Steptronic

[MCOjerry]

I have never found that the transmission has put me in a dangerous situation. I switch lanes from time to time, to get around people, and have to accel fast. Sure, there's a small lag, but every auto transmission I have driven has had one in some form or another.

If you are pulling out into traffic, and you perceive the transmission lag is dangerous, you are probably pulling out when you shouldn't. If you were to try to bring a law suit, you'd probably be laughed out of court pretty fast.

Don't get me wrong...I definitely don't drive like a grandpa, but I just don't see this as that great of a problem. I say again, though, I didn't buy my car to be a speed demon in it. If you expect this car to be an extremely responsive race car, you are sadly mistaken, it wasn't meant to be one. If that's what you want, you should really just buy another car.

[PXLpainter]

Jerry - I've been driving 11 years longer than you - HA! (maybe more since I grew up on a farm and was driving a tractor since I was 10) - so yeah, I've driven a lot of different kinds of cars, trucks, etc... you name it, I've probably driven it - or something similar. I even had a beat-up '74 Ford Pinto in college that was held together with Seal-a-Gasket and JB Weld - but blue smoke and all, I at least knew what it was capable of (predictable) and as under-powered as it was, I knew what to expect from it.

Point being, out of all the cars I've ever owned and driven in over 30 years of licensed highway driving, I've only encountered this hesitation issue a twice - once was a slipping tranny in my VW Vanagon and the other was a flooding Holley 4-barrel carb in my restored '67 Merc Cougar with a GT 350 V8.

I've also had two Camrys over the past 10 years (my ex-wife's) one 4-banger and the other a 3.0 V6 - neither of them had any hesitation issue whatsoever.

The 2001 Tundra that I traded in on the Solara was a 3.4 V6 with a 4 spd A/T (Column Shift) which as I've said on here before, NEVER gave me any problems at all. The Tundra is a big truck - a lot heavier than the Solara and on top of that, I had a lift kit and 35" tires on it. I was still able to break the tires with a small 2nd-gear chirp occasionally and it never hesitated a millisecond when I romped on it. I left it in D most of the time, occasionally clicking off the OD in town, but rarely manually shifted. I didn't need to. In fact, because of the big tires and the engine torque and responsive tranny, I totally shredded my rear diff and had to replace it - which gave me an excuse to upgrade to a TRD LSD which solved that problem.

So that being my most recent experience, you can see why I'm so disappointed with the way the Solara reacts.

I know what a safe, responsive car is supposed to act like. Dependable and consistent. My Solara is neither. Not looking for a race car - never was. I just want it to respond "normally" - at least as well as my old '74 Pinto did!

[Sebas007]

100% agreed...we pay for a Solara. This issue not supposed to exist on a car like that. No need to be a race car to shift properly within 2 sec !!!!! I don'T live it often because I control it myself, since I lived something similar to XLPainter, when I want to start, pass or anything I downshift before myself and push the throttle.

It's more a question of principle. No it's not a lightweight race car but you under estimate the power of the 3.3L as well !!!!!!!

Add shift kit on the list

Jerry - I've been driving 11 years longer than you - HA! (maybe more since I grew up on a farm and was driving a tractor since I was 10) - so yeah, I've driven a lot of different kinds of cars, trucks, etc... you name it, I've probably driven it - or something similar. I even had a beat-up '74 Ford Pinto in college that was held together with Seal-a-Gasket and JB Weld - but blue smoke and all, I at least knew what it was capable of (predictable) and as under-powered as it was, I knew what to expect from it.

Point being, out of all the cars I've ever owned and driven in over 30 years of licensed highway driving, I've only encountered this hesitation issue a twice - once was a slipping tranny in my VW Vanagon and the other was a flooding Holley 4-barrel carb in my restored '67 Merc Cougar with a GT 350 V8.

I've also had two Camrys over the past 10 years (my ex-wife's) one 4-banger and the other a 3.0 V6 - neither of them had any hesitation issue whatsoever.

The 2001 Tundra that I traded in on the Solara was a 3.4 V6 with a 4 spd A/T (Column Shift) which as I've said on here before, NEVER gave me any problems at all. The Tundra is a big truck - a lot heavier than the Solara and on top of that, I had a lift kit and 35" tires on it. I was still able to break the tires with a small 2nd-gear chirp occasionally and it never hesitated a millisecond when I romped on it. I left it in D most of the time, occasionally clicking off the OD in town, but rarely manually shifted. I didn't need to. In fact, because of the big tires and the engine torque and responsive tranny, I totally shredded my rear diff and had to replace it - which gave me an excuse to upgrade to a TRD LSD which solved that problem.

So that being my most recent experience, you can see why I'm so disappointed with the way the Solara reacts.

I know what a safe, responsive car is supposed to act like. Dependable and consistent. My Solara is neither. Not looking for a race car - never was. I just want it to respond "normally" - at least as well as my old '74 Pinto did!

[Down2TheC]

Welcome to the world of TBW. This is no doubt your first Throttle By Wire. You're not used to waiting for the ECU to decide you're ready for gas. Not saying it's a good implementation of TBW. But since it is a matter of firmware, it can be fixed. If Toyota were on the same pace as the 04-05 fix, they'll roll out a TSB next spring for you. But who knows if they've gotten the same incentive (driver complaints, bad press, etc.)

[MCOjerry]

My point is that this hesitation isn't that noticable, not that it can't be fixed.

When I punch the gas in my car, it responds nicely for me. About the only time I find any hesitation is when I'm slowing down for a light, and it turns green. Sometimes, when I'm down at a speed that's in the 2nd gear range, there's a slight hesitation. This, by no means, happens all the time.

My other point is that, if you are needing to pull out into traffic and move that quickly to pull ahead of the oncoming traffic, you should have thought twice about pulling into the traffic.

There are many times, when I'm trying to pull onto a road (from a stop, as in a left or right turn onto a different road) and the traffic is bad. In order to get on the road, I have to gauge the traffic and gun it to get out. My car always reponds well, hell the tires even squeal.

I'm not trying to start an argument or anything, we each have our opinions, and every car has it' limitations. I'm happy with the smooth acceleration that my car provide for me. It even responds well when I have to pass at highway speeds. PXL, you have mentioned, several times, that you are not happy with your car's performance. I think that this has a lot to do with your position on this topic. Don't get mad at me, but it does sound like you need a differet car.

[Down2TheC]

The '04-'05 had different levels of lag for different cars. It's possible PXL has it worse than you. I used to be able to roll at 30-40mph and put the gas to the floor and back without the car ever doing a thing. That's a safety issue no matter how you drive. There's butthead drivers out there that now and then you have to avoid. From a stop, I got used to factoring in the lag. But the learning curve on that was a bit hairy.

[MCOjerry]

^^That's quite possible. I guess the only thing to do is complain until they do something about it. I guess I wouldn't expect much from Toyota, since they are discontinuing the car. They are probably not in to much of a hurry to address issues like this.

[PXLpainter]

Both my '01 Tundra 3.4 V6 and the '02 Camry 3.0 V6 were TBW as well - so that's clearly not the issue I'm having.

And why do I need a different car? Why can't this one just respond like the other LARGER Toyotas I've had previously with approx the same size engine?

Yeah, sure - it'd be great to have a S/C and all, but I've never said the car is underpowered as it is - and it sounds good since I've added the TRD exhaust and the Injen intake too. When it DOES respond well, it takes off like greased lightning - it's just the unpredictability of it that I find not only annoying, but very dangerous.

Like D2TC stated, I can be rolling along anywhere from 20-40MPH and punch it and sometimes it will downshift and take off, or... absolutely nothing. If I hold it down long enough it may eventually go after about 2 seconds. Sometimes the engine revs up but the tranny doesn't catch on for 1.5-2 seconds. To me that's not an acceptable amount of hesitation at all.

Let's do a little math here... (as I've had to take this online traffic school program recently for a ticket I got after that SoCal BBQ a couple months ago) - I've run across this info still fresh in my head... and proves just WHY this hesitation issue is very real - and potentially dangerous.

If I'm pulling onto a highway from a side road or parking lot, or merging into fast moving traffic, and I expect my car to react with a specific response from the accelerator, and the amount of time that would be appropriate to get into the flow of traffic - and it takes 2 seconds to respond, that car traveling 60 mph will go an additional 176 feet than what I had projected (based on 5280 ft div by 60 seconds X 2 sec) - that's a lot of ground to make up for quickly, no matter how fast you car can accelerate. If they have to slam on their brake to keep from rear-ending you, then there's another issue:

A change in speed increases the braking distance much more. Double your speed and the braking distance becomes four times longer. Triple the speed and the distance is nine times greater. (THE SQUARE OF THE NUMBER OF TIMES SPEED IS INCREASED.)



So no, of course I don't intentionally pull -out in front of people and cause them to slam on their brakes (though I see assholes that do that all the time while yapping on their goddam cell phones!) - but like I said, if you're merging from a slow crawl of pulling out (not from a stand still mind you - but 10-30/40 MPH range) and the car hesitates, then there's a problem with the car - not the driver.

Anyway - it's obviously a moot point here since nobody else with an '06 seems to be affected by this as much as my car is, so maybe it's really an isolated incidence and I need to just keep hounding Toyota until they get it fixed once and for all.

All I know is that I absolutely love everything else about this car - and only want to do mods to make it better and add some personality and individuality to it - not because I have to do them to make it just work like it should.

[MCOjerry]

PXL, if you are having that much of a problem, you should keep hounding them. I am just saying that it's not so bad on mine, and you seemed so unhappy with your car.

[PXLpainter]

Update:

Called Toyota Customer Experience today about the hesitation issue and opened an official case.

The guy told me that it is a known issue with the '06 and has had a few calls about it as well - but also admitted that until they get "X-number" of complaints about an issue, they tend to take their time before doing something... (no kidding!) Basically - we just have to wait until there's a TSB on it. Nothing else at this time.

Anyway - the more people that file official complaints about this issue, or fault accidents due to it, etc... the sooner they'll try to get a fix for it.

To address the "TBW issue" - he agreed that this is in no way merely a symptom of that, because if it was, then it would be a global behavior of the car's response - which it is NOT. The problem only exists in the 5-30MPH - not the rest of the time!

So - at least I have an official record and case number, should anything happen as a cause of it (god forbid!) maybe then they'll listen. Just fricken frustrating...

[solaris]

i also have the 06 and have been experiencing the shift lag for eleven months now, but i haven't experienced anything like yours PXL and I wish I wont. I love my car on highways and hate it on busy streets...

[PXLpainter]

Call The Toyota Customer Experience Center 800-331-4331. Dealers will just give you the run around.

I would urge all '06 owners who have had ANY kind of low-speed hesitation or lag issues to call and report it so they'll put out a TSB and fix it! This car is so great in every other way - this really shouldn't even be an issue!

[swindler]

I haven't really noticed much of a hesitation on mine since I did the DocJohn mod quite a while back. Ironically, I think I notice the hesitation a little bit more now that I have the CP-e instead. But as down2thec said in an earlier post, that might just be the increased torque making the snap a little tighter.

But regardless, I'll call and complain to promote the cause.

[PXLpainter]

One of the reasons I'm hesitant to go with the CP-e is that until this hesitation issue is resolved, I'm afraid to mess with any of the wiring or try to over-ride the ECU in case Toyota tries to blame that on causing the problems. Right now, with the TRD Muffler and Injen bolt-on intake, they can't say that I've done anything to cause additional problems.

Yes - before I got the intake, the DocJohn mod and drop-in TRD Filter helped accel a little - but didn't do anything to make the tranny shift better.

[solaris]

Ironically, I think I notice the hesitation a little bit more now that I have the CP-e instead.

just when i'm about to make an online purchase....
now i'm thinking twice...