Motion sick passenger

I have a somewhat odd situation with my stock 2020 crewmax with the 20” rims. My daughter who has no issues riding in any other vehicle, to include my now traded in 2011 F-150, gets carsick in the Tundra. I’m looking into possible solutions to smooth out the ride. I’ve been reading quite a few threads about this and have hit up Toyec over PM. I’ve tried adding weight to the bed but that didn’t help.

I’d like thoughts on a couple options. One is to switch to an 18” rim, how much smoother will that make the ride? Would going to a larger than OEM tire size which would likely mean an E rating defeat the purpose? Are there any tires known to be “soft”?
Second would be suspension and I know there are a zillion threads on the topic. It seems a “smooth” ride is subjective and some set ups people say are smooth and the same set up some say is stiff. I’ll wait to hear what toyec says but any help would be appreciated. The wife is to the point where she’s hinting around me selling it and that would suck. Sinking big money into the truck, figuring out it doesn’t work, only to then sell it and lose said money would also suck worse.

 

my wife gets car sick, no matter which car she is in (if she isnt driving). The tundra is actually better than most cars for her. I do have upgraded TRD sway bars front and back which helped with the side roll. It is also not as bad if she is by a window with some air circulation, be it the window or the open vents. Aside from that, not really much i have found to help her (besides dramamine but she is breastfeeding so cant use it right now).

 

Do you leave pavement or tow much? If not, 18" wheels with P rated tires will definitely help to smooth things out.

Suspension wise, @Toytec Lifts is a resource, but I personally went with Falcon Shocks from Teraflex. Largely due to @Black's testimonial.

 

That reminds me I do have a portable camping fan, I could clamp that up and have it directed at her.

Have those shocks given you a smoother ride than stock? I don’t leave the pavement for anything other than farm work but I do tow a 6x12 enclosed trailer and would like to get a travel trailer at some point.

 

i would try the rear sway bar at least. It cant hurt, its cheap, and one of the best mods anyway. Its a win, win, win. You are lucky though. You can tell your wife you need a full suspension upgrade since you are such a great dad and care about your daughters well being and comfort.

 

If you don’t mind me asking,How old is she?

My daughter got car sick from ages 4-8 almost every time she went somewhere,regardless of what vehicle She was in or who was driving. It didn’t matter if it was 5 minutes or 5 hours.

She could take some motion sickness meds and be OK but they would make her sleepy sometimes. What helped the absolute most were sunglasses and making sure she had an air vent blowing on her directly.

We asked the docs and they said it was common and kids usually grew out of it

Bravo for being concerned and wanting to help her. You have a big heart,and I’m sure you’re a wonderful father. I’m sure you’ll find something that helps.

 

I was going to ask the same question about age. My son often gets motion sick in our Pilot but less in the Tundra.

Since he is still in a booster, a big help was moving him in the middle of the Tundra rear seat. The view is awesome and he never gets sick when he is engaged with the drive and has a view. It also helps to do driving games like "try and find a...".

 

My daughter gets car sick easily too. It seems worse in cars that sway side to side. The stock suspension on these trucks sway pretty bad from what I experienced. After installing my Eibach kit this went away drastically and so did her car sickness. She has never had an issue in our Highlander but that car handles really well for a little SUV.

I would think a rear swaybar and aftermarket coils would help your situation. I also got sick as a kid and it was always the from swaying like on a boat that was just rocking in the waves. 2 minutes of that and I was puking. I could 100mph on land with no issue though. Lol.

 

I’m prone to car sickness. It’s usually not the feel of the car, it’s the field of view. Front passenger seat may help, or have her sit in the center back seat (no shoulder belt though) looking all the time out the front window. No split focus with reading or watching media. It sucks but, for me, tires wouldn’t fix it. Good luck.

 

Also think about the drone of the exhaust. Some people are more susceptible and hear it differently. Maybe the sound of it makes her nauseous.

 

Yes this helps a lot too. Watching the road and fresh air did wonders for me as a kid. No reading or coloring for me (tablets and smartphones weren't around back then)

 

Some good advice here. My oldest was very prone to motion sickness in the third row of our van. Moving her to the second row where she can see more and have control of the AC helped a lot.
In the Tundra she’s in the middle seat looking out the windshield and is fine. Never been sick in the Tundra.

 

My kids get sick too, so I crack the back window and that helps. I just figured they shouldn't be in their tablets and should be enjoying the scenery but that never works….

 

Well, heck, OP... now that we’re all jumping in with potential solutions, I’ll maybe save your kid years of nausea and future headaches:

Next time she gets her eyes checked, ask the optometrist to look for vertical misalignment (like cross-eyed, except vertically) which may be corrected with a “prism” lens prescription. I didn’t figure out I had this going on, or learn there was a solution, until I was an adult and needed vision correction for worsening eyesight. Since then, a couple of optometrists have told me that uncorrected misalignment can “cause” car-sickness. Since my experience had been that limited view from the back seat— not just vehicle sway, made me sick— this made sense to me.

 

Make sure the rear vents in the back of the console are open and blowing toward her. These vents were part of why I wanted a Crewmax. The double cab doesn’t have them. Airflow makes a huge difference keeping me from getting carsick. Seems to help my oldest too.

 

My 4 year old son gets bad motion sickness. We find a black plastic contractors bag stuck in the window works best because it doesn’t involve drugging him (it works great but...not a fan of chemicals). The sway bar helps helps but he still has gotten sick with it in.

 

Apologies for the late reply. I have ordered them, but not received them yet.

Here are a couple threads with info. The second one has the info that swung me that direction.
https://www.tundras.com/threads/falcon-shocks-are-coming.34355/

https://www.tundras.com/threads/now...port-tow-haul-2-25-leveling-kit-tundra.86448/

 

Want a great suspension improvement and also something good for pulling your trailer, check out the Roadmaster active suspension kit. I have the HD model and I love everything about it. You might find it to be a better investment than the sway bar, I did.

 

Wow, that’s a lot of helpful responses fellas thanks. I’m going to try some of these ideas and I’ll report back in awhile. I really appreciate all the suggestions.

 

Are you getting a small bounce at highway speed, I get that on on certain highways.

On my morning drive the pavement switches from asphalt to cement, the second I hit the cement the truck start bouncing, but I exit within a mile so not a big deal, but I would not want to feel that for long drives.

This started with my new tires and I noticed they are at a higher PSI then the old ones were, I am going to try to air down tonight and see if that makes a difference tomorrow.

 

I was going to say the same thing. I'd be leaning more the exhaust drone theory than the actual ride of the truck

 

This is going to sound odd but when I was a kid I used to get car sick/Motion sickness. A trick one of the taxi drivers said to me was to look far away meaning by looking further out the objects and scenery moved slower. Avoid looking closer such as road marking as those moved the fastest. This method really helped me

 

Yep. OP, this is more example of why, if she’s seated in the back seat, it should be the center seat facing forward, focused ahead. No media or reading. Side windows tinted should also help.

 

Time to upgrade the exhaust! Or maybe a DD resonator only. Cheap fix if you go that route.

 

Yep, I get car sick as do both of my kids. Once they were old enough to move to the front seat, motion sickness gone (except when they start to look at electronics in the car.

I can go years (driving without having motion sickness). But there are still specific instances that can set it off. Example being driving at night on a very twisty 2 lane road cut into the side of hill/mountain with fog (or snow)and wind. So your trying to concentrate on actually seeing the road/markers/paint markers, on your left the headlights slightly show the rock wall going by, can't see the drop off on the other side because of the fog. So in essence you are trying to concentrate on the limited sight ahead, with different things (rock/fog) going by in your peripheral vision (both sides), and then the wind swirls the fog or snow flakes directly in front of the car that the headlights are making bright. Only happened a handful of times as a driver, but I feel like crap for a long time.

To the OP, my 15year old still has a hard time in the back of the Tundra unless he is in the middle/center seat looking with the ability for a clear line of sight through the windshield.

 

This could help. I went on a fishing charter on Lake Erie a couple years ago and the water was really rough. Even though it was like 5am and dark out, the capt said to look out the back of the boat and concentrate on something back on shore like a light or a building and just keep my focus on that as we were getting out onto the water. That helped from me getting motion sickness.

 

My son who's 3 gets nauseous on long rides. I removed the front passenger headrest so he can see out of the windshield when we're driving from his car seat and it has fixed the problem.

 

hum. My 12 DC has a shoulder belt in the middle. Something they did away with in the 3rd Gen?

 

It's probably not very safe to let a child ride in a boat while it's being towed. And who would want to tow a boat ALL THE TIME?