4wheel drive question

Alright Tundra community, so I have a head scratcher. I am not new to using 4wheel drive but I have only had this truck a little over a year. That being said I’m a little concerned with what happened today. I took the Tundra out to the beach for a amazing beach day. When I got to the beach I put the truck in 4hi and turned off the traction control as I have done many times. Everything registered on the dash display confirming I had the traction control disabled and I was in 4hi. I proceeded onto the beach and drove about 3 miles down the beach to a spot to park and enjoy the day. When I stopped I noticed smoke coming from the engine compartment on the driver side. Temp gauges all were normal. Smoke stopped fairly quickly. On our way off the beach I did not turn off the traction control and just went with 4hi. Same speed back off the beach if not a little faster and no smoke at all. I’m wondering if anyone else has experienced this issue. Would appreciate any good input.

 

No water at all , smoke appeared to be white and kinda smelled rubberish

 

I felt the wheel and hub and no heat at all , smoke was definitely coming from driver side Lower engine bay

 

Yeah next time, I'd lift the hood at the time of 'smoke' and check it out...

 

I did lift the hood and the only thing I could narrow it down to was lower side of driver side engine compartment.

 

Why turn off TC in 4H?

 

I don’t want wheel spin limitations while in the sand

 

I would suggest you go play in the dirt and see how truck respond to different terrain op was correct in doing so.

 

Sooooooo you see smoke, really didnt see source, somewhere on driver side, how the heck is anyone on the forum that wasn't within 100 miles of the truck supposed to know?

 

Did you try turning ATRAC off before engaging 4WD?

 

Have you spent much time on the forum? There are many people that have either had the same experience or have great advice. This forum has been a great source of information and knowledge.

 

There’s always one in the crowd

 

yes if i remember correctly that was the sequence .

 

That's a tough one.

Possible culprits:

Water from AC system.
Something kicked up from the ground touching something hot under truck.
Some sort of oil leak hitting something hot on its way to the ground.
Coolant leak.

Further investigation required when this occurs next time.

Let us know.

 

Random idea, but do you think it's possible that the tires kicked

I was thinking trash in the sand might have kicked up and touched something hot too. Especially if it's a rubber burning smell.

 

all good information and things to look into. I wanted to just ask the question more to see if this was a problem more Tundra owners had experienced. Seems to be specific to my situation so i will monitor it closely next trip out. Appreciate everyone who has replied with good intent.

 

Also possible that something got a little bit hot. slow drive, low gears and not much air flow ...

Things can get hot (within design spec) but you could smell it. Also if there is some oil residue somewhere it will burn off when it gets hot.

See if you can reproduce.