Prado120: manual shift from 1st to 2nd drops 1,200 RPM

[onda]

2003 Prado VX manual 3.0 TDI (1KZ-TE)

In normal driving, I start out in 1st gear, get into the turbo band ~2,000 RPM, get to 3,000 RPMs and shift to 2nd. But the RPMs drop by about 1,200 and as I am at ~1,800 RPM I'm super underpowered and it takes forever until I finally arrive into the turbo band and everything goes back to normal. Every other gear change only drops ~700 RPMs and unless I switch <2,500 RPM, all are fine.

This is on flat surfaces around town unloaded. Off-road, in sand on a slight incline, I would stay in 1st gear up to 4,000 RPM as switching wouldn't work.

I'll add that I bought this from the first owner with 60,000km on the clock in 2016 and now I'm at 80,000km. Only mods are the entry Ironman suspension with a 2" lift and an Ironman snorkel.

Anyone have any ideas? It seems strange that every other RPM drop between gears are in the normal 500-700 RPM range while this one is almost double that.

Thanks.

 

[Grease106]

Gday,
Looks like a drop in ratio of 1.768:1 in 1st gear whereas following gears are 0.626, 0.436, 0.162. That explains the big difference in RPM drop.
Pretty standard driving for one of those.
A chip or tune and bigger exhaust would help with the low down power.
Cheers

 

[onda]

Thanks so much for doing the research! I had been asking (other sites) this question for a long time, with out luck.

I'll figure out the chips that might help me. Thanks again

 

[onda]

Gday,
Looks like a drop in ratio of 1.768:1 in 1st gear whereas following gears are 0.626, 0.436, 0.162. That explains the big difference in RPM drop.
Pretty standard driving for one of those.
A chip or tune and bigger exhaust would help with the low down power.
Cheers
View attachment 2831048

As a more general question, I guess I would ask why Toyota would make that gearing? Is such a big drop normal for 4x4s?

Sometimes when I am driving in the sand, on a little incline, I don't get out 1st. It worries me as I was all alone and unloaded. What will happen when I'm loaded up?

It feels strange as I always thought you wanted to get out of 1st as fast as possible.

 

[Grease106]

No problem. I’m not sure why they made it that way, particularly those boxes are like that, but there may be similarities in other vehicles. You could try low range and see how it responds.
Cheers

 

[onda]

No problem. I’m not sure why they made it that way, particularly those boxes are like that, but there may be similarities in other vehicles. You could try low range and see how it responds.
Cheers

I didn't put it all together: my problems in the sand were in HighLocked.

The last 6 months I've been living in the mountains of Peru, majority dirt roads, and the truck is fantastic in LLocked when I'm off the asphalt.

One more ask of your experience if I may: someone in Oz told me they drove 7 days and 1,000s of km, the whole time in Lowlocked when I asked if there was any problem with me driving around in LowLocked, sometimes even getting up to 4th gear, always on dirt/low traction surfaces and under 45 kmph.

Do you agree?

Thanks for all the advice.

 

[Grease106]

I didn't put it all together: my problems in the sand were in HighLocked.

The last 6 months I've been living in the mountains of Peru, majority dirt roads, and the truck is fantastic in LLocked when I'm off the asphalt.

One more ask of your experience if I may: someone in Oz told me they drove 7 days and 1,000s of km, the whole time in Lowlocked when I asked if there was any problem with me driving around in LowLocked, sometimes even getting up to 4th gear, always on dirt/low traction surfaces and under 45 kmph.

Do you agree?

Thanks for all the advice.

The only time you’ll run into issues driving in low range is on asphalt/tarseal roads, it’ll bind up the driveline. You can use all the low range gears as per normal offroad.

 

[onda]

The only time you’ll run into issues driving in low range is on asphalt/tarseal roads, it’ll bind up the driveline. You can use all the low range gears as per normal offroad.

Thanks for sharing your wisdom... and helping me drive with more peace of mind.

Did a nice run from 2,700m to 4,280m (altitude) here in the Andes last weekend... all in LowLocked! Will post some pics, if I can find where you do that in this forum.