Family wanting a trailer

2600# nucamp T@b320s teardrop behind my 23 longbed 4x4 tacoma. 1000 lbs of gear and people.
Springs are absolutely flat. No give. Putting in airbags over leaf springs.
Mileage awful at 70mph 11mpg in S manual mode. 4th gear 99% of time driving cross country. Trying 5th downhills, cannot maintain headway on the level.
200 mile fill ups.
My 2012 manual four banger was underpowered but got 300 miles per tank at 55 mph top speed.
Wind resistance at highway speeds kills mileage.

 

Is that the Tab 320 or 400?

The 320 seems like it would be really nice to to behind a Tacoma or 4Runner, narrow and light.

 

320 boondock was the most the 2012 could tow. Easy to maneuver. Plenty of room for two if you each stand on one leg. With this 6 cylinder truck I'd prefer the 400 that has a dedicated place to sit. Literally have to banish one person to bathroom to have room to make or break down the 70x73 bed.

Narrow enough you don't need towing mirrors. I switched my clamp on mirrors over to this new truck. First windy outing the POS stock mirrors on truck would slam folded shut every time a truck went by. Zip ties and 1/4 in bungie cord did not deter. Towing mirrors are gone and not missed.

 

When I lived in a condo, my RTT stayed on my truck for 2 years. I had absolutely no room to store it.

Now I’ve got a storage shed in my backyard

 

There is absolutely nothing wrong with starting out safely with a pop-up trailer. You sound like you have done your homework and understand the limitations of towing
with the Tacoma. Better safe than sorry.

 

Something like this is a sensible trailer for a Tacoma. Yes, you could pull a heavier trailer, but you're going to have to limit what you can put in the truck. Its 19', about 2900 dry with a GVWR of 3840. ASSUMING I have it loaded to max that would be about 500 lbs on my hitch. Add another 180 for the cap and that leaves me about 520 lbs of my original 1200 lbs of payload for my wife, myself and a few things in the truck. I have to pack carefully. Realistically I'm probably closer to 3500 lbs than 3850

If I'm traveling very far I pull this with my F150. We are leaving GA in JULY for Glacier and Yellowstone. My Tacoma pulls it easily and I often use it for trips inside 100 miles. But at 17 years and 247,000 miles I'm not pulling it to Montana with the Tacoma.

My TT is a 2022, the specs are slightly different for this 2024, but the layout is the same. The listed CCC on this 2024 can't be right. You're not going to carry 2200 lbs in a 2800 lb trailer. The CCC on mine is 950.

r-pod RP-171C - Forest River RV (forestriverinc.com)

 

You have 1200 lbs of payload??? Wow

 

Ran a junk hauling business with just a 2.7prerunner taco for a year. Always caught crap for the lil truck, but towed a small trailer and did big hauls. Was in the flat lands though. Now that I live in the foothills and see tourists lose control of their rigs all the time, I'm not even messing around.

 

I just got back from a decent trip to the coast with the family (8-9 hour drive) over the Chattanooga mountains.
I hauled an OpenRange 20MB trailer (sleeps 7, GVWR = 6000 pounds), 3 adults + 1 baby, and tons of gear (starlink, night hunting gear, baby stuff, etc).

I had to lock it in S3 for the mountains, and S4 virtually everywhere else.

With a weight distribution hitch and a good brake controller it wasn't THAT bad considering I have a couple hundred pounds of armor on the truck.
You just drop it to S3 when approaching hills and get used to the 3500 RPM you're going to be doing to get up the mountains. Get to the top, back to S4.

Is it meant for towing and would I want to do this all the time? Hell no.
A thunderstorm hit while we were traversing the mountains and with limited visibility it became white knuckle driving for a bit.

I only need to tow maybe 2-3 times a year so will just be installing 5.29 gears to make it a little easier for the few times I do it.

 

What kind of trans temps did you see in S3?

 

So I purchased ODB Fusion and the Toyota addon for trans temp monitoring thinking I would need to monitor it closely.

The reality is the heat generated comes from CHANGING gears, not RPM.

If you are not locked into S4/S3, and you keep shifting into 4,5, or 6th gear with 6000 pounds behind you just for it to need to down shift, your trans temp will SPIKE.

I shut off the monitoring after a couple hours as it was steady at 190 once I started putting it in 3rd right before the hills start.
Its that downshift on the hill with 6000 pounds behind you that cranks up the temp as it struggles to swap.

Make sense?

 

Incorrect, heat comes from the torque converter not being locked, not from changing gears.
FYI torque converter only locks on 4th, 5th and 6th gears.

 

If you say so champ. Super weird I never passed 190 while screaming up the mountains.

Agree 100% on its from the TC being unlocked, which it obviously is during gear changes...

Some people online say its 'half locked' in 3rd, as it only locks if you are in S3.

TBH I don't know or really care. It did the job and I only passed 220 when changing gears up hills.

 

What PID’s are you using for the pan and TC temps?
Yes 3rd gear apparently partially locks up. I’ve never seen it show as locked on my dashboard in 15k miles of towing.
On my dashboard I have a red circle behind the selected gear that turns green when the TC is locked.
When you’re screaming up the mountains in 3rd you have the revs up and you’re moving fluid through the system quicker so that helps cool fluid. The TC will not be locked if you have that much throttle input.
The operating temperature of the trans is 186’f and this is when the thermostat opens so I would put money on your pan temp being higher than 190’f if you’re driving through mountains towing that much and with your payload, that’s why I’m asking about the PID’s you’re using.

Last week my pan hit 201’f and the TC hit 227’f driving up 4kft elevation whilst not towing anything.

This screen shot was from not towing.


This screen shot was from driving from Reno NV to Bend OR whilst towing a 5klb TT, also shows the lock up status (red circle)

 

So you don't monitor the trans temps at all, after the first test? That would make me nervous, haha, especially with that much weight.

I asked because in my towing experience, S3 doesn't seem to lock the TC, and my temps have run much higher in S3 vs S4. (Granted, I stopped using S3 after one set of hills, since it didn't work as well as S4).

In S4, even with the truck shifting on its own between 4th and 3rd, unlocking, locking, etc., temps never climbed like they did when I limited the truck to S3. (4th would relock quickly enough for TC temps to come back down without heating up the pan too much). Mine eventually settles around 180, after gradually heating up throughout the day (but this is towing about half as much).

Now this is in a 4Runner with the old 5-speed, so maybe the rules are different vs the 3G Taco.