Gen 3 Towing Thread

Hmm, was your parking brake down Or not enough tongue weight for traction. Maybe you over heated your clutch and was slipping for a while. Maybe your trailer was stuck on something in the water.

 

Hello, Yes, parking brake is all the way down but it certainly felt that way. it was the strangest thing. i wasnt sure if i need to press a button to engage some tow feature. Even at 4L, the car would just lunge forward and come back down.

to go from 4wd to 2wd, do i need to go reverse like the old style or will it de-engage on its own?

 

Strange. It looks like maybe your tail pipe dipped in the water and was causing back pressure to build up in your engine. Or the mass of your boat and/or trailer in the water were too much to move at low RPMs

 

Are you sure you made it all the way into 4lo? Not an insult at all, 4hi to 4lo is very finicky in these trucks. If you were in 4lo and couldn't pull it up that ramp, something else is going on or wrong with the truck. You should be able to pull up that mellow ramp no problem.

 

no offense taken at all. being that ive only owned the taco for 4 months, this is the first time i engaged the 4H and 4L. I did see the 4L light come one and the 4WD symbol light up and solid. i believe i saw the ABS or traction control come off.

one theory we were considering was the back tire of the trailer has feel off the edge of the ramp..

 

Towed 300 miles to Lake Havasu. About ~2000 pounds. 17 mpg and did fine up some larger hills. barely could tell she was back there.

 

That boat looks like fun

 

it very much is. Bought it as an almost bare hull last year for a birthday present to myself so the fun began well before it even hit the water.

 

lol, sure there is, same as any other 4x4 - just unbolt a driveshaft and bam, 2lo on the side of your choice.

I'm surprised to hear a couple of these "couldn't move the boat" stories. I pulled our forklift out (it sunk through the asphalt because of dummy driving) in 4lo not too long ago - spun all four wheels on concrete to do it, but it came out. wish i had a video. use more gas, y'all

 

For what its worth, your truck/trailer might be to far down in the water...I've pulled much more with WAY less truck. Tail pipe being blocked withehcan cause loss of power like this...but really the TACO should yank this sucker out without issue....

are there any other symptoms when you tow or even normal daily driving? Did you have any wheel slip when you tried to pull that boat out? unlikely, but if you are an accelerator "masher" and don't roll on the throttle the electronic nannys might have cut the power...

 

Did you turn the traction control off?

 

It looks like the trailer and truck may be too deep or too far back in the ramp. Most ramps have a step or bumper at the end of the pad and is easy to back an empty trailer over the end of the ramp. When the boat weight is on the trailer a dual axle trailer is very difficult to pull over the step or end of ramp.
I have no problems pulling my approx. 4200 lbs boat/trailer out of the water and do not use 4wd. ECT and S3 or S4 in my TRD Off Road DCLB automatic trans. has worked smoothly on a slippery ramp.

 

Thanks for the pic. This is similar size and weight of the boat i towed. Im an experienced manual drive for over 15 years and i tried feathering the throttle and clutch as well has mashing the gas and reving til 4k to force it out of the ditch with no success.... Clutch smell and all. the only time i really had 4 wheel slip was on 4L. i think I toasted my clutch when we called it quits. I felt the empty trailer sort of jolts out of the water when i finally got it out which led me to believe that both back tire of the trailer and boat was off the ramp. Lesson learned...

 

Have seen this happen many times over the years and actually saw a Ram V8 full size truck spin all four tires then slide into the dock when pulling out a 28 footer. He had to back down, release the boat and still could not get the empty trailer over the end of the ramp.
If you run into this issue again, unhook or float the boat off the trailer then pull forward up the ramp until the rear tires of the tow vehicle are about an inch into the water. You should be able to winch the boat to the trailer then proceed up the ramp.
If still a no go, wrap a strap around the mid point of the empty trailer and lift up over the ramp end.

 

Because my search skills suck... I know I read it somewhere on TW, a member was making a new coin cup that fit the Tekonska P3 for a custom fit? Did I read that or is my mind making things up for me? Please guide me in the right direction!

 

ESP Truck Accessories: 2016-2017 Tacoma Prodigy P3 Brake Controller Mounting Kit

 

Personnaly i use Velcro, it is much cheaper than a permanent mount and I can remove it very easily when I do not use it.

 

That's very likely. I think you just weren't giving it enough gas. It's very difficult with a manual to do what you were trying to do because either you give it too much gas and burn the clutch or you don't give it enough and you stall. Manuals are a huge pain in the ass for offroading and getting started with heavy loads on an incline.

Yes, an auto will sit there and build up heat while the torque converter slips, but I have no doubt an auto could have done that. If you were just sitting there with your clutch fully engaged (pedal at 0%) and you were giving in gas in 4Lo and you weren't spinning your tires, there's a very good chance you just smoked your clutch and killed your flywheel. A hardened flywheel is practically useless for holding torque.

 

Question for you guys. Going to be towing a uhaul car trail 2210lbs and my girlfriends rav 4 which is just under 4000lbs from New York to Nevada with my 16 or ac with tow package. Ill be right at my limit. Any suggestions of accessories i should put into the truck before this tow?

 

Use a tow dolly instead. Those u-haul car haulers are shit to tow with a mid size. They have a really funky geometry and put way to much tongue weight on the truck.

I haul my 3700lbs crawler on one any time I go over 300ish miles with it. Does really well. If your RAV4 is 4x4 pull the rear drive shaft if using a dolly.