Rpms surge around 20-30mph. Trouble accelerating. Ideas?

I just did my 60,000 oil change, right after I finished I let it idle for 15 min then went to bed.

I woke up and headed to work, I noticed that it had lots of trouble getting passed 20mph. Passed 40mph it's just fine.

The rpms surge up and down from 20 to 30mph.

Any ideas?

 

IF it's related to your oil change, I would check the filter. What kind of filter did you use? I don't think Tundra is very picky about oil as long as it's not low.

Maybe unrelated to the oil change. Does the engine run hot?
Did you do anything else besides the oil change?

 

Just the oil change. I use a stock oem filter. I purchased a 6 pack on Amazon. Nothing out of the ordinary.

 

Should I drain my oil and install another filter?

 

As far as the engine heat, no. It has never overheated

 

Unrelated to the oil change imo; oil pressure would have no effect on power generated until all the oil film is gone off the bearings, and the engine is overheating from the friction.

Unless...it's the extended idling time after the change. You only need to run the engine a few minutes for the purpose of discovering filter housing or drain plug leaks. Beyond that, you're wasting gasoline and possibly damaging the catalytic converters from overheating if longer than 15 minutes. (At least that used to be true...maybe new vehicles' ECU can prevent that.)

This sounds like a fuel pump/strainer issue to me, which could have been precipitated by extended idling. Coincidentally, trash may have been sucked up off the bottom and covered the strainer. Clues are truck idles fine with low fuel demand, struggles at/beyond certain low throttle setting as if all the available "filtered" capacity is being used.

 

Check your pressure gauge...if it's in it's usual position, the problem is not a collapsed filter.

Did you do the aluminum filter housing upgrade? If yes, you did do the center tube exchange, right?

 

Stock plastic oil housing. I never replaced it. It idles just fine. It's when I'm going from 20 to 30 mph it high revs without sending much power to the wheels.

I also thing that it's strange that it happened after a simple oil change. I didn't touch anything else. I just reset my maintenance indicator and went to bed.

Could it my my MAF sensor?

 

Insufficient data to diagnose by internet. Think you can do a demo video of that?

 

Excellent idea. I'll try to post on in the am.

 

Is this the first oil change you’ve done on your Tundra?

Which pan did you drain the oil from?? Engine or transmission? It sounds like maybe you drained the transmission pan based on your description of the symptoms.

 

+1

 

Without trans. oil and engine oil way over the F mark, the car would not be running by now. I don't think he drained the trans. fluid. There will be some left-over trans. fluid (maybe half with Tundra? idk) but still ...

Maybe just a coincidence and bad gas or issues in the fuel system.

Also cars idle sometimes for hours in summer traffic (accidents/construction) with ac on ... parents watching kids playing ... high school kids having sex ... people listening to football game, taxis, ... on and on ...
10-15 minutes of idling is not a problem (cat damage, etc.)

 

The transmission pan holds about 4 quarts, of 13 quart total capacity.

The complaint of high revs is the giveaway.

 

He is talking about changing the oil filter and "stock plastic oil housing" ... Not sure how much of the engine oil drains out if you just change the filter. Guessing 1/2 qt. max. idk, do you know?

then I assume adding 8 qt. of engine oil to an already full crankcase (since it was not drained) ...

if he made that mistake, he must be 4 qt. low in trans fluid and about 7-8 qt. high on engine oil

Hard to believe but anything is possible. You have to miss a bunch of cues to get there!

 

I agree it does sound like the transmission slipping except we didn't hear it yet. Coincidence of this being unrelated to the oil change would be one in a million (less if the truck needs a LOT of attention). Such odds are about as long as an owner not checking the dipstick after an oil change, but it's happened before.

 

I hope for the sake of OP, his Tundra and bank account that my theory is not the case.

It was a regular occurrence over on TW though, the “unconventional” shape of the lower oil pan throws a lot of guys off.

One guy even went so far as to pour his drained ATF back into the reservoir under the hood, which of course was the coolant overflow bottle with pink coolant in it.

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/halp.33318/

So @Erick , any update on your Tundra?

 

Hope this is not the case but we haven't heard back ...

@landphil we will now let you change your avatar back to your original Einstein avatar! unless we hear back from the op.