The Tacoma Towing Bible

I'm drawing closer to when I'm gonna be moving and hauling some stuff with my truck across the country, and I'm starting to think I might be treading into dangerous load territories. I need to look back at the towing/hauling info here, but from memory my truck (3.4L v6 4wd M/T) has a total payload (towing + tongue weight) of like 7800 lbs.

My plan is to tow my prius (it'll have an empty tank, but still around 3800 lbs curb weight), and have a queen sized memory foam mattress (~50 lbs), squat rack (~100 lbs of steel) and weights (600 lbs) in the bed.

Add me (200 lbs), a full tank of gas (6.2*20=124 lbs), plus another 75-100 lbs of boxes and I think I'll be over that max amount. How unsafe would it be to do this? Would it be markedly safer if I upgraded the rear suspension (AAL, for example) or is it a larger problem than just that (brakes and engine stress)

Fwiw the truck will have a new timing belt/water pump, lower control arms, rear axle seals, and valve cover gaskets + spark plugs, and will have a brake controller

 

You're at about 1k lbs payload in the truck, I don’t think gas counts. That’s before your tongue weight. Good chance you’re a few hundred over. I’d suggest putting 500 lbs of steel in the Prius.

Edit <doh>. Just realized that’s your plan.
Edit 2 hmmm, not sure where you’re planning on putting the steel.

 

The steel is a bit too big to fit into the prius, but the weights (600 lbs) I can put in the prius easily, so only the mattress and rack for 150 lbs in the bed

 

What’s the weight of your tow dolly? Doing front wheels or full trailer?

 

Plan was to rent a Uhaul front wheel dolly but looks like they wouldn't let me. Tacoma curb weight is 3425, Prius is 2921 or 3130 and they say the towing vehicle needs to be at least 750 lbs heavier

The full trailer from Uhaul is 2,210 lbs + which would be about 3650 lbs with the Prius seems like way too much right?

 

There’s gotta be some other option. Like fly back and drive the Prius separate or something?

I feel like the odds of this trip going successfully, as planned, are very slim. Plus, if things do go south, it’ll be crazy expensive to tow the truck and trailer (not to mention the cost of repairs right now).

Either way, good luck!

 

Yeah I thought I was at the edge of sensible and flirting with inadvisable but it seems like I'm well into "don't fucking do it" territory. Conscripted a friend and now it'll just be 2 cars, 2 drivers. Thanks for the feedback everyone

 

Nice, I’m glad you’ve got good friends and were able to get it figured out without breaking the bank or risking your precious taco

Good luck with your new adventure!

 

It has been a while, but there was a post about whether a transmission cooler has a thermostat, related to northern colder parts of the country. To the best of my knowledge, they do not: at least aftermarket ones. Back in the day I towed campers over the life of two trucks I owned. They were both automatics. Following the advice of other "Big Dogs" that towed huge trailers, I installed the biggest external transmission oil cooler I could find that would fit. I preferred the Hayden stacked plate design (I believe B&M are stacked-plate type) because it presented more travel for the fluid and surface area exposed to the air than the "fin-and-tube" design. They were very easy to install. Hardest part of installation was confirming which pipe on the radiator tank was the -return- pipe. That is where you need to connect the input hose to the external cooler. Every cooler manufacturer advised -not- to bypass the factory radiator transmission cooler. Reason given: to prevent "overcooling" the fluid. Even so, I cannot imagine how you could over-cool transmission flluid unless you were in the arctic somewhere. Other than that, "the cooler the better" is the rule for tranny fluid and documentation was pretty consistant in saying you cannot over-cool automatic transmission fluid, especially when the factory cooler is up-range of the external cooler. Heat is the main killer of automatic transmissions due to fluid breakdown. Not sure about Toyota, but most makers today are factory fiilled with synthetic AT fluid these days. GM has been doing it for a quite few years now, especially Cadillac. I never had any transmisson issues or discolored/"burnt smell" tranny fluid, including one Chevy with an early 700R4 which was very sensitive to heat in the early years. I put well over 100k on both a Bronco (C6 automatic) and the Blazer with lots of tow mileage on them and no transmission issues on either of them. The Chevy had a tow package which included a larger tranny cooler in the radiator tank and an aux engine-oil cooler. The factory external aux cooler on my Tacoma is adequate for the light-duty towing I do these days, but if then was now, or I was towing something that weighed more than 2,000 lbs, I'd swap it out for a larger Hayden stacked-plate cooler.

Fun fact: Toyota is a part owner of Aisin-Seiki. (27%) The automatic transmissions in the Volvo 240's were made by Aisin-Seiki for years. I owned two of them over the years after the kids came along and put 300,000+ miles on both of them. No transmission issues: NONE. They are well-known as bullet-proof as is the legendary B23F I4 that powered them. I'm assuming Aisin still supplies most, if not all the transmissions to Toyota. If so, I hope my Tacoma has one! (2014)

https://www.encyclopedia.com/social...businesses-and-occupations/aisin-seiki-co-ltd

Hope this helps!

 

What about adding an oil cooler to help the awesome cooling system on the Gen 1 Tacoma’s. I added a bigger radiator but towing up a grade on a hot day raises the temps a little higher then I’m comfortable with. I think the water temp in the motor was 220F or maybe a little higher once I crested the summit. Any Thoughts?

 

Re: aux engine oil coolers: I think you are good without one unless you are towing some kind of massive trailer, mainly because of the extreme high-quality synthetic oils we have to choose from these days. You might consider a higher performance viscous clutch cooling fan first and see if that brings down the temperature. Before they came along in the days of conventional Dino oils, the opposite was true of course. GM offered aux engine oil coolers as part of the trailer towing and Camper Special packages as early as the mid 70's. They needed them. Toyota including a supplemental engine oil cooler with the tow package says a lot. Overkill with today's synthetic oils? Maybe. I don't believe in "overkill", especially when you, and Toyota are counting on the engine to last 200k + miles.

 

Subscribed.

Ed

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Happy New year guys !

i HAVE A 2020 TACOMA OFF ROAD and am considering buying this trailer but not sure if my rig will handle it ? Thanks for you input

 

That's a no. The hitch weight is already overweight from the get go. The trailers GVWR is also well beyond the Tacoma's max trailering weight.

 

That is what i figured but I cannot find a tongue weight anywhere for my truck

 

I believe it's 10% of your towing capacity. my 2nd gen, it's 650 (6500 max tow). I believe the properly equipped 3rd gen is 680 (6800 max tow)

 

Not that I don’t believe you but I would like to see some Toyota documentation on this. Thanks for your input.

 

Manual has capacities listed for different configurations. 10% is correct though

 

EDIT: These are from your owners manual.


Assuming Double Cab:

 

I just recently purchased a travel trailer and am in the market for a 2022 Tacoma I hope to pull it with. I think the overall weight will be fine, but I'm worried I may be pushing it a bit with tongue weight and how it will perform with some steeper grades driving through the mountains.

I'm looking at an SR5 w/ V6 and 4WD which should tow 6400lb and have a max tongue weight of 640lb.
The new trailer is 3600lb dry with a tongue weight of 505lb (probably just above 600 with LP tanks and a battery).

I do intend to install a WD hitch so I think that should help with the tongue weight a bit. Anyone with some experience towing a similar rig have any advice on how the Tacoma will do or if I'll be pushing it a bit too close on the weights?