How does the Multi-Terrain Select System work?

For this week’s How’s This Work article, we’re looking at something a bit more brand specific. While we’re sure other manufacturers out there on the market have a similar feature in some of their vehicles, the Toyota Multi-Terrain Select System is all ours and we love being able to offer it to off-road enthusiasts here in the area. But some people might not know exactly how it works, so we thought we’d dive right in and give you the rundown.

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What is Toyota Multi-Terrain Select?

The Multi-Terrain Select System has been appearing in Toyota vehicles for the past couple of years, but as of now its most noteworthy accolade is that it will be available in the upcoming 2017 Toyota Tacoma TRD Pro Series. The Tacoma TRD, and most other vehicles with MTS installed, come equipped with a host of different off-road enhancement features – like Crawl Control, Hill Start Assist Control and Active Traction Control – but MTS sits at the center of them all.

MTS is a driver-selectable system that allows you to choose between five different modes, each altering wheel spin to improve traction on several different off-road terrains. Once you choose a mode, the vehicle will automatically adjust things like engine throttle and brake pressure to individual wheels. The five different selectable modes are mud & sand, loose rock, mogul, rock & dirt and rock.

In order to use MTS, your 4-wheel drive system needs to be switched into the 4L position and Crawl Control needs to be deactivated. Once those things are taken care of, you can select your mode. If your vehicle begins going faster than 7 miles per hour, the MTS system will turn off. If you want a better visual of how the Multi-Terrain Select performs, or how to operate it, watch the video below. If you can’t wait for the new Tacoma TRD, feel free to call us and we’d be happy to fill you in on which vehicles have MTS available.