Towing a Trailer

Hey guys. I’m looking into towing a travel trailer. I have a Tacoma 2019 but it’s only a 4 cylinder. Does anyone have advice or experience towing with this model?

I was looking at hummingbird or t@b trailers...

thanks!

 

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/the-tacoma-towing-bible.4031/

thats a good read to get you started. ive towed with mine a decent bit, just dont expect it to hold a gear, but take it slow and you should be fine. just keep the weight within range and leave plenty of stopping room.

 

any single axle trailer

 

Welcome!
The GVWR is in your door jamb, so you can see your exact model's towing capacity.
I'd stay 50% or less of max, as you'll have lots of weight added for gear and don't want to be near the max for long hauls. Also consider the trailer's frontal area, the drag of a tall, mostly flat surface needs lots of HP to maintain highway speeds.


https://www.tacomaworld.com/forums/towing.34/

 

The tow capacity of a 4 cylinder is 3500 pounds. For driveability purposes I wouldn't want to go over a 2,000 pound teardrop, if it were me. If its much taller than the truck, highway travel will be miserable.


Welcome to TW.

 

Towing with a v6 Tacoma is bad enough. A 4 cyl the trailer better be really light and don't bring much with ya.

Check the door jamb for it's rating. Pay attention to the payload rating too.

 

Without trailer brakes it is Limited to 1,000 lbs max for trailer and cargo. Per Tacoma and Tundra Specs ...

 

Toyota says 3500 pounds. Would surely need to be a small travel trailer like a pop up. As stated before anything tall, the wind would be killer.

 

Here you can tow at least 3500 lbs without brakes. Tacomas without tow package can tow up to 3500 lbs.

 

They have to go by the most restrictive law that they market those vehicles to. Not that I disagree with that law. I like having brakes on my small trailer...

 

If I'm understanding this correctly, then an F-350 would have a 1000 lb. What a States restrictions are, does not mean that's the actual payload or towing capacity of a vehicle

 

Sort of. The chart shows each state's regs on when a trailer is required to run brakes. Tow capacities are a lengthy, hairy subject on their own, as almost every manufacturer uses a different method to determine that. However, when it comes to advertising the braked/unbraked capacity, they should choose the more restrictive of the following two values: what the capacity is as designed, vs. capacity as regulated. Thats what keeps the company lawyers happy. If Toyota wrote in its manual an unbraked tow capacity at 3,000 pounds for example, New York residents could possibly sue for damages if shit went wrong. Maybe not win necessarily, but their lawsuit wouldn't get thrown out either.

 

I recently carried 22 60 lb concrete bags and towed an old cement mixer to a job about 100 miles away in my 2020 v6 tacoma. Big change from doing this with my old 01 4.7 tundra. Going up hills the 6 spd auto transmission didn't know what gear to stay in. I could just think how the 4 cyl. would act. Even when buying my truck the dealer did his best to steer me away from a 4 banger after telling him what i intended to use the truck for.

 

I'm 50 years old I work in the oil field, I have been Towing and Hauling stuff commercially my whole life. No manufacturer goes by that criteria. My company truck is a 2020 F250. You will never find anywhere that a truck manufacturer tells you it's towing capacity is based off of an individual state law. It is my burden to know what the individual state laws are when towing a trailer.

 

Just to make sure we are talking about the same thing, I'm not talking about tow capacity, I'm talking about the weird blurb in the manual about unbraked tow capacity. And yes, all manufacturers know how the regs apply to their vehicles and write the manuals accordingly. Some are just phrased much better than Toyota's.

Here is the 2020 F250 owner's manual:



Thats how it should be written, but Toyota instead chose to write theirs by the tightest restriction they market to. Probably because the F250 is capable of stopping a 5000 pound load without trailer brakes. The Tacoma cant do that (safely).

 

I see what you're saying, but his question was the capability of the truck not what New York and North Carolina say.

 

OP, your going to be real unhappy with anything that resembles "living space". Look at pop ups and teardrops. I tow a T@b Boondock with a 2019 Sport 4x4. Put about 8k towing last summer and fall in SE US. I towed a Casita 17 very short didtances with my 1999 reg cab 4x4 2.7. Like a good 1st gen it just gutted it out and got the job done. But, it was not happy at all. I would rent the Casitas from Air Force Base recreation departments near where I planned to came. That kept the towing to a minimum.

 

Used to have a 2011 sr5 5 speed my with 4 banger. Stronger than stock leaf springs and firestone air bags. Pulling a 7x14 enclosed trailer with about 3500 lbs inside and 1500 pounds in bed of truck. On most grades(+3%) definitely have to be in 3rd gear as well as a head wind. 5th gear was a non-factor, it didn’t exist while hooked to trailer. I travel over 180,000 miles a year( work a lot in Texas and New Mexico)and I would say a quarter of that was pulling a trailer. Hopefully you understand that those pound limits are liability issues and are lower than capability to save their buttocks! The reason why they do that? My mouth remains shut... I would piss off 80% of this website

 

As far as braking distance... pay attention.

 

I think you hook up the trailer and drive away.