Towing

I towed a decent load for the first time with my truck. Moving from SC to TN. Towed the biggest uhaul trailer fully loaded with maybe 1000lbs if I had to guess. Lol I don’t know for sure the weight of it all. But my truck handled it beautifully. No problems at all! My truck is the automatic v8 4WD version. It definitely struggled a bit to accelerate with me having to really step on it especially up the passes when I tried to pass some semis. But I was able to hold highways speeds easily. I just left it in overdrive and set cruise a lot. It downshifted a lot to 3rd but didn’t unlock the torque converter as much as it would rather have shifted into 3rd. Never had the A/T Temp light to come on. Not the first time I towed with my truck but it was the first time at that weight. Before was maybe 1500lbs of trailer and load and then a trailer with a motorcycle.

Just wanted to share my experience of towing and no problems. I was worried about it since I have heard about the problems with the transmission blowing up. My truck has about 176k miles on it. Transmission was flushed shortly after I bought it. Luckily I didn’t have any problems. But it was a really good learning experience! If you got any experience towing with these 1st gens let me know as I always love to hear more about it! I really loved every part of my towing experience this time!

This picture shows the trailer attached but it’s unloaded at this point. Once loaded it was squatting a little and I had to air the tires up some. What’s a good pressure to run the tires at when towing and just general deriving? I’m never sure where I want them lol.

 

Chalk test will give you the proper pressure. I generally run 32 in the tundra.

 

I have no idea what the chalk test is lol. I normally run 33 front and 35 rear. But my rear tires were squatting a bit so I aired them up to 40 and aired front to 35. Seemed to handle just fine. So I’ll probably run around 35 in all tires. At least until I get new tires which I need to soon. Mine are starting to get near the end of their life.

 

I run my tires at 35 lbs each but I don’t tow a lot.

Also, the issue with towing on 2000-2002 transmissions is the weak planetary gear. Keep it out of overdrive when towing and you shouldn’t have to worry about it in the future.

 

New towing question: I will be towing the largest available U-Haul covered trailer from the mountains in Colorado to Northern Wisconsin. The total weight of the load will be close to 2500 lbs. I have a 2022 Tundra SR5. Reviewing the info on pages 206-209 of my user manual I note that I have the Tow/Haul switch, etc. For the first hour of travel, I have to negotiate steep declines coming out of the mountains with extremely tight curves. We are talking about 5-7% downhill grades. Now, most of my pickups have been manual transmissions so adjusting the gearing going downhill with a load was fairly simple. I have reviewed the manual about the S Mode shift ranges and I think this will address my downhill control. What I don't know is should or can I use the Tow/Haul, Tow+ at the same time that I am operating in S Mode? Thx.

 

Tow/haul mode? S-mode?

Our 1st gen trucks aren’t that sophisticated. Better to ask that in the 3rd gen forum.

 

S mode will deactivate your Tow/Haul. S will only work if you're in D. Just keep it in Tow/Haul until you're on the grades, switch to S, and then back to D+Tow/Haul after the steep grades.

After arriving safely, sell that twin turbo smartphone on wheels and buy a 1st gen. For the money of a 2022 you can get a 1st gen and primp it up so nice. Benefit of doing this is there aren't any "modes" it's just attach the trailer and drive the sumbitch. Plenty of low end power, about 200 less sensors and doowackies and electronic modules and shit. The 2UZFE will outlast the life of the 2022 Tundra. Ok that's all thanks.

 

You better quit doing that before that overdrive gear deletes itself.

Once that light comes on your trans fluid is burnt to a crisp (from what I've read.) Don't rely on that light.

Glad it towed well just wouldn't want to see you having to put a trans in it.

 

That’s some of what I’ve heard but I’m not sure about lol. Towed just fine in overdrive and the truck downshifted as needed. I’ll probably run it with overdrive off if I tow anything heavier just to protect it. But seeing the poor truck running at 3000rpm kills me lol.

 

I understand completely about not liking to see the engine running at 3,000 RPM. I tow a travel trailer mostly in 4th gear and it's taken me more than a few miles to get used to it. I can't prove I get any better MPG by selecting 5th or 6th but with a scangauge monitoring transmission temps I can sure prove my temps are much lower if I keep the revs up in 4th.

 

Yea I don’t like it running so high in rpm for cruising. But I know it’s easier on everything. So I’ll probably just have to run in 3rd to keep my tranny from failing prematurely. Luckily I got the tow package pre installed so I got an extra cooler. No problems having ran in 4th with cruise lol. Though I do need to replace the radiator before it fails. Still the original and I would hate for it to take out my transmission lol.

 

I think you have that backwards. If you leave it in OD, and the trans automatically downshifts to 3rd, it unlocks the torque converter. If you manually take it out of OD (force a downshift to 3rd) the torque converter stays locked.

 

Ok I didn’t know that part. I was talking about it staying in 4th but unlocking the torque converter vs downshifting to 3rd. I’ll keep that in mind and may have to test it some lol

 

Not DIRECTLY related . . . but sort of . . .
When I tow w/ my 2006 DC 2wd (5-speed), I 'generally' leave the OD on.
My boat/ trailer is light and low profile, so the truck has no problem yanking it at any reasonable speed.
When towing and loaded with extra gear and I approach a steep grade, I'll manually click off the OD (down into 4th) as I drop down to around 60 MPH.
The RPM's jump up a little, but not drastically. The 4.7 engine seems to like that power-band / rpm range.
Once I crest the summit, or hit a downhill section, I'll click the OD back on, and the transmission slides nicely back into 5th.

This 'seems' like a good program for my particular setup, as opposed to leaving the OD 'on' all the time and mashing on the gas pedal as you lose speed on an incline. I hate when the RPM's skyrocket when the transmission hits the 'kick-down-gear' because you didn't take it out of OD earlier.
Seems like everything is working harder than it needs too.

When I had my 2003 Tundra AC, I did the same thing towing the same boat, it just did it with one less gear if that makes sense. (4-speed AT vs 5-speed AT)

YMMV, but this works well for Me.

 

@tvpierce is correct here. IF you let the transmission do its thing, typically the TC stays unlocked even once it drops to third. You can prove this out by pushing the O/D off button after the downshift. Typically revs will drop a couple hundred RPM. You can also see it if monitoring trans temps as they will climb steadily during this downshift.

Don't be worried towing, these trucks are great platforms for it. My Tundra has drug our Travel Trailer ~15k miles over the last two years.

 

When I was approaching the steep grades I of course downshifted it to 3rd manually so the truck didn’t struggle and I took it off cruise. I left it on cruise on the mostly flat sections. The truck handled itself nicely. Seemed to work well as I could control the shift and speed on the grades and let the truck handle the mostly flat sections. Though it did downshift a lot on each small hill. Even at a few points shifting into 2nd and just screaming. I canceled cruise then cause I don’t like that lol.