Seasons Greetings,

Looking to get an honest accurate opinion of my transmission.  Scotty you there?  Lol

I have a 2005 Tacoma PreRunner Double Cab 2WD V-6 4.0L with 214,000.  Bought used 6 months ago.  I did do a pre-buy inspection and nothing was found.  But I’m sure they do not deep dive the transmission.

Bought some new tires the other day and was test driving. BTW I’ve only driven this truck myself about 500 miles and just around Kingwood and a few trips to The Woodlands.  My son has driven it the most, he noticed the issue but said nothing weeks ago, he didn’t know it was an issue.

Felt a shudder or “rumble strip” at 40 MPH for a couple of seconds between 3rd and 4th or 2nd and 3rd.  Took to a local shop and flushed transmission fluid then replaced.  It helped a little. Tech that worked on it stated in his opinion that its never been changed. Kind of hard to believe that since the guy I bought it from rebuilds cars. He should know but...  Anyway, shop wants to find a low mileage replacement transmission to replace. They frowned upon rebuilt stating they have not had much luck with remanufactured transmissions from Toyota.  I do have to consider $$$.  Tech and I did a driving test post flush with one those $5k+ ODB scanners that Scotty uses, torque converter was turned off and there is a brief delay in shifting between 3rd and 4th or 2nd and 3rd.

Doing my research I came across this - https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/transmission-5-speed-automatic-write-up-with-pics-for-second-gen-4-liter-trucks.289913/ .  It has a lot of information that may be promising, I’m not an expert. 

Apologies for the length, trying to be concise and informative.

Merry Christmas,

Kevin