Question on towing

Just towed my boat to Toledo bend and not quite sure on how I should be towing. Should I manually shift it to 5th gear? And does the ECT power button have anything to do with towing ? Thanks in advance..

 

Use Ect when towing or heavy loads. Should stay in S4 or S5 when towing

 

Owners manual would have saved you a thread and the waiting for responses......

 

Ok thanks, Could not find much info on this. S4 don’t mis many gas stations. If I had a owners manual

 

Haha towing with a Tacoma was the first reason why. It does it. But that's the reality of it.

 

It likes to hunt for gears bouncing s4 to S5. I don’t like it dropping to S3. Rpms go threw the roof! It takes a lot of patients to learn the truck. I bought ultra gauge to keep an eye on tranny temps

 

I’d recommend taking it out on test runs to see how it goes and get use to it.

 

Wow really

 

Welcome to TW. A good site for info. But can be rough at times!!!!

 

Yip. Haha. And it'll tow fine. It's a smaller engine so it works a bit harder. But that's why the paddle shift is nice. You can select the gear which makes the work easier for the truck. And that's all the truck cares about, not mpg. Don't be afraid of high rpms either. This is a 4th gear pull and I'm barely into the power for these trucks. Attkinson's go high.

Good luck and welcome aboard

 

The ECT kicks in automatically when you are towing. The truck usually switches between 6th and 5th gear depending on how level the road is. Even in 5th gear it revs well below 2k at 100 km/hr (62mph). This is where your decent gas mileage comes form. My trailer is low profile and only about 2,800 lbs.

 

Where did you read that?

 

Did your truck not come with one? I could see that being a good reason to ask the question.

 

Going to need a source for this. Sounds like misinformation to me.

 

H

Agreed, another good reason to crack open that owners manual.

 

Regardless of whether or not his truck came with one, people get on forums to ask questions. No reason to flame them for not reading through their owners manual. If you don't have an answer to their question or anything to contribute, it's better to just move along. Mods don't take lightly to giving new members a hard time.

 

Welcome aboard OP!

As others have mentioned, it is best to stay out of overdrive (5th & 6th) when towing. That causes the tranny to hunt for gears, which heats it up, and eventually breaks down the ATF fluid. ECT will also give you a little more grunt when towing, so i'd turn it on

 

Check out this post I did on towing a travel trailer:

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads...idiocy-journal-bs.527020/page-6#post-17893122

Where you were towing is not as hilly as where I do (If you went to Toledo Bend on the LA side anyway, I don't know about the TX side), but compared to the rest of LA, it's definitely hilly. I tow my trailer in S4 ECT on.

My folks and sis live in Florein. If you are in that area, and have gone to a Christmas parade, my dad is Santa.....

Edited to add: and for giving you such good information, I'll take 1 Catfish Po-Boy and 4 pounds of Boudin (hot AF if you please).

 

OP I'm not being a dick sorry. But as you can see from above, there's some bad info floating around. The owners manual has info that keeps you in the limitations of your truck and satisfies your warranty if adhered to kinda crap.

 

I went back through the towing and ECT PWR sections of the manual. I don't see any mention in the Towing section that ECT PWR is required. The ECT PWR section says:

Use when high levels of response and feeling are desirable, such as when driving in mountainous regions or when pulling a trailer.


The towing section does say this:

Vehicles with an automatic transmission: To maintain engine braking efficiency and charging system performance when using engine braking, do not use the transmission in D. If in the S mode, the transmission shift range position must be in 5 or lower.

I am trying to figure if that means don't use Drive at all, or just don't use it for engine braking....