Help better towing?

If you really like your pro and size of your truck then id change to 4.88 gears or as stated you only tow on weekends. The Tacoma can tow it but that is big boat. If I was not happy with my pro then id trade for a Tundra or other half ton and take the hit and go on. Life is too short

 

I would buy a old 1/2 ton to pull the boat and keep your truck why trade and lose 5,000 when you could buy something for that and keep your truck ...

 

Solution right here...

 

Thats a decent chunk of boat for a Taco. Should trade it in for a Raptor.

 

Get a Tundra

 

+1

A re gear will help a ton and a trailer brake controller.

 

as a few have said before....
assuming you want to keep the truck, you're probably going to want to re-gear. as stated, even though you're well within the realms of the towing capacity, you're still towing a 5500lb load with a 4500lb truck...its going to struggle. i tow about 4k to the desert, even less than you, and its definitely noticeable.

stock tires
reagear
trade it in for a 1/2 ton
live with it
only options i see...

 

I tow a horse trailer but the key is don’t sacrifice power with oversized tires, focus on the job it needs to do. A stock Tacoma will pull that boat without any problem. Any loss of power is a loss and a Tacoma needs all it has.

 

Dude you got a 2GRE FKS 3.5 from the Toyota Sienna and Lexus family of engines. Of course it can't tow a boat... Mike Sweers is a moron and paired a inappropriate engine/powertrain to appease CAFE regulations and that bill Obama signed for " MPG"s. But Toyota has its head so far up its ass, this will be last my Toyota ever...

You don't wana know what I've dealt with from corporate.

 

Not the truck I would buy to tow that boat! I have towed a boat, but if I towed a 5000lb load regularly, no doubt have a full size. Wrong tool for the job on my opinion - good luck getting the correct rig

 

trade the taco in for a diesel dually or
trade the boat in for a zodiac.
personally i think the taco/zodiac would be fun.

 

The sad thing if were a Chevy Colorado with the 2.8 Baby Durmax it would have no issue towing it due its 300 ft/lbs of torque.

 

So exactly what is the problem? Acceleration? Braking? Handling? Pulling out of the ramp? Mileage? Need some help here as there is no accurate problem for us to diagnose.

 

A Tundra, or any larger truck, can still have towing issues:

 

Get some good straps too?

 

Use ECT an never go beyond 4th gear. If trailer does not have electric brakes it needs them to help stop.

 

.

 

Thats 20,000%... its roughly 1:3 staying within a reasonable tire size.

 

Like everyone else said - stock size tires. Or, drop the diameter to get a little "poor man's gearing" in your favor. You are hurting your acceleration with the larger diameter quite a bit. Sacrifice a little sex appeal for a little more functionality. Get the 16" wheels from the OR and put the shortest tire you can get with the right load rating.

Also, looking at the angle of your trailer to the truck you could do with a drop hitch. Make it level and do the math and get the tongue weight right - it won't help with pure acceleration but it will feel more stable at speed and corner/stop better.

I've posted this pic before of my boat (I should really take a new one with the sexy new hull graphics) ... aside from some slight difficulty with clutch release and engine RPM getting the manual moving from a stop on a steep incline I have no trouble pulling 6k+ around in the mountains of NE PA and NY. The auto does not have the clutch problem and so should be fine, better even with the torque converter making the boat ramp a breeze. I run mine well over 150 miles round trip every time I go. All mixed interstate and country road to the water over the Appalachians or up into the mountains around the Finger Lakes. Nothing is flat here.

Will it win a drag race with a Duramax with 5k on the bumper? No, not even close. But if you manually select gears and stay out of overdrive you can safely run 70 on the interstate all day long. In tight, twisty hills I hold 2nd or 3rd and let the motor spin - I never have issues maintaining the speed limit or better. I get between 10-12mpg too so not really all that terrible. Certainly not worth dropping $50k+ on a bigger truck to pull a $12k boat a little easier 20x a year. FWIW, I had a 2500HD before this that would pull the taco and the boat better at the same time than the taco pulls the boat... but it was massive, costly to buy and to maintain, unwieldy in town, too big for the garage - I needed it for something else and when that need went away I could not have been happier to dump it and live with the Taco for hauling the boat. YMMV.

 

I feel like the manual would be much nicer to tow with. It's geared significantly lower than the auto. If I were towing with the auto I know for sure I'd be in ECT and S4 at minimum. Probably working the S-mode shifter the whole time.