HELP! Any experience pulling 4500 lbs+

So the wife and I are looking at getting a travel trailer. I have a 2010 TRD double cab, Looking at a trailer thats 24'6" bumper to ball and 4500lbs dry, so i figure another 1000lbs loaded. The front end of the trailer is pretty aerodynamic, my big question is does anybody have any experience towing this much weight through the mountains? We spend alot of time in the rockies. I know I wont be breaking any land speed records (especially on the coquihalla with its 8% grade) Plan on getting stabilizer bars and maybe even anti sway, and likely airbags. My neighbour pulls a trailer thats is 3646lbs dry with a nitro and says it pulls great even in the mountains, but a nitro is only rated for give or take 5000lbs i think. Any insight would be really appreciated!

 

Get a controller and become very very liberal with your braking distances. Double and triple check your wet weight. Including passengers, driver and random in cab shit. That all factors in the tow weight.

Don't even bother putting it in D. Leave it in 4 and call it a day. You may want to monkey fuck with manually picking gears till it learns which gears for what.

 

The real numbers to use are Gross Combined Vehicle Weight Rating, which with tow package is 11,100 lbs. These trucks are pigs from the factory, and you will quickly max the GVWR of the truck (5,450) with just passengers and "tongue weight". So that leaves you a maximum trailer weight of 5,650 lbs. I personally like to tow at 75% or less of max, or about 4,200 lbs in this case.

As for your 4,500 lb "dry" trailer, I'd ask the dealer to put it on an actual scale first. I bet that number is quite a bit low. But if it is accurate, and you keep the payload to less than 1,000 lbs, you'll be right at the limit. Won't be fun in the passes, that's for sure. And I'd have the trailer brake controller set pretty aggressively....

 

Ditto, the truck has more power higher up in the RPM range, I usually manually shift it higher (3500-3800 RPM), leave it in 4 pretty much the whole time. Sucks down your gas but it saves the tranny and engine.

 

i have pulled around 3,000 to 3,200 up and down hills. no brake controller, trailer dose not have any kinda brakes. steepest i did was my drove way thats about 500 or so feet long maybe a little more. and is like a 9% grade. also did some 4% and 5% just fine. i did leave it in 4th tho.

 

I towed a 4300 lb trailer (loaded) from NS to NB and back. No brake controller or sway bars (was a last minute unplanned haul).

I would HIGHLY reccomend the brake controller and as was mentioned above keep your distance at all times.

The truck itself had no issues hauling the load. Most of the drive was along the 100 series highways so it was well behaved, but one some of the steeper hills a little bit of acceleration and pre-emptive manual downshifting worked wonders.

I will be getting a controller installed before the next time I haul just to make it a bit more enjoyable and easier on the truck.

Good luck.