Towing 6000 pounds...It may be rated for it but jeez

I wish i took a picture of this. Last week i bought a honda s2000 and i towed it back from a little over a hour away on a 3,000lb dump trailer. Tow a 3000lb trailer and a 2700lb car and you'll experience roughly 8 miles per gallon. I burned through a tank at 140 miles. This truck might be rated for 6500lb but ~5700lb was pushing it. Long story short, i got it home safe. Next time i'll borrow my fathers full size truck to do the towing tho, the front end felt awfully light.

 

Weight distributing hitch will help with the nose feeling light. Not much you can do about the 8 mpg's though... If you hook up a 5,700 lb trailer behind a full sized V8 I'd bet you'd only see 10 mpg depending on the truck. Diesel will obviously be much better, 5,700 lbs is nothing to a diesel.

 

Sound's like you had too much tongue weight...

 

(for the nose high, not the mpgs)

 

i just moved across the country pulling a uhaul....8 mpgs for 1400 miles...yeah that sucked. Not sure how much the trailer weighed, had all my stuff in it, but it sucked ass. dont think ill be doing that again anytime soon

 

Yea I tow my buddies ski boat from time to time, Trailer and boat about 6000 pounds in weight. I burn gas like crazy, about 80 miles to a half tank sucks!

 

Power/mileage is one thing....steering and stopping is another.
These are not trucks....more like cars with high ground clearance.

 

I can agree with that because breaking with that boat was very nerve racking at times

 

My boat is about the same weight, and I'm getting about 8-10mpg towing as well. It sucks, but I only have 2-3 long trips a year and cannot justify the 14-16mpg a full size would get as a DD.

x2... a V8 wouldn't get much better.

 

yes this will help. air bags or air springs will make the truck level and prevent understeer

 

Please elaborate, what constitutes a 'truck' then in your opinion? It's got a strong engine, strong frame, p/u bed... failing to see what's missing.

 

Yup.... With a 2004 5.7L Dodge Ram hauling 5700lbs is about 10mpg straight highway.

Granted, I was aerodynamically challenged. Hauling a Jeep w/ 35" tires on a car hauler is like pulling a brick through the air.

 

Waitaminnit...

Trailer brakes working?

6000 lbs needs well set up trailer brakes.

You can't come in here with payload too far forward and no trailer brakes and then complain about the Tacoma!

 

Sorry just realized thinkingman isn't the OP...

EDIT: OK I'm off my iphone and onto a computer with a keyboard, so I can add a more articulate thought.

My background is in towing a 24' sailboat all up weight 5000+ lbs for several seasons about 10 times a year.

The key observation is that you have to match the load to the tow vehicle. Yeah, if you want to get sloppy with your tongue weight and tow without trailer brakes - sure enough you're gonna need a truck with 18,000 lbs GCVWR to tow it comfortably. Trailers over 3500lbs NEED trailer brakes. Get your tongue weight wrong (should be about 500lbs on a Tacoma sized trailer) and you're either gonna be nose-in-the-air, or all over the road with hobby horsing and swaying back and forth.

And as far as MPGs goes, yeah, towing slurps gas. This is as much to do with wind resistance as anything.

But with a well set up load, a Tacoma, with roughly 30% more HP and Torque than my old F150 had, is plenty capable of towing a 6000lb trailer. You may want that TSB AAL. Since I've already swapped out my rear springs for a Dakar leaf pack, I'm not qualified to talk about the stock rear springs.

 

Yea I would guess you had a bit to much tongue weight. I've towed 6k with mine before and although the power wasn't awesome it didn't give me much trouble. Was a tandem axle trailer with brakes on both axles and I had no problems stopping it either. We loaded the trailer so the truck only saw acouple hundred pounds of tongue weight and it didn't even squat. It's all about the brakes and loading it correctly.... As for the crappy mpg... not much you can do about that.

 

That's why I questioned what his definition of a 'truck' is... You definitely need good brakes on the trailer and a decent brake controller for heavy loads, no matter what you're towing with.

 

I want to see pics of the s2000

OT what the other folks said minus the real truck thing

 

Nose in the Air

 

got a weight distributing hitch on that bad boy? Plus you're lifted, are you using the proper drop on the hitch itself to make it level?

 

I wasn't going to but since you did, I might as well. Mine is a little nose high even w/ the 2inch AAL in the rear.