My 3rd Gen Towing experience

Recently the wife an I took a vacation and due to all the virus stuff, we decided to rent a camper so we could distance as much as possible. We rented a Starcraft 182 RB with a 4,200 # GVWR so that comes in at about 66% of the capacity for the Tacoma. Thank goodness, the rental company provided a weight distributing hitch and anti sway bar, as I doubt the trip would have been a success with out it.

We covered a total of 1796 miles with the camper:
Day 1 Chattanooga, TN to Norwood, NC. This was my first long distance tow with the Tacoma. I had previously hauled our boat out of the water and to the house for cleanup, but nothing like this. I'm not new to towing over distances, but doing so in a smaller truck was a new experience(previously towing all full size and mostly 3/4 ton). I wasn't prepared for the amount of struggle to maintain speed that I experienced, nor had I planned for adding 3 hours to the travel time or the MPG to be so bad. More on this below.
Day 2 Norwood, NC, to Currituck, NC. Not as bad as day 1 as the terrain was much more flat.
Day 3 Camper stayed put
Day 4 Currituck, NC to Ocracoke, NC. This was a fairly easy day, except the 3 hours waiting on a Ferry.
Day 5 Ocracoke, NC to New Bern, NC. Also an easy day with a 2.5 hour Ferry ride.
Day 6 New Bern, NC to Asheville, NC. This was by far the most difficult day, especially for the truck. This day was also not originally in the plan. The original plan had us making the haul from New Bern to Chattanooga on Day 7. After determining that it would be a 12-13 hour day based on day 1 experience, we found another site half way home. Climbing a mountain on I-40 west in to Asheville, 3 lanes of traffic and I got boxed in by trucks and lane restriction. Not to mention that I couldn't have accelerated if I wanted to.
Day 7 Asheville, NC back home. This was about like day 1. Not horrible just slow.

So, how'd the Tacoma do:
1796 miles and 152.29 gallons of gas averaging out at 11.79 MPG. I Also used OBD link to monitor trans temp 1 and 2 throughout the trip. Never exceeded 225 until day 6, were trans temp 2 hit 240 and trans temp 1 never exceeded 227. This was also the day we were trapped at a slow speed going up the mountain and the truck stayed in 2nd and 3rd. I would have pulled over and given it a rest when it hit 230, but could not as I was boxed in. The truck is also a bone stock TRDOR for reference.

My conclusions: Yeah it made the trip, mostly ok with the exception of trans temp on Day 6 and it was comfortable throughout the trip, but if I were to make this a regular thing, it would be good bye Tacoma and hello Tundra. I'm likely going to be changing the trans fluid soon due to the heat on day 6, and also may replace the trans cooler with a bigger one since we've opted to sell our pontoon that was slipped and replace it with a boat we'll keep at the house so that means more towing.

Also got to drive on the beach which was cool and the Tacoma didn't disappoint. Saw some wild horses fighting over poop while others napped in someones front yard. Gorgeous views and generally a good time.

 

That sounds excellent! What a nice trip.

And by weird coincidence our trucks could be twins (mine 2019 Offroad: same color, cab, step bumpers, model, diff grill).

Also, my wife and I have narrowed our RV choices down to two: Forest River Ozark 1660Fq and Starcraft Autumn Ridge 182RB. Good to know on the tranny cooler subject...been thinking on upgrading to bigger...maybe we'll lean toward the Ozark, being much lighter.

 

Curiosity made me look up the Ozark, very similar layout. I had no complaints on the Autumn Ridge, it was a rental, in excellent condition and very clean. Looks like the biggest difference in layout is the Autumn Ridge had a ton of storage room in the bathroom. Otherwise very much a similar layout.

Only a few hundred pounds different in Gross Weight, but 500 less unloaded. My only real concern was the trans temps. and being that you should already have a cooler up front, the swap to a larger one is very easy.

Also great color choice on your truck

 

Was curious what gear you limited the transmission to? 4th? 5th? Or just let it do it's thing?? I getting ready to go on a trip and I don't want to let the transmission in my 2021 hunt for gears.

 

I've towed our 19' Scamp fifth wheel (3.5K) multiple times along the route you took with our 05 and subsequent 12 TRDOR's 4.0L;s and never had any problems, even on the I-40 pass east of Asheville. But, when it came time to retire the Taco to farm work, test drives indicated the current 3.5L just wasn't up to the task and I ended up with a Colorado. I'm still a Tacoma fan but think anything over 3K is too much for the newer trucks unless you're always in the flat lands.