Outer Limits 4x4 Board

Hi,

First post, so I hope I'm in the right spot. Apologies if not.

I have a 150 series Prado which I took for a drive along a beach. Sand was extremely soft and car had to work hard. After a while the transmission temp light came on. Toyota reakons nothing to worry about, but I'm preparing for a Simpson trip next year. Be very grateful if anyone has comment - should I be looking at something to help the transmission stay cool (sorry, I'm not overly techy)? Cheers Lewy4wd

Dumb question first but did you let plenty of air out of the tires? You can usually belt up the beach in soft sand with a fair amount of tyre pressure, modern engines have plenty of power to do it, but it will be a huge load on the transmission and could cause overheating.

you will most likely require a transmission cooler to be fitted to the vehicle, especially if you will be towing

Agree with bansheebuzz, an additional/bigger trans cooler will be a benefit to most/all autos especially under load.

Crikey ! Is a modern 4WD that soft that you have to fit a transmission cooler just to drive on sand ? My 120 Prado (manual though) eats up soft sand just fine with the tyres down to 15 or so. I would have thought an a new auto would be great. I know the new Prados and Discos have riduclously low profile tyres but even so I would have thought they would still go OK.

Does your beast have traction control ? I think they all do now. Was that cutting in all the time? Perhaps the car is crazily working against its own brakes - on the older traction control systems the car could end up stopping dead on sand in some vehicles. Can you turn it off ?

Regards,
Morgo

I can't imagine a new prado not having any sort of transmission cooler at all, and if there isn't driver error/abuse then there would definately be something wrong mechanically if you can't stonk it up the beach.

People use prados to tow caravans all the time and there are no massive failure rates there.

Most of the heat in an auto is generated from the torque convertor largely when it is slipping. so using a too higer gear to take off or not letting air out of the tyres or a combination of both would see any auto easily overheat. It's no different in a manual with a friction clutch. ride the clutch too much it will burn out in a matter of minutes.

Nothing to worry about, its a built in safety, and comes in at least 30 deg C before its really becoming an issue.

Next time, use the right set of gears,a nd lower the air pressure in the tyres.

Auto-Craft wrote:Nothing to worry about, its a built in safety, and comes in at least 30 deg C before its really becoming an issue.

Next time, use the right set of gears,a nd lower the air pressure in the tyres.

x2

Toyota test their vehicles well enough. If you are worried about it just replace the trans oil.

my new 150 td gave me a warning message re transmission temp .... it was when we were towing a 1.5 t caravan up a small hill at Airley beach ... the hill had two gradients @ 9% and 10% ...the computer screen told me to pull over when safe to do so .... computers dont seem to realise the difficulty of stopping on a large hill with no runoffs .... I wonder how far I could drive with this warning message on the screen before I wrecked the box .... wouldI be covered by warranty after 60000 .... I dont think so ... I will be having a word to Toyota and will definitely be fitting a transmission cooler or getting rid of the 150 for something that can handle the going when it gets tough.

An additional transmission cooler is a very worthwhile investment in any case, 1. for cooling, 2. for more fluid. The key thing to remember is the fluid is the lubricant and when it reaches certain high temperatures it will break down as with any oil and cease to protect the internal surfaces, then failure will occur.
Toyota have the temp sensor fitted to prevent this occuring unknowingly due to high loads or temps, cheper than hearing bang, oops what was that, all you have to do is face the vehicle idling into the breeze in neutral and it clears after a few minutes.
I have always used the external transmission coolers fitted to falcons as they are large, common and cheap

thanks for your info .... it is not always easy to idle into the wind to lower the temp when going uphill .... seems to me that this is a bad flaw in the makeup of the 150 auto .... I have never experienced this in any other car that I have driven over the past 46 years .... can you actually install the Ford cooler in the Prado ..... not a great advert for an $84000 on the road vehicle.

any large auto transmission cooler will do, I have just used the ford ones as they are large , cheap and effective.
maybe when towing it is best to lock the transmission into a lower gear at the beginning of the approach and have the o/d off, I think it mentions this sort of stuff in the manual, but yes $84K you would be thinking.......oh what a feeling.
Unfortunately there is more of a push to have bluetooth and Ipod integration as a priority than the actual vehicle functions thesedays, nice to look at nice to drive, but when you need it to work, mmmmm...