero point cal? After lift or alignment? The VSC system needs to be recalibrated after suspension work. Without that, it can be hypersensitive and step in when not necessary.

We need to keep the gremlin stuff away for the Land Rover peeps.

Thanks, good insight.

Yes, the ‘16 still cuts power - I learned this on training in a cross-axle situation where I couldn’t get out by left foot braking. It seems like it might be disabled when in 4low with CDL engaged, since I was able to left foot brake effectively to get out of some situations. I’m just not sure the combination or permutation of systems on or off to get back to that state. I feel like I need a diagram, which is silly - how about a single button to shut everything off and go manual (call it off road mode or something).

I haven’t done a zero point calibration post lift. Is that a diy with Techstream or a dealer (please say no) job? I’ll do a search too.

I also saw a TRAC or TRAC OFF light at some point (I think) and can’t seem to figure out how to get it back.

 

[lx200inAR]

Pretty sure it's an easy techstream click and go, but you need to have the truck on a very level surface.

 

[lx200inAR]

Zero point calibration of Yaw Rate and G sensor

Reading through the suspension install threads everywhere, I’ve found that everyone seems only to be concerned about the KDSS issues we all know about and getting the front wheels properly aligned, but no one seems to care about the calibration of the Yaw Rate and G sensor. Is it maybe that no...

forum.ih8mud.com

 

[CharlieS]

Zero point calibration of Yaw Rate and G sensor

Reading through the suspension install threads everywhere, I’ve found that everyone seems only to be concerned about the KDSS issues we all know about and getting the front wheels properly aligned, but no one seems to care about the calibration of the Yaw Rate and G sensor. Is it maybe that no...

forum.ih8mud.com

Thank you!

 

[linuxgod]

The actuators can bind up and not properly engage, so working them semi-regularly is a good idea.

Make sure with your shift to 4Lo you're in Neutral. It won't work if you're in Drive (or Park, IIRC). Beeping makes me think you weren't in Neutral... normally if it were to fail to work it wouldn't beep it would just be the 4Lo light flashing.

FYI you can engage your CDL in 4Hi on occasion to work the actuator, just be sure to do so under 60 mph and on a surface with some give (like gravel).

 

[afgman786]

I don't think we can turn off ATRAC... I have the same issue and miss the lack of tech like you. No matter what I did thinking everything was off atrac was still there. The one thing that might work which I have not tried is wheeling with the ABS fuse pulled out. I believe that would truly turn off everything

 

[indycole]

I'm pretty sure holding the VSC button will turn off ATRAC and VSC. I don't have the truck handy to verify but give it a try or check the manual.

Edited to add a screenshot from the manual.

 

[CharlieS]

@indycole Yes! This was it. Thank you!

I just tried it. In 4lo, I pressed and held the car with wavy lines button for 3 seconds and it turned TRAC off.

As you posted above, in 4high, a momentary press of that button (not a three second press) turns TRAC off.

Pressing that button briefly again turns it back on.

Thank you.

I think my CDL actuator is sticky. I tried it in the driveway, and it just flashed. Shifting back and forth between reverse and drive somehow caused it to engage. Hopefully I can just exercise it regularly and not have to get into repairs.

 

[Sinister]

Yes giant P I T A…even when I try to exercise it often, it still always takes forever to get it back out of 4lo. Almost never on the first or even second try and sometimes 15-20 mins of reverse, forward, circles, truck on, truck off ect.

 

[linuxgod]

@indycole Yes! This was it. Thank you!

I just tried it. In 4lo, I pressed and held the car with wavy lines button for 3 seconds and it turned TRAC off.

View attachment 2718381
View attachment 2718382

As you posted above, in 4high, a momentary press of that button (not a three second press) turns TRAC off.

Pressing that button briefly again turns it back on.

Thank you.

I think my CDL actuator is sticky. I tried it in the driveway, and it just flashed. Shifting back and forth between reverse and drive somehow caused it to engage. Hopefully I can just exercise it regularly and not have to get into repairs.

That’s not unheard of. I’d be more worried if it didn’t engage after driving a few yards. I think the actuator needs to line up to engage so sometimes it’s a bit off especially if your wheels weren’t straight

 

[CharlieS]

So here’s my plan next time I need to disable the “driving assistant systems” (term from the owners manual) and some of the extra safety systems for off-roading:

• Vehicle stopped, foot on brake, gear selector in Neutral
• Low gear - turn dial to 4lo and wait for dash indicator light to go from flashing to solid. If not, turn wheel back and forth, drive forward and back, turn vehicle off and back on (?) until it goes solid.
• Center Diff Lock - Press CDL switch and wait for indicator (sideways capital H with an x in the middle) to go from flashing to solid (if this doesn’t work, move gear selector from N to D to R a few times, if that doesn’t work, drive forward a bit)
• Active TRAC (Traction Control) - Press and hold vehicle stability control (car with three wavy lines) switch for 3 seconds until the dashboard indicator light says “TRAC OFF”
• Vehicle Stability Control - This dash indicator light went sold when I held the car with wavy line button for 3 seconds, but can be disabled by itself with a shorter press if you want VSC off but TRAC on. Note that trailer sway control, pre-collision brake assist, pre collision braking will also be disabled.
• Rear side curtain airbags- Press RSCA and observe RSCA Off indicator in dash
• Pre-Collision System - press PCS switch until PCS dash indicator (two cars, a star and an arrow) comes on solid in the dash.
• Crawl control - press the crawl control switch when operating, the dash indicator will flash until the system has turned off completely, and a message stating that Crawl Control has been turned off will be displayed in the multi function display for a little while.

Note that any time either VSC or PCS is disabled, both are disabled.

I think that is the extent of the safety systems that can be deactivated by the driver. Please let me know if I missed any or made mistakes in my write up, so I can correct them.

 

[afgman786]

Just a heads up that you still might have ATRAC kicking in.

I had done all that you posted my order was:
- 4lo
- hold trac so everything turned off and dinged at me, dash showed the vcs off and trac off
- lock CDL
- turn rsca off

However atrac still kicked in while wheeling. I will add that I was not able to use crawl control and my dash showed the message "check vsc system" so maybe that was my cause? That message popped up after I locked center diff.

 

[CharlieS]

@afgman786 Say it ain’t so, brother.

It honestly wouldn’t surprise me if Toyota leaves some nanny in place. I’m not happy about it though…

I was hoping I found the secret handshake. at least I’m getting closer to less automatic intervention…

I’m supposed to go out tomorrow, and I’ll give it a shot.

 

[afgman786]

@afgman786 Say it ain’t so, brother.

It honestly wouldn’t surprise me if Toyota leaves some nanny in place. I’m not happy about it though…

I was hoping I found the secret handshake. at least I’m getting closer to less automatic intervention…

I’m supposed to go out tomorrow, and I’ll give it a shot.

Hopefully it works for you.

 

[indycole]

@CharlieS just another data point… I’ve always had more luck switching the CDL with the truck in drive.

 

[CharlieS]

@CharlieS just another data point… I’ve always had more luck switching the CDL with the truck in drive.

I’ll switch the order and put it in CDL before stopping (assuming I’m not already stuck ). Thanks!

 

[linuxgod]

@CharlieS just another data point… I’ve always had more luck switching the CDL with the truck in drive.

Ditto. You can engage the CDL in 4H while you're rolling at up to 60 mph.

Side note: I *believe* VSC gets disabled automatically when the CDL is enabled (though there are no indicator lights for that), but TRAC is still on (at least in 4L). Think of VSC as designed for control at higher speeds while TRAC is use to get traction at very low speeds. But yes if you're crawling and want maximum control you should hold it for 3 seconds until it goes solid and turns off.

 

[CharlieS]

Thanks guys, this discussion and you sharing your experience helps me a ton. As much as I appreciate the vehicle safety assistance and technology in many situations, they seem to get in the way of some of the techniques that require more manual control in the technical stuff. Having a better understanding of how to properly turn off these systems is priceless. I can’t thank you enough.