Towing data point

My 2022 TRD OR Limited is bone stock and towed our first family camper, an airstream 27FB from spring through late fall. Our trips were a max of 2-4hrs in duration in the north east, up in the mountains ect…

we do use a weight distribution/anti-sway hitch and aim to keep payload in the truck bed down as we already have two adults + two young kids in car seats and the weight of a diamondback cover.

To be honest, I have not had any issues with power or feelings of instability not withstanding that “on paper” we are likely pushing it. This is our first camper and I’m generally fairly carful and avoid travel in bad weather but this thing seems to be a beast.

anyone in a similar position explore additional upgrades to better enable travel trailer towing?.

for example in terms of beefier brake systems or tires? In terms of tires, I am running stock Falken wild peak AT but may replace them in the spring. Trying to research the best balance of towing capabilities, general commuting and severe weather ratings hasn’t turned up much…

 

Depends on what you see as deficiencies of the stock platform for your intended purposes...

If I were to speak generally to a improving a towing platform while also improving severe weather ratings, tires are the first thing I would suggest looking at. I've heard mixed opinions on the stock Falkens, but generally, stock tires are made to meet certain MFG specs and needs - usually emphasizing ride comfort, quietness, and low tire weight. IMO, they compromise great traction and load carrying ability (not necessarily capacity, but capability if that makes sense) to meet the comfort and weight criteria. Modern tire manufacturing makes this all possible, while also being able to offer different tires or variants to improve severe weather traction and load carrying needs.

I run an E rated all terrain tire; it meets or exceeds all of my needs which include a heavy truck load out 95% of the time, trailering at least once a week, all weather traction including 100 degree summer days and -30f winter nights with snow and ice, a fair amount of highway miles, and generally quiet and smooth ride. I've run a few different tires that have met these needs, but for towing, I've found that an E rated tire better handles the load even though the p rated tire is rated for the same load (speaking from the vehicle payload perspective, not tire max capacity as the E rated usually far exceeds the factory tire load rating). The downside is that a stock, unloaded vehicle MIGHT ride a little rougher on days that you aren't pulling or hauling, thought this is completely subjective.

 

Thanks for the input, what specific E rated tire do you run?

 

One of the best things you can attempt is to reduce the tongue weight as close to 10% of the trailer weight as possible. I know it’s usually hard to do because a lot of stuff gets put up front bringing up the tongue weight to about 15%. Generally, 900 lbs is a good maximum tongue weight that leaves some room for payload (passengers, cargo, etc.).
The stock Falkens are decent tires and are rated for 2469 lbs each which far exceeds the axle GAWR. I find E-rated tires don’t offer much benefit in towing and have demerits in many other areas like ride, noise, fuel economy, etc. when not towing.
If you don’t offroad much or at all, I would probably go towards a fuel economy focused P-tire like the stock Yokohamas.

 

I don’t tow heavy but I was pleasantly surprised how much better this truck towed, super smooth and stable

 

If you are out of spec, i.e. over payload, you may not "feel" anything. You will be stressing components. It may just result in faster wear so you'll be replacing components more often than you should, or if it's excessive you'll do real damage. It will never be something you feel unless you go full retard on overloading. It'll take tens of thousands of miles for the big failures if your causing the damage. The guy with the severely overloaded ram dually 1 ton got over 20K "problem free" miles. Then his frame broke and turned his truck into an A-frame. He had no warning, and it never felt like an issue until a complete catastrophic failure.

Use the info as you choose, but know that overloading takes a toll. Up to you how much risk you want to subject yourself, your family, and others on the road to.

 

I currently run Nokian's new AT offering - the Outpost NAT. It is on the more aggressive side of all terrain and so far I very much like them.

Before the Nokians, I ran two sets of Cooper Discoverer AT3. The first set was dead quiet and smooth but a bit firmer - not bone shaking firm, but firm enough that towing and hauling was much improved over the stock P rated michelins (I got a set of take-offs from a TRD Pro with 100 miles on them; my truck came stock with BFG Rugged Fails - they were horrible. Seriously, horrible... at everything...). Before that, Big O AT's which are made my cooper and are similar to the AT3, but with some tweaks. All three of the LT tires have met my needs well; the nokians so far being the best but I only have a couple thousand miles on them.

You can adjust the pressure in an E rated tire to get a better ride without compromising the strength of the tire. You can air up for more load or stiffness; you can air down for comfort. The p rated tires don't do well as far as tread wear or tire integrity at anything other than the tire pressure on the door placard, IMO and IME.

I've had the opposite experience; the P rated tires always felt squishy even when I was 100% stock and had very little or no payload. They really weren't much quieter than the E rated tires and I didn't see an appreciable hit to mileage. At 7xxx lbs, I can 17+ at 70 MPH through the hills and just shy of that at 80 MPH. I used to get 18 MPG bone stock, empty, at 75 MPH on a long stretch of freeway.

As for tongue weight, depending on how heavy your trailer is, I find 10% can be a little light and induce sway rather than combat it. I have a WD hitch for my travel trailer but my enclosed and flatbed can't be configured for one. On all three, I aim for 12-15% and find it to be more stable. Granted, I have an upgraded suspension and e rated tires, but even on my bone stock sequoia with p rated tires, a little more tongue weight than 10% and cranking the WD a hair seems to work better.

And to be clear, I'm not talking about overloading the vehicle. The p rated tires are "in spec" on paper, but the carcass is much lighter and flimsier than an e rated tire. My opinion, based on my experience with my vehicle and my usage, is that e rated tires are better for doing truck things, even if the p rated tires are rated to do so..

 

My Airstream is a bit lighter in the tongue and we make up for that by filling the bed and back seat with stuff.

I have E rated toyos on the truck and E rated falkens on the trailer. This is a nice combination for a stable ride. I have the TRD OR suspension so nothing too firm and have a set of timbrens but took them out as they made the daily driving too bumpy.

the big difference was felt when I put the Falkens on the trailer. These are the 10 ply ones.

My trailer is lifted and these tires added a bit more height but it is really stable regardless.

 

I don't agree with reducing tongue weight. 27' is a lot of trailer. You want that weight on the tongue to keep that rear axle planted. As long as you aren't sitting on the bump stops, you are in the right place. Your weight distribution hitch should help with keeping the truck close to level.

I'm a firm believer that Toyota knows we are going to overload our trucks. Why else would they give us adjustable headlights ?

I have no issue with using our trucks beyond the "paper work" recommendations. If it tows it, im going to run it.

Que the liability fan boys.

I hear all about people saying you are opening yourself to a lawsuit if you tow over the recommended weights. I never hear about anyone actually getting sued because they were in an accident and were overweight. I don't see any agency taking the trouble weigh a wrecked trailer/RV. It's just not realistic.

 

Here are my numbers

 

Did you weigh the tongue of the Airstream? The posted numbers are always lower than the reality. Sometimes by several hundred pounds.

 

no not at a CAT station. The cargo numbers are fudged to represent the absolute max of what I would carry, never get close however.

 

The trouble with Airstream is they are usually way low on their published tongue weights. There are some owners that are seeing 1,150 lbs when they were expecting 800. This seems to be more pronounced with the front bed trailers.

If you don’t have the actual number you could be over without knowing it.

The Tundra wont have an issue with it but it is good to know what is behind you.

You could get a Sherline scale which works well, or in my case, I use a Weighsafe hitch so I work out my weights.

If you find the braking a bit weak, just turn up the gain on the brake controller. Mine is at 6 and that seems quite respectable.

 

thanks, my gain is usually at 5 or 5.5, I found any higher felt too much…

 

P-tires should be aired up as they are loaded up closer to the max load rating. Haven’t used E rated tires on my Tundra but they were bad on my Tacoma. Could get 22 mpg on the highway all day long but it dropped to 17 mpg when I switched the E rated tires. I could never get the pressures right either, the ride was always uncomfortable.
For towing, I usually run 9-11% tongue depending on what I’m carrying but never have sway issues. It helps to get the wd hitch settings right. I think many people don’t realize how much they should be cranking on those chains. I usually need to lif up the tongue with the jack once it’s hitched up so I can get on the right chain link so that the front suspension is at the right height.

You don’t really want that much weight over the truck’s rear axle. The point of a wd hitch is to move the load onto the front axle of the truck. I guess a travel trailer wheelbase will dictate what the best tongue weight should be. If the center of gravity is over the trailers axle, then sway is minimized or eliminated.

 

That’s kind of what I’m saying about tire pressures - the stock p rated tires are within a couple psi of max load just to meet spec on the truck. For daily driving this is usually just fine as most don’t drive around at max payload. But hauling a trailer - especially a camp trailer, they are pretty close to maxed out. Whereas and E rated tire has much more room and capacity. They are overkill on a tundra, and very overkill on a Tacoma, but in a good way. You can run down at stock pressure (which is actually under inflated a bit when switching to an e rated tire) or inflate them as high as you would like for towing and the desired handling characteristics associated with it.

As for tongue weight, I agree firmly with @koditten based on both maths and experience. Too little tongue weight is WAY worse than a little extra. The WD helps redistribute the weight, but unloading too much weight from tow vehicle rear axle will upset the towing experience in a bad way. More tongue weight keeps the trailer nose down, keeps the rear tires planted, and keeps the truck on the road. The axles on these trucks honestly don’t care about a few extra pounds of tongue weight.

Let me give you a small example to illustrate. My enclosed 7x16 trailer only weighs 1600 lbs empty. The tongue weight is 180 lbs. Empty, it rides like garbage even though the tongue weight is over 11%. If I’m using my Anderson rapid hitch, it rattles up and down like mad and shakes the whole truck. The trailer darts left and right, too. It literally wants to bounce off of the trailer ball.

But if I throw even 50 or 100 lbs in the nose of the trailer, it is better behaved. That puts the tongue at 13-16% on a trailer with an axle bias of about 60/40 front/rear. Right now there’s about 400 lbs in the nose (about 70% of that is on the tongue) and it’s still very stable with a total tongue weight around 23% - much more so than at 11%.

10% is the bare minimum tongue weight needed. But, that doesn’t make it the optimum tongue weight needed for a stable towing experience. As usual, YMMV.

 

To further reply to the OP’s origins inquiry..

The new tundras utilize a coil spring suspension which can be tuned for a better ride than leaves due to the leaf spring needing to maintain rigidity in locating the axle forward/aft, side to side, and rotationally as well as controlling up and down motion, whereas a coil only needs to control up and down motion with the control arms and links taking on the other duties. This means that from what I’ve been seeing, the rear coil spring is spec’d to be quite soft for most people. You can mitigate this in two ways - one of which doesn’t actually change the spring weight or vehicle safety under load.

You can add more spring or add more damping. The first is achieved with a different coil spring, air bags, or helper equipment like sumo springs. The latter is achieved with different shock absorbers. I chose to upgrade shock absorbers first but later realized I needed more spring AND damping. Rear shock absorbers are easy to change, relatively inexpensive, and make a noticeable difference (maybe good, maybe bad..). The fronts are a little more expensive and more labor intensive. Right now, options are still a little limited but I see more options becoming available in the near future. Personally, I’ve had good luck with Bilstein 510 and 6112 series. I eventually upgraded to three way adjustable Dobinsons.

Coils springs are also hard to come by right now, but I’m fairly certain there is an airbag kit and possibly Timbrens/Sumo Springs available. All have their pros and cons.

 

Not sure what you mean by this. The max load pressure on the stock Yokohama for example is like 51 psi and stock is 35 psi. Running 45 psi would give more load carry capability well beyond the rear GAWR which is usually the limiting factor.

My original point is to avoid having the truck at GVWR, getting close to 10% is helpful. There are plenty of ways to avoid sway through setup. Just like you said, YMMV and I’ve never had sway issues in any of my trailers. I usually target 10% tongue and nowadays I tow a 8.5x24 ft enclosed.

 

So, if you look at the load index chart for P rated tires, they work a little differently than hard-metric tires. 35 psi is the max pressure at maximum load capacity for a p rated tire; anything beyond that is just for ride tuning and offers zero additional load capacity. I've not found a good reason for this from a manufacturer, but it has been alluded to by some that the lighter carcass deforms too much when heavily loaded, and that the lightweight carcass is unable to handle higher loads and associated heat build up even though it can handle higher pressures in the tire. Also, p rated tires are derated by ~9% when used on a light truck, so if your max load on a tire with a load index of 114 is 2601 lbs, the actual load capacity of the tire is 2364 lbs. XL rated tires are similar, but max out at 42 psi to get the rated weight capacity instead of 35 psi.

Compare and contrast to an E rated tire where the air spring is more linear, meaning the more air you add, the more load capacity you have, all they way up to rated max pressure. In the same size tire, you have a max inflation pressure of 80 psi at max load capacity and need ~45 psi to maintain the factory vehicle load capacity, but you have much more headroom to play with. As you add air all the way up to 80 psi, you are adding load capacity, and in turn, better load handling. That's the point I'm trying to make - not that the factory p rated tires aren't rated for the load, just that they are almost maxed out.

As for avoiding putting the truck at max GVWR, I understand what you are going for - and I don't fault you for it, either. @koditten and I disagree with it, though, for several reasons. Personally, I trust my truck tires more than my trailer tires or most any trailer tires. Luckily, mine usually wear out before they time out and then crack out and explode. Still, I'd rather put as much load as is feasible on my tow vehicle that I know and trust, than on the trailer tires. And, as stated, I've found tongue weights in the 15%+ range to tow much better. Toyota has shown that the mechanical parts on the truck are well engineered to handle those loads without issue. Most trailer MFG's, in comparison, use the cheapest parts they can find; I've found that even Dexter axles quality has declined in the last five or ten years. Again, my personal opinions based on my experiences.

 

I used to run nokian back in the day. Where are folks buying them these days? The typical dealers either have limited models or don’t carry nokian…

 

I got mine from Discount Tire; I had to call and ask for them explicitly in the size I wanted as they I’m only have one size listed on the web site. The stock size I was looking for wasn’t available until end of October. They were so new that the warehouse had to take a day to come up with pricing to give the local DT so they could actually sell them to me. They said it was the first set they had installed. Took out a week to get everything there and done but is far so good with them.

 

Have Nokian on my 2016, recommended by my local repair shop.

 

Can’t believe the weight on the Nokian Outpost NAT 285/65/20 is only 42 lbs, where most are high 50’s to mid 60’s. Wonder how that can be, being it’s a E rated tire

 

I'm showing they weigh 55lbs on SimpleTire

 

I wonder why discount tire has them at 42? They called the company, they are on B/O through August.

 

I just looked at
Falken Wildpeak A/T4W
Simple Tire shows 53 lbs
Discount shows 72 lbs
Tire rack show 71 lbs

 

For 285/65/20? Ha, Falken website says 67.4, TireRack says 66. Who knows.