VA to PA with vw fox wagon in tow

[Cobb]

I towed a vw fox station wagon I sold on ebay in va and had the top bidder in PA win it and pay for a trailer and gas. I used my 97 tacoma, ext cab, v6 automatic to make the trip with super charger.

Man, the unloaded empty trailer alone made me boost to maintain highway speeds with cruse control on. Normally I dont boost on this route.

I then had the car aborad and man, I was doing 0-60 in like 60 seconds vs 11, it boosted almost all the time.

Sure braking too was increased, but I thought it would give way better performance than it did.Down shifting did wonders for getting back the braking power needed for short stopping in traffic or congession.

Through part of the mountains in PA I had to floor it to maintain 60. Once I got to 70 it seemed to be in the sweet spot. Strangely I got 16mpg along this trip, I expected worse. I normally get 18 just driving to work and back with preminum fuel and fuel regulator turned on.

I had the power button on, but it was constantly upshifting out of od. With the power button off it would stay in od for the most part. From time to time, even when I was drawing a vacuum it would up shift to 3rd or even 2nd for a few minutes, then return to od. I never saw the trans temp light come on and the temp meter stayed in the middle. I guess it cycled to 3rd to cool down or something? Of course it did this on grades with a brief stay in 2nd, then back to 3rd. Again in many cases once I reached the top or start going down a grade it wouldnt drop to od. Just strange since as my daily driver I can count on it going to od at 50mph and over.

Lastly, consider a trailler brake. I almost wrecked my truck and the car being towed as I started to take the exit off 81 and the trailer started to take me for a ride and push me down the interstate squealing tires sideways. I hit 4wd, floored it and steered out of it and took the 2nd exit down the road.

After that I parked my truck for a week to get over that before I started driving it again.