Tundras were built for this!!

Welcome from NY.

 

I know my own capacities, and I'm intrigued to hear the math involved to make this even close to working.

https://www.highlandridgerv.com/rvs/fifth-wheels/2022-light-fifth-wheels/332rls/

 

I’ll go out on a limb here and say that if the tundra was built for a 5th wheel it wouldn’t have a payload that is comparable to a Camry

 

OP: after reporting the sticker numbers, the next thing I’d recommend is to weigh your setup, being a truck driver this should be part of your routine. I’ve weighed my setup regularly and it’s eye opening when you start loading your truck and the trailer how much different the weights are than what you think.

 

What I really want to know is did you add a transmission cooler?

 

This. Although with my 1 ton I never felt the need to put my setup on scales, I could literally always “feel” a difference when just pulling it the 5th wheel to move it empty from storage to home versus actually traveling with it when it was loaded down with food and drinks and water and clothes and gear and grill and propane and chairs and…………

 

If it could handle towing the space shuttle way back in 2012, then his 2019 can easily handle this little bitty camper. Heck, the '12 even did it with a regular old transmission cooler and not the new, vastly superior hockey puck heater/cooler that Toyota engineers developed specifically to keep our transmissions cool and safe under extreme hauling/towing conditions!

 

This cannot be a serious statement. Is this sarcasm?

 

I do still think that was an impressive feat. But there is zero tongue weight on the truck.

This is the hard thing for me as I see both sides of the argument. Toyota teases about how much more capable the Tundra is than what they rated it for with videos of the truck they donated to a ranch that held up better than that ranch’s 3/4 ton trucks being grossly overloaded for 100k miles. (There’s an argument to be made that this is where the “it’s really a 3/4 ton” lore originates.) They did the same thing with the million mile trucks, sharing info from the drivers who said—and I don’t think there is any reason to disbelieve someone who hot shots oilfield parts and supplies for 77k miles per year as to the true weight of what they’re hauling—they were loaded “up to 2700lbs in the bed” and “well over capacity” on the other.

• Does the OP’s 8000lb 5th wheel weigh less than the space shuttle? Yep.
• Is the Tundra rated to pull more than 8000lb (9800lb for a crewmax 4x4 I believe)? Yep.
• A truck that is rated to tow 9800lb by the manufacturer is also rated to stop a 9800lb load, correct? Yep.
• Does that 8000lb trailer’s tongue weight eat up all the Tundra’s payload and maybe then some with a couple people in the cab? Yep.
• Does being over payload by a few to several hundred pounds make your truck unsafe at highway speeds (EDIT: at 65mph, the towing speed limit specified in the owners manual) even though it is pulling a load within its towing and stopping limits? THAT seems to be the question of the day. Squatting leads to poor handling, so if you beef up the rear suspension and help level the truck out, is it then ok? Again the load is within the trucks towing and stopping abilities. The only number that is over is payload.

There are too many Tundras—on this site even—that are at or over payload due to all the armor/bumpers/winch/rack/tent/etc bolted onto them for me to believe it’s actually a problem for the truck.

Full disclosure: I’m over GVWR with my family in the cab and our camping supplies (including a fridge, 2nd battery, and 10 gallons of water) under my tonneau cover. My truck can’t tell at all.

 

Everything except how superior the heating/cooling puck is to an actual transmission cooler! or maybe not!

 

Here's ford ranger pulling a train. Your point?
https://youtu.be/USytXbUPMDg

There is also video out on youtube of a man pulling 747.

@Jernik, okay it was I take it. Sorry for ruining joke. (Saturday mornings after late night are hard.)

 

Just getting this link in the READY ACCESS for later today. Or maybe later this weekend.

https://www.dps.ms.gov/highway-patrol

 

Noo!! You can't rat him out!! We don't do that!!

 

Lol. Yes trucks and people can pull huge loads with no tongue (or back?) weight. Did you read the rest of my post? My point is further down…

 

No worries! I didn't put it in a different color text (wait, I think that was another site that asked sarcasm be a different text color). It's hard to tell just in text sometimes.

 

I did
What toyota did wasn't impressive. Entertaining it was though.

 

Interesting that the OP blames the suspension bottoming out on rough roads and ramps. I wonder if the OP ever has to stop at the DOT scales with his work truck. A lot of truck drivers don't even know how to check if their hubs are overheating or if their tires are going flat.

 

Ok, but that wasn’t my point.

My actual point: the OP’s 5th wheel weighs less than what his truck is rated by Toyota to tow and stop. The only number he’s (most likely) over is payload, and if it’s only him and his wife in the truck, he’s probably only over by a few hundred pounds. I don’t see the problem with that.

 

Ok, I retract my argument. Thank you.

 

I still agree with you that the space shuttle was pointless. I do think it was impressive in some small way because it pulled it up and over the crown of a very long bridge. It’s not indicative of the truck’s long term, highway speed towing abilities. But still, at least a little bit impressive

 

I'm going to challenge the idea that the truck drops a couple of gears but only revs to 3500 RPMs to maintain 67 MPH. Are you driving across Nebraska and back every day?

You would be at 5500 rpms and losing speed anywhere in the Western US. I had a couple Tundras, my towing experience was very different t than what you describe. Truck could handle it, sure, but not as effortlessly as you claim.

And for me it was always bumper pull. I came close to maxing up tow capacity but was always well within payload.

 

Wow impressive !!

 

Definitely appreciate the logic in your post. This is my hitch, it is not a troll... Lol

 

Agree with you on questioning the capability of today's trucks over what people used to tow with. My grandparents had a '69 F100, it was a 360 2bbl with 3 speed auto, RCLB with 3 fuel tanks (one on back of cab, 2 saddle tanks under bed). I don't recall if front brakes were disc or drum... I do know they added aftermarket AC and a brake booster (we eventually got the truck, and I drove it in HS). They bumper-pulled a good sized camper all over the US. And back in the day those campers were all heavy frame stick and tin construction. They may have been shorter, but there was no aluminum frame/Azdel siding to keep weight down.

Some good friends of ours in the 80's (as well as a neighbor) used mid-late 70's Chevy 1/2 tons to tow 5th wheel campers. One of those was a 454 powered "Heavy Half", but the other was a plain Jane 350. Nobody except farmers had 3/4 or 1 ton trucks - in fact, few people even had 4x4 that weren't farmers.

I will admit, with weight saving materials, camper sizes (like the trucks themselves) have ballooned in size. But still, I gotta think in our current litigious society the corporate legal teams have figured in a generous amount of cushion on stated modern truck capabilities.

 

@Kur I agree with the idea that people these days think that if a truck is showing any evidence (higher RPMs, slower acceleration, lower fuel economy) that it is working at all, then you don’t have enough truck. I think that is ridiculous as well.

I don’t think that’s the one. That thing’s curb weight is over 9000lb. I would guess it’s something more like the LF297RLS (LF stands for light floorplan):

Curb weight: 7,495 lb
Payload: 2,530 lb
GVWR: 9,995 lb
Hitch: 1,265 lb

https://www.rvusa.com/rv-guide/2013-open-range-light-fifth-wheel-floorplan-lf297rls-tr13081
Which model are you towing, @FedExTrucker?

 

I went searching based on the 34' length he mentioned and the bump outs I could see from his pic to find a model that matched.

I can speak to a 19 Limited's max tow being rated at 8800lbs, and payload around 1200lbs.

I'm staying tuned, as I recognize a 5th wheel is better positioned than a bumper pull when it comes to weight, and I appreciate the discussions about today vs yesteryear, but I'm not convinced the title of this thread and the opinions that a 2.5 gen Tundra is built for towing that profile are accurate.

We all have seen minivans and suvs driving down the road with bigger payload issues than most of us are talking about, but that doesn't make it less wrong.

If the link I provided is accurate, it is a stunning trailer.

 

Just got these 10 ply E rated tires... I like em a lot!