Towing Newb - Dave's learning to tow blog - Toyota Tundra Forums : Tundra Solutions Forum

DaveGS4 · #1 (**permalink**) 06-17-2009, 12:30 AM

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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.

Only Toyota for me · #2 (**permalink**) 06-17-2009, 03:23 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DaveGS4

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.

Concerning your prodigy controller..........Is it a P-3 or just the prodigy?
I have the P-3, and according to the directions you should be going 25 mph and hit the manual lever. You want to adjust it so the brakes lock up at this speed, then back it off just so they don't lock up.
Sounds like it was not properly adjusted at first.

DO NOT OVERLOOK THE INSTRUCTIONS.......and be sure to adjust it right for the actual load.

My experience with those enclosed trailers is; they are very nose heavy when loaded. They tend to squat even 1 ton trucks, so you'll need some airbags on your truck to assist with this.
I will also assume the hitch was not properly adjusted either, as you claim the handling was insecure. You need to have a good WDH, and i don't know a lot about the Reese pictured. But i personally have never liked the chain type. The ones recomended on this site are the Equilizer and the Hensley arrow brand.

Yes, tire pressure does & will deter the handling quite a bit so air them to max when towing. Your E rated tires will only need 60 max though.
I tow fifth wheels, so bare with me here. But my experiences have prooved to me that an E rated tire provides much better stabililty than even a C rated tire. And your OEM tires are P rated ( car tires ), so you'll see a big improvement here.

Your brake smell...........Well, i beleive it was the controller not adjusted properly so the truck was doing most of the braking. This is not good.

I don't know that airbags would help with the front-light feeling as much as a good WDH would. A WDH would help put more weight on the front end, which would help you. But only a good WDH will do this, so be sure to get a good one and get it properly adjusted for the load you'll be towing.

Hopefully this helps you out.

Let us know if you have any other questions. Tomhole would be a good help for you here, hopefully he'll chime in.

DaveGS4 · #3 (**permalink**) 06-17-2009, 08:18 AM

Thanks OTFM,

It's the Prodigy, not the P3. He has the exact same controller in his truck and I was guessing at the speed where he initially set/tested it; he's a pretty precise guy and suspect he did it at exactly the right speed. Your point is well taken about the instructions on it and will get a another re-read before we drive it ourselves - especially on the setup part.

How can I tell if the Reese pictured is a chain type (other than the chains in the picture which I assumed were the safety chains)? I'll do some googling on my own on this as well.

MTeator · #4 (**permalink**) 06-17-2009, 08:44 AM

Nice trailer. I've towed a closed trailer that weighed >7000lbs with my Tundra and you absolutely need a WDH hooked up at that weight for truely safe towing. It's not a knock on the truck, it's just something you need to distribute the weight on a truck that's only a 1/2 ton, you just can't compare it to a 3/4 ton, even though people try.

I like the fuel economy advantage I get with my open trailer

But really I'm just jealous of cool enclosed units.

DaveGS4 · #5 (**permalink**) 06-17-2009, 09:47 AM

Thanks Michael - we were close to buying a buddies Featherlite open trailer similar to yours (with a bar tire rack on the front). Came to the conclusion that we'd probably end up buying an enclosed one in a couple of years anyway (just like he is selling his for / doing), so we went ahead and bit the bullet now with the knowledge we'd need to add a few bits and pieces to our towing setup to make sure it was safe for us and everyone around us.

Once I pick up the trailer I'll snap some better pictures of the hitch setup that's on there.

MTeator · #6 (**permalink**) 06-17-2009, 09:50 AM

Yeah, I've thought about adding the tire rack to mine, but I hear they drop you a MPG as well, so I just stick the second set of rims/tires in the car. One in the frunk, three inside.

TundraBay · #7 (**permalink**) 06-18-2009, 11:32 AM

Certainly some useful info here, I won't repeat it. One thing though. If the steering felt imprecise, it was likely due to too much weight on the tow ball, which pushes the back of the truck down and reduces the weight on the front wheels. Tightening up your WDH will make a big difference in that.

On trailer towing, you may already be aware of this. But it's a good idea to keep an eye on what your trailer is doing as you turn corners, especially right hand turns, until you know how far inside of your own rear wheel the trailer wheels track. You may be surprised that it's a good 4-5 feet further in, and more the tighter you turn. So wide turns (especially right turns) are on order. Don't worry, you'll quickly get used to it.

SE2000 · #8 (**permalink**) 06-18-2009, 12:42 PM

Let us know how it went. I suspect an empty trailer won't put the load on the truck as one with a car. After you get the car inside, you may want to play around with the best parking spot for it to hold your gear and balance the load. I've seen some where the vehicle was not located properly and it affected % tongue weight

MTeator · #9 (**permalink**) 06-18-2009, 01:04 PM

Yeah, put some etrack inside the trailer and you'll have nearly unlimited tie down options too

DaveGS4 · #10 (**permalink**) 06-18-2009, 01:54 PM

Thanks guys, definitely going to watch the turns. The other thing is following distance and braking zones which is especially important to my wife who carries her late braking tendancies from the track onto the street at times.

We're going to take my wife's M3 (it's still "street legal

" ) over when we pick up the trailer today and get the trailer shop to help us do the initial setup with the weight of the car in the trailer. Will drive it back independently w/ empty trailer but we'll have some good expertise to help on the initial setup with WDH and the tongue weight. Won't have the spare wheels, tools & gear, but will be better than setting it up empty.

Our buddy with the Pace has the etrack and he recommended against getting it... said it ended up being a waste of money for limited flexibility. We got a set of tie down hooks that go into the framerails and some short-ended rachet straps that were recommended as working well with this setup.

Maybe as we learn more we'll consider adding it in - especially if we end up hauling different cars.

DaveGS4 · #11 (**permalink**) 06-19-2009, 04:36 PM

Well, we pulled the new trailer home last evening (and then over to the storage area where we'll keep it -no room at the house).

We took the track car with us to get it setup at the dealer, but we don't have the tiedown straps (or the rest of our tow setup done w/ tires, bags) so drove the trailer back empty as pictured below. We're going to paint the floor before using it and getting oil & other fluids in it. Also ended up getting an electric jack put in (our buddy had one and my wife liked it)

The WDH setup initially seemed pretty complex w/lots of parts but wasn't bad once it was explained.

We did have one hitch (pun intended) when we entered my neighborhood. There were two cars parked on each side of the cul-de-sac and a third in the road when my neighbor pulled out of his driveway. I ended up having to make a much sharper turn (1-2 mph) than I had hoped and we hard a loud "pop clank" and stopped immediately. My wife jumped out and found one of the black bars that connects the hitch to the chain mounts in the rear had popped loose and dropped off into the road when we were at max lock. Guess I need to figure out what the max turning radius is... went back on without any issue.

The hitch required some adjustment to be aligned with the Tundra / trailer. It's bigger / beefier than I expected; looks to be a real knee bruiser but I don't want to take it on & off all the time.

Driving our 22ft felt better than the loaded 24ft trailer of our friend's, and we were able to lock up the trailer wheels using the Prodigy at 25mph without any problem to get it setup. Could tell it's going to take a bit of trial & error to figure out changing the boost in town / on the highway, etc. Felt a little push / pull with the trailer at times when in town in traffic, but think that's 'normal' when towing and more a feature of my getting to know how to tune the brake controller.

It was a bit of a PITA to back into the spot in the storage area, but that's just going to take time and practice.

MTeator · #12 (**permalink**) 06-19-2009, 07:54 PM

One thing I always try to remember to do is lock my tailgate when the trailer is on so that I don't absent-mindedly drop it onto the jack :/ I plan to have the jack moved about a foot back sometime so that I can lower the tailgate with the trailer attached.

TundraBay · #13 (**permalink**) 06-19-2009, 10:37 PM

Nice!

One benefit of leaving the hitch on, is it helps for the traffic tail-gaters, and can save your bumper if they get a wee bit too close. Just remember that extra 12" when you back into a parking spot!

Good luck.

tomhole · #14 (**permalink**) 06-19-2009, 10:58 PM

Hard to tell from the pics, but you need to look at the clearance of the cam hitting the weight distribution bar in a turn. It looks like you have 5 links under tension, which is the minimum. But that looks like the cam will hit the bar in a turn. I would hook it up and check that out. If it hits, the cam will break. Simple fix is to tilt the head down more and put more links under tension. Same weight distribution, just drops the bars down more so the cam doesn't hit.

If it's just the angle of the photo, then no worries.

Tom

marbil146 · #15 (**permalink**) 06-20-2009, 09:58 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MTeator

One thing I always try to remember to do is lock my tailgate when the trailer is on so that I don't absent-mindedly drop it onto the jack :/ I plan to have the jack moved about a foot back sometime so that I can lower the tailgate with the trailer attached.

I have basically the same set up with my 09 tundra and trail-lite trailer.The tailgate would just hit the top of the light on the jack.
I turned the jack 180 degrees and got a 3 inch clearance.
It was just a matter of drilling 3 new holes in the jack base and reusing the threaded holes in the A frame.
I didnt consider it at the time but it may be possible to turn just the head of the jack.