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TundraGeneral discussion forum for the 2007 and later Toyota Tundra.
This is a discussion thread titled "Saftey on the Tundra", within the Tundra forum, part of the Truck Forums category.
I'm just being my inquisitive self again, but would someone please explain to me (and possibly give situational examples) of why you would want to turn OFF the safety features of the Tundra? I'm just not grasping the point of doing this...when the features were put in place to not only help save your life, but save your truck and possibly save the lives of other people on the road (from you losing control and hitting them).
Why would you turn off LSD?
Why would you turn off VSC?
Why would you turn off Trac-control?
Why would you turn off your side airbags?
I'm genuinely curious because it never occured to me to disable these features in my Corvette, so why would I want to do it in a truck?
Couldn't agree more, I guess it depends if you want to burn the hide off a set of expensive tires.
not only that, but it also seems to show a lack of respect for others on the road when you disable safety items just so you can speed down the road to flex your muscles. very dangerous imo.
vehicles are just that, vehicles....not toys. they have the potential to cause serious harm if mishandled.
If you read your manual it addresses several of these questions.
Traction control limits wheelspin with brake application and throttle. So let's say you are in mud or snow and need to just gas it to get out, what do you think the traction control will do? That's right, it won't let you. This is an instance where you may want your wheels to spin. So you turn off vsc, which enables A-LSD, and you can stand on it to (hopefully) get out of the ditch or mud hole or whatever.
Knowing that A-LSD works by applying braking to one or both back wheels, if you use the hell out of it, your brakes will get very hot. There may be an instance where you want your wheels to spin but you do not want to fry your brakes, so you turn off traction control and A-LSD. The system will actually disengage itself to prevent brake damage but you may not want to allow your brakes to get that hot from the get go.
Knowing that the roll sensing curtain airbags can deploy without an impact or the truck going wheels up, you may want to disable them if you are off roading on steep terrain where your right wheels may be significantly higher or lower than your left ones. This will possibly prevent you from getting blasted in the side of the head by an airbag that is sensing your roll angle but not necessarily aware that you are in full control of the vehicle.
These control systems are there for safety under normal circumstances, but turning them off has useful benefits besides burnouts.
If you read your manual it addresses several of these questions. -This is not an options as I don't own a Tundra....yet.
Traction control limits wheelspin with brake application and throttle. So let's say you are in mud or snow and need to just gas it to get out, what do you think the traction control will do? That's right, it won't let you. This is an instance where you may want your wheels to spin. So you turn off vsc, which enables A-LSD, and you can stand on it to (hopefully) get out of the ditch or mud hole or whatever. -I'm assuming this is for 4x2? If you have a 4x4, in this situation, would it be better to switch over to 4HI (which, i think disables these features anyway)?
Knowing that the roll sensing curtain airbags can deploy without an impact or the truck going wheels up, you may want to disable them if you are off roading on steep terrain where your right wheels may be significantly higher or lower than your left ones. This will possibly prevent you from getting blasted in the side of the head by an airbag that is sensing your roll angle but not necessarily aware that you are in full control of the vehicle. -Ahh...very wise. Makes sense.
These control systems are there for safety under normal circumstances, but turning them off has useful benefits besides burnouts. -Per your examples, I now see that. I guess my interpretation of the situation was that people turn them off so they can "slide" their truck or "burn out" or for "racing"...which is what the majority of the posts here are about when concerning turning these features off.
Why turn off A-LSD?- A-LSD in normal mode is always off, in this mode you have TRAC and VSC. A-LSD has a speed restriction should only be used to get us stuck in 2WD and speeds below about 32mph.Toyota does not want us to drive around with A-LSD always on.
Why turn off VSC?- To get unstuck in fresh snow etc., when you need full power to the wheels without VSC cutting your throttle.When you turn off VSC, you are also turning off TRAC, so you not have your throttle cut. VSC is automatically turned off in 4WD.
Why Turn off TRAC?- When you turn off TRAC- A-LSD is automatically turned on. You do this when you need more traction to your rear tires without TRAC cutting your throttle.
One of the reasons Toyota gave us the options to turn on/off these various controls, is because their are situations where it is actually safer to do so.
Why turn off the side air bags?- If you are driving off road, on side hills etc, turning off the side bags is a good idea, as they may go off. Even though you turn off the side air bags, they will still deploy if you roll over. Turning off the Side air bags really just changes the parameters for when they deploy, rather than just turning them off completely.
Originally Posted by mtusrsmith If you read your manual it addresses several of these questions. -This is not an options as I don't own a Tundra....yet.
Traction control limits wheelspin with brake application and throttle. So let's say you are in mud or snow and need to just gas it to get out, what do you think the traction control will do? That's right, it won't let you. This is an instance where you may want your wheels to spin. So you turn off vsc, which enables A-LSD, and you can stand on it to (hopefully) get out of the ditch or mud hole or whatever. -I'm assuming this is for 4x2? If you have a 4x4, in this situation, would it be better to switch over to 4HI (which, i think disables these features anyway)?
Knowing that the roll sensing curtain airbags can deploy without an impact or the truck going wheels up, you may want to disable them if you are off roading on steep terrain where your right wheels may be significantly higher or lower than your left ones. This will possibly prevent you from getting blasted in the side of the head by an airbag that is sensing your roll angle but not necessarily aware that you are in full control of the vehicle. -Ahh...very wise. Makes sense.
These control systems are there for safety under normal circumstances, but turning them off has useful benefits besides burnouts. -Per your examples, I now see that. I guess my interpretation of the situation was that people turn them off so they can "slide" their truck or "burn out" or for "racing"...which is what the majority of the posts here are about when concerning turning these features off.
Cheers!
see above in red
You are certainly correct in that many people use these features for other than their intended use.
Why turn off A-LSD?- A-LSD in normal mode is always off, in this mode you have TRAC and VSC. A-LSD has a speed restriction should only be used to get us stuck in 2WD and speeds below about 32mph.Toyota does not want us to drive around with A-LSD always on.
Why turn off VSC?- To get unstuck in fresh snow etc., when you need full power to the wheels without VSC cutting your throttle.When you turn off VSC, you are also turning off TRAC, so you not have your throttle cut. VSC is automatically turned off in 4WD.
Why Turn off TRAC?- When you turn off TRAC- A-LSD is automatically turned on. You do this when you need more traction to your rear tires without TRAC cutting your throttle.
One of the reasons Toyota gave us the options to turn on/off these various controls, is because their are situations where it is actually safer to do so.
Perfect explaination, thank you! One question though...If the Tundra in quesiton is a 4x4, then you wouldn't need LSD, right......and does a 4x4 even need an LSD feature? Because if you ever encountered a situation where you were stuck, you would just put it in 4HI/LO and be done with it?
In 4WD ATRAC is automatically turned on. ATRAC is like A-LSD except that it gives you A-LSD to all four wheels. ATRAC really comes in handy for adding traction in 4WD.
Also, in 4WDlo, ATRAC applies more pressure to the brakes than in 4WD hi, aiding traction even more.
Without ATRAC, you may get one front tire spinning and one rear tire spinning, ATRAC will try to stop this by giving you traction to all 4 wheels.
I just like to SMOKE'EM.......O.K. just kidding, I find that in the snow and Ice the the LSD or ATRAC work well in some situations but not in others. Also, the break controler goes nuts if you don't turn some of the controls off in the snow.
theres been a lot of info on using and controlling the saftey nannies. Id run a few searches as well.
The saftey nanies on the truck are awesome and the abilty to turn them off is very cruitial when off road.
A friend has a 2wd Tundra and has went off roading with me a few times. He got through some impressive stuff in 2wd. If the nanies were on he wouldnt have made it for sure
__________________ TUNDRA786
2007 Tundra Crew Max 4.7 TRD 4x4
285/65/18's with BF Goodrich All Terrain KO's
BedRug, Undercover, Bed Extender, Husky Liners
As much as one might try, software programmers can't make a vehicle do exactly what it should for all road surfaces. It isn't like it can actually see the patch of ice 100 yards in front of it like the human driving it can. There will always be that sidehill or ditch offroad that would set-off the side airbags inadvertently even though the operator purposely put the truck in that situation. The computer is working off of instantaneous accel and pitch inputs, but in this case, there is a button to turn it off if the operator is going to purposely (at low speed) drop the truck into a hairy angle for whatever reason.
As an example, the Nissan Xterra no longer has side air bags with the "Off-road" model (no button on those nissans for that- there's a reason- it falsed a lot of airbag deployments.
as far as the traction control...yes, it could be unwise to turn it off on the street, but there is always the problem of being able to drive down into a sandy depression with no way to get out. How can the truck know that there is a 70 foot hill with loose dirt and sand to climb which would require constant power with some wheelspin? When the software is wrong for the terrain, there is the button to go 'low tech'.
vehicles are just that, vehicles....not toys. they have the potential to cause serious harm if mishandled.
Millions of people would have to disagree with you on that one. There are many people who enjoy driving, and do it for fun (including myself). However as long as your not driving recklessly around other people there is no reason not to have a bit of fun. For instance if someone purchases a corvette with the LS7 505hp, that would be considered a toy. Why? well because if it wasn't considered a toy it would have a 140 hp 4-banger, soft suspension, and average brakes just to get you from point A to point B.
In regards to turning off these devices, most you would have no need to turn off in daily driving. However when I take my truck out to the desert and want to have a little fun having VSC enabled could cause more harm then good depending on the situation. ABS is an example of something you never want enabled off-road, many people have rolled and gone off embankments because ABS wouldn't allow them to stop. When you're braking in less then ideal traction conditions off-road ABS will be constantly engaged and not allow your to stop quickly. Without ABS when you lock the brakes off-road the tires dig into the dirt and build up a mound in front of the tire, bringing you to a stop often quicker then on pavement and sometimes violently depending on the terrain and amount of brake applied.
__________________
2007 Tundra 5.7 6-spd 2wd
Silver, double cab, short bed
TRD package
Ok just bought a 2wd '07 today, one reason I looked at Chevys is because they boasted about automatic locking differentials, so I the Tundras lsd is the same thing?
That is great if so, I dont do much if any offroading but my work is on cell towers and it hairy going up some of these roads to the towers. Loose gravel and dirt with ruts and usally pretty steep.
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Saftey on the Tundra
Re: Saftey on the Tundra
TUNDRA786
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