Towing best practices

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SaltyNaulty

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Fellow Americans and other red-blooded 4Runner brethren,

I'll be moving myself, my soon to be wife, and all of my earthly belongings from Indianapolis to Orlando next week. I plan on loading some boxes in the back of my 99 limited and then using a uhaul 5x8 to move the rest (we sold all of our big furniture so it's all boxes and some tools).

My question is, what are the best practices for safely towing a small trailer with several hundred pounds at highway speeds without burning up the transmission? Do I avoid overdrive at all costs and slow it down in 3rd gear? Do I use ECT power mode while under load? Any other best practices?

I've only ever tugged some light stuff around town before but never on a long haul at high speed so I'm what most would consider a towing novice.

Thanks all!
 
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SaltyNaulty said:
Fellow Americans and other red-blooded 4Runner brethren,

I'll be moving myself, my soon to be wife, and all of my earthly belongings from Indianapolis to Orlando next week. I plan on loading some boxes in the back of my 99 limited and then using a uhaul 5x8 to move the rest (we sold all of our big furniture so it's all boxes and some tools).

My question is, what are the best practices for safely towing a small trailer with several hundred pounds at highway speeds without burning up the transmission? Do I avoid overdrive at all costs and slow it down in 3rd gear? Do I use ECT power mode while under load? Any other best practices?

I've only ever tugged some light stuff around town before but never on a long haul at high speed so I'm what most would consider a towing novice.

Thanks all!
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I would say yes to having ECT on and having OD off when going up hills. Do you have a transmission cooler? If you have a way to monitor trans temps that would be good too. If it's just a few hundred pounds you shouldn't be in any danger of damage if driving reasonable. These are rated to tow up to 5,000 lbs so you should be aight.

Edit- Just pulled my manual out. It says max trailer weight plus cargo is 5,000 lbs with the V6. If trailer and cargo are over 2,000 lbs then a sway control device. Max weight of trailer with cargo, plus vehicle, passengers and inside cargo is 8,800 lbs for 2wd V6 and 9,200 for 4wd V6. It also says if the trailer weighs over 1,000 it needs trailer brakes. It only say total trailer weight rather than gross trailer weight (which is what it refers to everywhere else when talking about trailer plus trailer cargo). It also says don't go above 45 MPH when towing, so take that for what it's worth.
 
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If your transmission is constantly downshifting then you need to turn off OD. The shifting is what really raises temps in an automatic transmission.
 
it's a 2 part thing:
1) balance the trailer properly and stay under its weight rating. make sure you're under the tongue weight rating for your tow vehicle - typically a bathroom scale is enough. look up the specs for your truck (mine says 500 lbs max tongue weight, 5000 lbs max trailer & stuff weight... so ok, maybe not a typical bathroom scale). you don't want to be doing the newbie wobble all the way to flo-ri-duh. looks like UHaul calls this "whipping." give it a test run after loading and check the trailer wheel hubs for overheating. proper tire inflation and lights and such. make UHaul fix anything you spot while you're in IN. Check the hub temps and tire pressures at fuel stops and such.
2) i haven't yet towed with the T4R, so I can't give you 3rd gen specific guidance... but others here def can. mine's auto and I haven't replaced or bypassed the radiator yet, so I'd be taking it easy, staying at speed limit, down-shifting down the hills to not warp my OEM T4R front rotors. I've got a ScanGauge II, and I'd be paying close attention to transmission and coolant temps. I'd probably also experiment with the O/D and ECT modes to see what's really coolest. kick back, enjoy the scenery, and enjoy each other's company.

as an aside... the happiest, free-est, and most successful i've ever been has been when I could get all my earthly possessions into a very small box and go somewhere new and far away. enjoy the awesome, ultra-light ride!
 
You don't want the weight balanced.

You want heavier stuff toward the front of the trailer.

The u-hauls are famous for "walking", and I found, after letting a friend pack her trailer and towing it from MA to NC, that she did the heavy stuff last, and it walked all over the place.

When I moved my GF from Indiana to NC, I loaded the trailer, and put heavy stuff up front. I was doing 90 going down the interstate in IN and the trailer didn't walk at all.

U-Haul says to do a 60-40, IIRC, weight balance, heavy up front.

Overdrive off going up big hills. Trailer as tight as you can get it on the ball. Check the hubs on the trailer.

Do a basic PM on your rig, or at least check it all.
 
Me personally, I have a 99 Limited 4X4 with 260,000 original miles and when I towed my 5X8 Uhual moving to college from LA to The University of Arizona (550 miles) in 115 degree weather I honestly didnt really do a damn thing :) It is a 4Runner after all! But at times going up steep long grades sure I may have had to click the button on the shifter (overdrive off right?) for it to downshift to get up the hill and then I would just drive it like normal most of the time. But as the above posts mention make sure you load it up well, and I believe if Im right in the trailer youll see a sticker about the weight inside the uhual trailer. I want to say 60% front 40% rear. I like to drive slow when towing (not more than 60mph most of the time). Next month I will be moving back from Tucson to LA since I just graduated and will be doing the trip twice! Once in another 5X8 uhual trailer and then need to come back to pickup my pop up tent trailer (1900 pounds) to once again drive that back to LA! All I do before my road trips is get the tires inflated and I have lifetime alignment at Firestone so get that done all free. Good luck and have some fun towing!
 
Thanks everyone for some great feedback and advice, definitely going to take all this into consideration. As far as PM I should be ok, I just last week put KYB gas-a-justs on all 4 corners, new drums and shoes, and new EBC slotted and dimpled rotors with ceramic pads. I also have a Bluetooth autoscan obd2 reader that can keep me updated on realtime trans temps. I got an external cooler from advance and was going to install that today! I think my slightly larger cooper ATP's could help a bit keeping revs down at higher speeds too which is encouraging. What would you guys say an ideal trans temp range would be?

Thanks again for an awesome helpful and quick community response guys!!:usa2:
 
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s20004runner said:
If you have some time, add an external trans cooler w/o the bypass so you will get the full cooling effect.
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If you're taking the time to install an external cooler, eliminate the stock in-radiator cooler. They are known to fail and then you have coolant and trans fluid mixing.
 
Well I might have the most experience here towing an enclosed trailer here. I move every 6 months. gone from LA- the UP michigan, Back to LA, over to Big Bend,TX, Back to LA, Back to Colorado and many smaller times in between.

I have tundra breaks and external tranny cooler.I pull a 6x10 enclosed trailer not fully loaded but pretty good. Ive got a dirtbike, all my tools jack and jack stands and everything i own in boxes. You should be fine not really having any obstacles like the Rockies to over come. I use normal drive on the flat to keep gas mileage up and use over drive to bring temps down(its amazing what turning OD off does for heat) and help on the hills.

I play a game between the two for finding the best gearing while watching the temps. around 40mph on hills OD is actually a better gear than 3rd so is not bad using it just watch those temps and listen and feel the engine. you know when its working harder than it should.

I cruise around 180F-190F but have seen 210F on short stents when huge hills are kicking my ass and keeping me at 25-40mph haha.

Like others have said put more weight in the front than the back to keep the trailer pulling solid, I have air bags also to help with the rear sag.

I dont tell a difference with ECT on but I still use it, figure it cant hurt.
 
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I have a 3800# pup so this is what I did. New transcooler inline with the new radiator, Airlift 1000 kit, and everything else is stock. I didn't bypass the radiator because I installed the new radiator.

You need to be able to monitor your ATF and any time the temp hits the 200 F mark turn OD off.

And like others have said 60/40 front/back loading. Don't want to over weight the front or you will overload your tongue weight (500 lb limit) and get sway on downhill runs. This I know from towing with my 4R.
 
Well I dusted off the old obd2 scanner I have and I guess it doesn't have live transmission temp data. It's an actron u-scan. Does anyone have a suggestion on how I can monitor this with either another obd2 reader or do I have to buy a gauge and wire it up?
 
Scangauges are super easy to install and available at places like autozone if you want it ASAP.
 
SaltyNaulty said:
So if I were to purchase this scanguage II and install it, I would be able to monitor live trans temps on my 99?

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000AAMY86/ref=cm_sw_r_awd_IIJBvb1GHB0XZ
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whoa... just a minute... don't tap that button yet.

seems that some of the older 3rd gens don't report transmission temp... let's use [MENTION=65101]BrianSD_42[/MENTION] Google Search recommendation to hunt the forums for bit to see if we can find the break point in model years. Mine's a 2002 and reports transmission temp.

back in a bit if i find something... you hunt too.
 
If I recall correctly only 2000+ models report trans temps through the ECU port but I have seen other members mount a temp sensor and gauge for the earlier models.
 
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From what I've found on here and expeditionportal, yotatech, and toyota gear head friends of mine it seems like 99+ will read trans temp. I suppose a different trans temp sensor was part of the mid gen upgrades? I'll probably just get a the SG2 anyway and see if it works, if not I'll do a temporary analog gauge
 
SaltyNaulty said:
From what I've found on here and expeditionportal, yotatech, and toyota gear head friends of mine it seems like 99+ will read trans temp. I suppose a different trans temp sensor was part of the mid gen upgrades? I'll probably just get a the SG2 anyway and see if it works, if not I'll do a temporary analog gauge
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You are probably correct. I will admit that I only paid attention as far as making sure my 01 would indeed work via ECU monitoring.
 
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