Towing Newb - Dave's learning to tow blog

[JoeRobbins]

Was there any grease on that ball? Looked real clean to me. Steel on steel at the main friction point will cause wear pretty quickly.

[DaveGS4]

Originally Posted by JoeRobbins

Was there any grease on that ball? Looked real clean to me. Steel on steel at the main friction point will cause wear pretty quickly.

There is, but for certain there is a fair bit of it now gone on my hands, down the drain and in my pants leg.

Hadn't really thought about keeping it greased up as a normal maintenance point... need to do some research on product I guess and keep some in the truck. Thanks!

[Manoah]

whats a WDH? and where does one buy all these products? prodigy, propride/hensley, wdh?

[DaveGS4]

Originally Posted by Manoah

whats a WDH? and where does one buy all these products? prodigy, propride/hensley, wdh?

WDH is a weight distributing hitch (WDH). Mine is a Reese, there are other models/ brands like equalizer, etc you'll read about here on the forum.

I typically google up the product I want and look for the lowest price. Have bought from eTrailer, Sportsman's Guide and other places but I'm pretty new at this and other folks can direct you to better deals/vendors than I can. My local trailer dealer (Golden Gait) also carries a decent selection and I'll buy from them for expediencey/convenience or when I want them to install a product.

[idcruiserman]

RVwholesalers.com seems to have reasonable prices. I've never ordered anything from them though.

[DaveGS4]

Tires Installed - June 2009

A couple of weeks back I made my LT (light truck) e-rated tire choice based on a bunch of reading, talking to tire dealers and asking members here on TS about the selections they made. It's a different tire than what most folks have recommended on the forum (BFG KO AT or Michelin LTX ATs) but I don't plan to do ANY offroading in my 4x2 and the area of North Carolina I live in rarely gets any sort of snow or ice. I wanted a highway towing tire that had decent ratings on wet performance, low noise and handling. Most of those that I looked at had more aggressive tire patterns to account for some off-road use which I don't need or want.

The tire I ended up selecting is the LT275/65R18 Continental CrossContact LX E (link with ratings).

Here are a couple of good links on load index and other ratings
Tire Tech Information - How to Read Speed Rating, Load Index & Service Descriptions
Tire Tech Information - Load Range/Ply Rating Identification

LT-metric, LT-Flotation and LT-numeric tires will be branded with their load range ("Load Range E" or "LRE") or their ply rating ("10 Ply Rated") on their sidewalls and list their appropriate load range letter in their descriptions as LT245/75R-16E, 7.50R-15D or 31x10.50R-15C.

One also talks about speedometer impact of LT tires Tire Tech Information - Light Truck Fitment Formula I'll go out at some point in the future and validate any changes since I've added an aftermarket nav setup that tells me actual speed based on GPS.

I had these installed with some difficulty.... My SR5 came with the styled steel wheels but I bought a set of TRD 18" wheels used which I thought came with the TPMS sensors (can't easily reuse the TPMS sensors from my old styled steel due to 40-degree angle vs the 20-degree angle sensors for all the other wheels including the TRD). My buddy at a Lexus dealer was doing the mounting / balancing for me and discovered I didn't have the TPMS so I bought a set of sensors from the Lexus parts counter for a Lexus GX470 (boxed as OEM Toyota parts). Fits just like they should, but turns out they have one less digit on the Lexus sensors than were on the Toyota sensors, so I ended up having to go to the local Toyota dealer, getting the tires dismounted, buying new Toyota sensors and re-mounted / balanced again. Could have just covered or ignored the TPMS light or built a pipe-bomb TPMS fooler but I like having the feature. Incurred a whole lot of extra cost and expense, but at least I learned how to spot if a tire has a TPMS sensor or just a valve stem. My daily driver (a Lexus LS430) has TPMS, but it measures it rotationally rather than using a sensor.

I've probably put 350 miles on the tires both street and towing and am pretty pleased with them so far. A bit stiffer but not excessively so, and they definitely made a positive difference under load compared to my 'test tow' with our buddies trailer when towing it with the OEM tires. Noise level is about the same as my OEM Michelins, handling is good. However we also just installed the TRD rear swaybar a couple of days before the tire swap so that may have masked some of the changes we'd have felt otherwise. They're slightly bouncy when driving over-inflated (I towed at 50 / 55 lbs) without a load on the truck but for simplicity I left them at that level all weekend.

EOM TRD 17's with new Continentals


TRD Sway

[TundraBay]

Sounds like you made a good move. You are far less likely to have a blow-out due to sidewall stress with these tires, and I'm sure you'll feel less "squishiness" over the long haul towing with the tires rated for that weight.

I think the pressure based TPMS is better from an engineering standpoint, although I know many vehicles use rotation to test pressure (if there's less air in one tire, it will be a bit flatter, and therefore will have to go around more times than the other tires). In the event that all tires are 15 PSI below optimal, however, you would never know that based on the rotation TPMS because they're all going at the same speed. Maybe this is not a likely scenario, but if pressures were improperly set (when hot, for example) you could end up with this. I'm also not sure how quickly the rotational TPMS reacts; direct pressure is immediate.

I'm still swaybar-less but I need to remedy this soon. As I keep being reminded here

[DaveGS4]

First Trip Out

In addition to the wheels, tires, swaybar I also installed a Pioneer AVIC-F90BT Nav, OEM backup camera, homelink mirror, glass break sensor, and Valentine One hardwire. Painted the interior of the trailer with exterior white on the walls and dark gray porch paint (with added traction filler). Went to the DMV and picked up our weighted tag good for 14,000 lbs and got the permanent tag for the trailer as well. Picked up some needed safety stuff like a trailer wheel chock and a Trailer-aid flat tire changing thingy.

All the flurry of activity was to get ready for my first 'real' haul with the new trailer up to Virginia International Raceway near Danville VA from Charlotte for a track event with BMWCCA on July 4/5. About 150 miles each way.

Since we've far from mastered backing up and trailer navigation, I planned the easiest route so that we'd go straight to the track and drop off the trailer without any difficult backing/traffic situations. Heading out we also planned the 'easy way' for loading the trailer so I wouldn't have to bring our trailer into the cul-de-sac and the smaller roads of the neighborhood... just drove the track car over to the storage area where we're keeping the trailer and loaded it there in a nice flat open spot (hooked up to the truck first of course). Since we don't have our storage solution for all the 'extra stuff' in the car we packed it into the car and just strapped the car down. Put the extra set of track wheels in the truck bed. We haven't weighed the trailer yet but should be about 3,200 lbs + 3,500 of car and other stuff.

After hooking up and leaving storage we had some issues hearing the brakes lock up when setting the brake boost at 25 mph (tires didn't seem to lock up when trailer was loaded). Adjusted them to a fairly high number for street driving and then cranked them up higher once on the highway. This seemed to be similar to the problem we had when doing the test tow with our buddy's trailer. We didn't have any problems with braking and didn't notice any brake smell or fade. Still concerns me a bit and not sure how to fix it.

Comments on the drive:

- OEM backup camera placement is EXCELLENT for lining up the hitch. Can pretty much do it with no direction or help if you go slowly enough.

- I was surprised how much 'push' fast moving SUVs and even cars can give the truck/trailer. I'd been expecting the push/pull when passing semis, but the first few flying by at 80+mph caught me by surprise.

- On the way up I drove 75 mph fairly regularly (speed limit for much of the stretch is 70), pretty light traffic. According to the info display our MPG for the trip up was 7.9, just made it on one tank. On the return trip I decided to cruise at 65 mph and MPG increased to 8.9, more in line with what I was hoping for on the fairly hilly route.

- No issues with power at any point, but the engine can still get surprisingly loud when kicking down on steeper hills. I found myself not wanting to use cruise control (only in open road conditions) because I could better judge the size of the remaining hill and coast a bit more and plan to pick up speed on the other side.

Concerns / Things to research:

Some of other things we noticed and have 'theories' on but aren't certain of and need a bit more experience or input from others on.

- We did from time to time have a tiny bit of rocking front to back. This was not a side-to-side at all but more of a push/pull depending on the type of pavement or road condition. I think this is probably normal dynamics for towing but want to make sure by soliciting input from others or riding in a friend's truck while towing (which I haven't done).

- At low speeds (5 - 15mph) making minor turns there is quite a bit of creaking & groaning from the weight distributing bars. A buddy of ours at the track said thats normal (he has a similar setup) but would be nice to confirm from others.

- Same buddy said it was OK to load the car into our trailer with the full WDH hookup connected. Not sure if it makes any difference vs just the ball (and pin lock).

- Ongoing brake controller setup issue mentioned above.


Lessons Learned:
I did make also make one mistake - I checked the tires pressures on the Tundra and checked one side of the trailer (both trailer tires were right at 50) but got distracted before checking the last two on the other side of the trailer. Just before I left VIR to return a friend noticed that the tires on the non-inspected side looked low. They were at 40 and 45 respectively and got aired up before we returned... could have been dangerous. I think I'll create a checklist of 'must do' before heading out next time and keep it in the truck.

[cybulski25]

Regarding your towing...Your truck should not and will not be the issue. As previously stated, weight differential bars work wonders. One other thing that I saw was the speed you said you were testing at.

It is true the truck has no problems going up inclines and passing at 75 mph but that will definately have a huge impact on how it handles. Stick within 5 or 10 of the speed limit that way you won't have to hit every gas station on the way.

I have been towing a 26' travel trailer with my 2007 Tundra Crewmax SR5 (5.7 V8) 6 speed tran.

I love the way it tows and only noticed some issues when I am rushed on the trip back doing about 80 mph. Once I lay off the speed everything goes smooth. Speeding with all that weight throws everything off balance real quick when you want to turn, even for a lane change.

Hope that helps.

Originally Posted by DaveGS4

★★★★★ Dave's Towing Blog ★★★★★

Getting started
Since I'm totally new to towing I thought I'd turn this into a blog-style post about towing with my 2009 Tundra in hopes that it'll help some other folks in the same boat in the future (as well as help me our as I run into questions and ask for help / search for answers). I'm likely to make some mistakes as I go, with both self-created issues, concerns that don't really matter or things that happen to other people I talk to / read about that don't really apply to me.

I picked the Tundra for a capable towing vehicle with 1) reliability and 2) daily driveability if needed. I don't plan to tow over 75 - 80% of the max rated capacity of this truck and hope to equip it appropriately to learn how to tow safely for me / my passengers / others around me.

Current towing-related equipment list updated July 6, 2009
2009 Tundra DC SR5 with 5.7l, 6 speed
OEM Tow package
OEM Tow mirrors
Tekonsha Prodigy brake controller
Avic-F90BT linked to OEM backup camera (very handy for hooking up trailer)
CrossContact LX e-rated tires
Reese Weight-Distributing Hitch setup

__________________________________________________ _______
First Test

We installed our Prodigy controller over the weekend and wanted to make sure it worked before going to pick up our trailer tomorrow. A buddy of ours volunteered a tow of his car trailer to do a test run tonight and we just got back. Sorry for the rambling post, we're new to towing and trying to learn all we can.

Since he's got a lot of towing experience (I don't yet) I let him drive - his trailer is a 24ft Pace enclosed car hauler and he had a fairly heavy car inside (a BMW 5 series). I'd guess this combination was about 7,300 - 7,500 lbs. We used his hitch which was height-adjustable but had no other bells and whistles. His usual truck is a 3/4 ton Dodge 2500 with the smaller non-Cummins diesel engine.

We did a 10 mile or so loop including both highway and in-town driving with four of us in the truck. Observations:

Power
- Absolutely no issues with power, he thought that it pulled as well or better than his truck
- Pulled up to 80 mph on the highway, plenty of pep for passing including inclines

Handling
- truck was a tad sloppy with lane change manuevers at highway speed (65). Didn't feel out of control and didn't get significant sway, but felt like the trailer and Tudra were fighting against each other a bit. He thought he'd be concerned in a high wind situation
- thought that another contributing factor was that the suspension felt fairly soft compared to his truck. We realized that we also didn't up the tire pressure which could have been a factor here.
- my primary handling question is how much the stiffer e-rated tires will impact the highway feel (and how much the lower inflation would have impacted the handling)

Braking
- when we first left his house he tested the brake controller to see if it would lock up the trailer brakes at full boost (going about 15 mph) - it did not. Said may be time to get some work done on his trailer brakes.
- leaving his neighborhood there are a lot of stop signs and speed humps.... after about a mile of driving I smelled brakes and we stopped and got out and checked the wheels of both truck and trailer - no obvious issues and no smoking, but definitely a heavy smell from the drivers rear side. Smelled them once we returned and still had a fairly strong brake odor across all brakes. This was my biggest concern of the drive - any ideas?
- on the highway (this is w/ absolutely no-other-traffic around) he did some fairly heavy braking stop tests and truck hauled down 'OK' but not great.
- the front wheels did lock up a bit during the heavy brake test (it was slightly damp out) which surprised me and made me wonder if there wasn't too much weight on the rear lifting up the front wheels more than it should. I would have expected ABS to engage. Would something like Firestone air bags help address this concern?

Our future setup:
- Our trailer will likely be a bit lighter than his (it's smaller 22 ft vs 24 ft and my wife's car is lighter).
- I've already ordered e-rated tires which will arrive tomorrow.
- Our trailer does come with weight distibution connections which I haven't inspected / don't know they'll fit yet (we'll replace them if they don't). Couple of pics below if anyone can help identify them and if they're appropriate for our truck setup. We're told they are Reese.






I know from my research here and elsewhere my truck isn't fully setup for towing significant weight for any distance and obviously still learning. We won't tow anything other than our empty trailer until I get some more components of the setup in place.... just wanted to get a test of the Prodigy and drive with someone more experienced in the truck with before hooking up our own. We did borrow his Sherline trailer tonuge weight scale to test our setup when we get it home.

Any thoughts on my rambling diatribe and questions above appreciated.

[MTeator]

Ah, I love VIR

Just wanted to brag that I get 12-14mpg with the open trailer But I'm still jealous. A local guy is selling his v-nose. I'm trying to ignore him.

Still waiting on our local track too open. It's been a disaster, first events were supposed to be in June, now looks like next year if we're lucky.

[TundraBay]

Creaking of sway bars on low speed turns with my equal-i-zer hitch (previous rig) was normal, too.
Mileage is totally dependent on speed, it has to do with air resistance increasing with the square of speed. You can double your weight without doubling your fuel consumption. The same is not true with speed or air resistance.
Rocking to some extent is normal with a heavier trailer, it will not always move in concert with the truck. I've had it at just the right speed and spacing between highway expansion joints with my 5th wheel. Usually I just slow down a couple MPH and it's fixed.
You can try both different base voltage (the rotator knob on the left) and different boost levels (the button on top). Re-read the manual, it's been over a year and I can't remember exactly.

[jdubh]

My 10,000lbs trailer which is a huge sail does not rock from front to back as I freakin' hate that motion and on a long trip it can make you sick. Get airbags if you haven't already...I got the Load Lifters instead of Firestone as Load Lifter comes with a lifetime warranty and Firestone only 2 years. I set mine to about 20psi after I drop the trailer on the hitch. Air up your truck and trailer tires to max. Then do whatever you have to do to level the trailer to the truck. I find this is the biggest thing that causes front to back rocking. A trailer that leans up or down is like a teeter totter off the center, when a bump or any slight change in the highway pushes back on the trailer it tries to level itself which it can't due to the hitch so it pushes back harder making it rock.

I can tow at 75-80mph if I want to get 7mpg. Only time I have to slow down to 60-65mph was when I encountered 33mph crosswinds. With the Equal-i-zer I have never felt a single push from an SUV or a semi. So I would take another look at your sway. Maybe because my trailer is huge it takes more force to move it but aside from big 30mph gusts nothing moves it or gives me a white knuckle feeling when driving.

Informative thread.

[DaveGS4]

Thanks for all the feedback guys, some good stuff here for me to try.

I swear I've read that Prodigy phamplet a dozen times, but I'll go back through it again! When I bought the trailer we loaded the car up into it for initial setup to get it level (at the trailer dealer) but haven't done any tweaking to the setup since then.

I wish I'd gotten some better pics of the setup when the trailer was trailer connection; those I have (attached below) were taken when we were unloading and with a poor wide-angle lens and fairly bad lighting. I did notice when I uploaded the pics that the trailer seems tilted a little forward - I suspect we pulled the car a little far forward. When we painted the floor we took off the tape marks from our initial setup. I asked the wife about the back-and-forth and neither of us remembered it happening on the way up, so I suspect it has to do with biased-forward weight distribution on the return trip.

I had bags on my list as something I planned to add if I need them. Since we're still adding stuff to the interior trailer setup (tire racks on the walls, changing how/where we store equipment for transit, etc) I'll look into doing them after a couple more tows so I can get a better feel for before / after. That'll also allow me to do a bit more tweaking on my current setup and driving style to see what I can improve without them.

I plan to edit posts above eventually to do a pro/con style table for each of the tow-impacting mods.

[DaveGS4]

Got a chance to take some pictures yesterday at our storage area and wanted to show how useful a backup camera is with lining up the truck to connect up the trailer. Even someone with no towing experience like me can line it up mostly spot on first try without any assistance.

I added the OEM backup camera (the tailgate handle is replaced to include one with the camera built into it) and an aftermarket Pioneer nav system. It should work equally as well with OEM nav and the backup camera -very nice birdseye view of the hitch.





Sun was starting to go down so the screen quality image is not as good as a broad daylight image but you get the idea. The one drawback I've found is that the OEM camera is pretty bad in low light situations.

Also added a couple of images in posts above for tire, brake controller.

[MTeator]

Backup camera would be nice. I can't even see my trailer when backing up to it, other than the fenders in the mirrors.