San Juans
- Thread starter justaprado
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The engine braking is not impressive. I've done paved Pikes Peak and quite a number of trails now. Its better in 4lo but nothing like a non hybrid larger displacement engine. My experience recommends a keen sense of brake temps and taking a break if things get warm.
Crawl control uses brakes as well, so still need to watch brake temps.
To me, this is the biggest off road weakness of the truck. It's not really an issue on the highway. A lot of reading and recently driving a 4cyl turbo Bronco tells me this is sort of the nature of today's smaller motors. I thought the Bronco had better engine braking than the LC, but not by a lot. It was still nothing compared to my old 100 series LX with a V8 or a Tacoma V6 of the last 30 years.
It's not a deal breaker, just go easy and be aware you're going to need more brake pedal than you might be used to. My first brake job will include upgraded rotors and pads.
Went to college in Durango. So many freaking awesome trails in the Jauns!
Crawl control uses brakes as well, so still need to watch brake temps.
To me, this is the biggest off road weakness of the truck. It's not really an issue on the highway. A lot of reading and recently driving a 4cyl turbo Bronco tells me this is sort of the nature of today's smaller motors. I thought the Bronco had better engine braking than the LC, but not by a lot. It was still nothing compared to my old 100 series LX with a V8 or a Tacoma V6 of the last 30 years.
It's not a deal breaker, just go easy and be aware you're going to need more brake pedal than you might be used to. My first brake job will include upgraded rotors and pads.
Went to college in Durango. So many freaking awesome trails in the Jauns!
What pads/rotors are you thinking of going with? I wanted to go with PowerBrake D-Line but they don't currently offer them for the LC250.
Took a quick look and like you didn't really find much available yet. Figure I'll just melt the stock ones into a nice orange hot soup first, and hopefully by the time I need them there will be a few options for a hardened slotted rotor and high end pad set.
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never heard of these: 2024 Toyota Land Cruiser Premium Cross Drilled and Slotted Brake Rotors
Has anyone tried to put it in manual on downhills and down shifting?
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from what i read so far (i don't have my LC yet), it will still go to redline.
Yep, its a struggle on long and steep decents. I just did a 10,000 ft to 5,500 ft decent in Utah over only 12 miles. Grades up, or down, to 15 percent. I tried 4 low and manual plus cruise control. The verdict is the engine retardation isn't great. Cruise applied the breaks a lot.
On my now departed Audi SQ5 on the same road, cruise was fine...until at 55,000 miles when I needed new rear brakes and rotors. What in I thought was engine breaking was rear brake application.
My view is go carefully and on long, steep decent check the brake rotors. Easy with a cheap pyrometer,
BTW, my Ram 2500 has no problem with the exhaust brake.
On my now departed Audi SQ5 on the same road, cruise was fine...until at 55,000 miles when I needed new rear brakes and rotors. What in I thought was engine breaking was rear brake application.
My view is go carefully and on long, steep decent check the brake rotors. Easy with a cheap pyrometer,
BTW, my Ram 2500 has no problem with the exhaust brake.
Yes to driving in the San Juans. I’m in Durango. I’ve had mine up the highest drivable road (from what I can tell) in the San Juans. Engine braking is weak in both hi and low but I’ve never felt like the brakes are getting too hot. My major concern has been keeping an eye on transmission temps. If you push it in 4hi, you’ll likely see temps climb well above normal. Keeping it in 4lo seems to help quite a bit on the low speed crawling. I think I drive a little more spirited on the county roads and the trans doesn’t like it. Other than that it’s great, and have fun! Engineer just opened, toying with checking it out this weekend.
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- #11
i will probably try to get out there during scorched leaf season. but i'm hoping someone releases a big brake kit for these before then. i guess the video i saw of the LC vs a Wrangler and Defender and getting better slower downhill crawl than them was all auto-braking?
I live on the east coast and not in a particularly mountainous area. The off-roading with my 250 has been on milder dirt and gravel forest roads and in grass fields. I had read in this forum that the engine breaking isn’t great in the LC250. I had two v6 manual transmission Tacomas that I heavily used engine breaking in. This past week I had the opportunity to drive down a couple of really steep hills in a field and used 4 low to check out the engine breaking. I have to say it was better than expected, not as good as the Tacomas, but it was more than adequate for these types of runs: shorter steep hills off road. But the big mountain downhills in the western United States I can see being a completely different story.
Hybrids never have good "engine braking", because the electric drive motors assist in braking. Riding the brakes is normal with hybrids, and is probably why the LC250 came with noisy higher performance semi metallic pads instead of quieter ceramic or resin pads.
DAC and crawl use brakes iirc. You can tell when the two red bars light up on the dash showing brakes applied. Around Silverton’s steep stuff, the DAC just appears to ride the brakes which I don’t like, so I don’t use it.
Another wish I had for Toyota… it would be handy to see when applying the brakes is not using the brake pads and is instead charging the hybrid battery. I have no clue when applying brakes is charging the hybrid. I assume that light pressure, longer duration braking is used to charge but I really have no clue if that’s correct. Mainly try to use this on long highway downhills.
Another wish I had for Toyota… it would be handy to see when applying the brakes is not using the brake pads and is instead charging the hybrid battery. I have no clue when applying brakes is charging the hybrid. I assume that light pressure, longer duration braking is used to charge but I really have no clue if that’s correct. Mainly try to use this on long highway downhills.
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- #15
i went down black bear in the jeep without a spotter. probably would never do that again. but what else out there should i stay away from in the LC?
We were in this area last fall and wanted to do some back roads but we were in a small rental car..............long story on vehicle we had reserved not being there and needing ANYTHING to drive at 11:30 at night...... but I have considered going back this fall with the LC- are most of the roads open enough that it wouldn't be all scratched up when I got finished? Have some recommendations for middle of the road drives for non experienced off roaders?
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- #18
This is also a great resource. https://a.co/d/hPSGY8e
Thank you. Looks like a great resource, but doesn't look like it includes the San Juan's and SW Colorado.......... But, maybe there is an additional book for that area? Thanks again for sharing!
When you press the brake, some of the breaking is done by the electric motor and battery, basically battery pulls current from the motor which generates resistance and slows down the vehicle. However, for long steep grades, this will stop once battery is full and cannot pull more current.
In older gen hybrids, you could feel regenerative breaking turning off before friction brakes kicked in, but modern hybrids compensate by increasing friction breaking, so we don’t feel it.
In older gen hybrids, you could feel regenerative breaking turning off before friction brakes kicked in, but modern hybrids compensate by increasing friction breaking, so we don’t feel it.
