Heater output very disappointing. Warm not hot. Update in last post

[TheGreatWhiteNorth]

Im feeling this righ now. Mine is mediocre as well. I live in Interior Alaska, and its been -25 the last few days. All my previous Tacomas has horrible fan output, but this one is significantly worse. It gets hot enough, but the blower has a super low output on full blast. The cabin filter is clean.

What irks me about this 2024 vehicle is you cant have the defroster, face, and floor heat on at the same time. Thats huge when its -30°f. If i blow the air on my face and feet...the window starts to freeze. If i blow the defroster and feet only option, my upper body is freezing.

My third gen tacoma had very mediocre blower speeds, and only gave me 2 of the 3 options as well. MANY new vehicles ive seen offer that. Ive been in many work trucks with super heaters. If we can put rovers on mars....im sure engineers can make a tacoma that blows full speed with all three blend doors open.

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[MT-Taco]

SR5 spec. Manual heater and fan. The truck takes a long time to get up the cabin up to temperature. Floor setting, floor and defrost setting both take a long time to get the cabin warm. Up to 10 minutes. Heat output is warm, never hot. Heater output increases after I get off the freeway and back to surface streets. I have been driving for 30+ years and have never had this crummy heater.

Drove my other 2 vehicles in the personal fleet during the same cold spell last week. 2006 Scion Xa, 3-5 minutes car is up to temp, heater output is HOT.
Drove Honda Odyssey with auto temp controller. Plenty of HOT air to heat the massive cabin.

Is that just the nature of the beast of the Tacoma 4th gen to have a limp heating system? Have not researched, maybe an overly smart engine thermostat electronically controlled.

Strange, Montana resident here and the heater is never on high for long! Even at -40! Also I’m definitely sensitive to being cold after 2 bouts with cancer You drive in eco mode? Not sure but that could be part of the problem? If not maybe a bad mixing valve?

 

[BlancoTaco]

Took it into the dealer for the Toyota care oil change. Asked them to look at the heater, gave them a paragraph of issues with the heater as stated in this post. Service writer puts on work order. "Customer states heater does not get hot. " Technicians sign off. "Checked heater output. Output 100F, meets manufactures specs." I had been running with settings of floor, or floor and defrost. When I got in they had floor and dash selected. To there credit it does get hot in the truck when set that way.

Drove into work today, 10F temperature, 5 minute preheat, 18 minute drive into work. Heater at max heat, max fan speed the whole way. Cabin never got hot. Same job, same route for 20 plus years, all kinds of weather. Multiple different vehicles on this route over the years. I have never had a vehicle where I could run the heater at max output on my drive to work and not be hot.

 

[BlancoTaco]

Part 2.
I am an aircraft mechanic by trade. I tend to go down rabbit holes looking for the root cause.
Random trouble shooting thoughts.

• When I got the truck I put speakers in the doors, I also installed some amazon dyna mat. I am wondering if when putting that in I disturbed the factory door sealing. They use a thick plastic door covering held in place with the sticky stuff.
• Truck not having a tight cabin allowing air leakage?
• Some obstruction not producing full airflow in the system
• Clogged cabin air filter
• the climate airflow doors are not moving to the correct location.

 

[StreeTaco]

Mine is the same. AC thru vents blows hard. Heat is very low. I have the dual climate controls.. I’ve tricked it to blow heat thru the vents with high velocity by adjusting the passenger side temp lower than the drivers side. Sumting Wong

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