Any special maintenance required for towing?

Hey folks!

First off - thanks for a great site. This place is awesome and has been sooooo useful to me over the past few months as I was decided whether to get a trailer for my truck, and what kind, size, etc. I ended up buying a 6' x 12' enclosed trailer in August to haul my bikes to/from the track, the shop, etc. (Truck, by the way, is a 1998 2.4L Tacoma. Manual transmission, 137k miles. Not sure what else is pertinent info for y'all.)

I've put about 3k miles on the truck/trailer since getting it. (Loaded, the trailer runs ~2200 - ~2800lbs, depending on how many bikes I put in. 99% of the time, though, just one bike so 2200lbs.) Recently took the truck in to have the tires balanced, and the technician mentioned the brake pads were pretty worn. Fair enough - I get to do a brake job on the truck this weekend. Yay. BUT... it got me thinking:

Is there any special maintenance that I need to do to the truck to keep him (yes, my truck is a 'he'. His name is 'Snort' - which is 7-year-old for 'Stuart'. ;D) happy now that his 4 cylinders are actually having to do some work?

Do I want to change the oil more often? Anything I need to be aware of with the (manual) tranny? Tires? (Hey, speaking of tires: I typically run 'em at 34psi - is that good for when they are under load, or do I want to over/under-inflate them a bit?) What else?

Sorry if the question has been asked (I did search!), and thanks in advance for any advice you can offer!

 

My trucks were always 'he' - especially if they were STICK SHIFTS. Even my auto has a STICK that I hold & caress....Ohhh...did I just say that?

But anyway...

Check out your owners manual for maintenance intervals. If you're towing on a regular basis, then you probably should consider the 'heavy work load' maitenance schedule (or whatever they call it).

Rear differentials often take a lot more abuse while towing than regular driving. If you haven't had the rear differential serviced in over 15,000 miles and you tow a lot, I'd consider changing the oil.

The tire pressure thing - I wouldn't worry about it. Keep it the way it is. Depending on what your tonque weight is.....lowering the air pressure could be a bad thing in terms of controllability.

Other than that...just make sure your changing your oil regularly as specified in manual, checking everything else to make sure the entire truck is in top notch condition.

 

Bwhahahahahahahahahaha!!!

Thank you so much for the answer. I would never have thought about the rear differential - I'll definitely get that freshened up, as it were.

Good info on the tires, too. On the 2nd long trip I took with the trailer (Phoenix to outside of Las Vegas), I had a blowout at night 5 miles from Nothing, AZ (no lie)... so I'm a little twitchy about my tires. Good to know that I don't need to do anything in particular with 'em.

Thank you again; I really appreciate it.