Do you tow a travel trailer with your Tundra?

Basically, my 2017 Tundra is an RV. I use it only for towing my 32-foot Rockwood Signature Ultralite. Otherwise, it stays in the garage until our next vacation.

The trailer dry weight is 7,000 pounds. With gear loaded into the trailer, it's close to the max rating for the Tundra, if not a little over.

I use a Bully Dog to monitor the transmission temperature as I tow. Typically, the temperature stays at 200 degrees. The maximum temperature shouldn't exceed 240 degrees. I use Valvoline Synthetic Multi-Vehicle transmission fluid. I have made four cross-country trips with no problems. After each trip, I drain and replace the tranny fluid. The old fluid has never had a burned odor.

I installed a fan-operated external transmission cooler, bypassing the radiator tranny cooler connections. If the tranny temperature rises to greater than 205 degrees, I turn on the external cooler fan and, within a few minutes, it drops back down to 200.

I'm interested in your towing experiences.

 

We tow on the lighter side of the spectrum compared to others. Winnebago Hike 171DB max loaded at 4,433lbs which includes 513lbs tongue weight. Truck weight with tongue weight is 7,280lbs. I have seen torque converter temps at 240 momentarily after a slow 4 mile uphill climb where the torque converter won’t lockup in S4. We have the GCS cooler and I only seen pan temp exceed 200 a couple of times. Both transmission temps and water temp (195) normally mirror each other within +/- 5 degrees towing or not when straight and level highway speeds. Torque converter temps rapidly match pan temps usually within 30 seconds after TC locks up.

 

22 foot, about 4,000 dry weight. Tow's like a charm.