Towing in the mountains with a gasser????
I recently upgraded from a pop up to a travel trailer that is 5000 pounds dry. Also got a new truck...2012 Toyota Tundra. Today i towed through some pretty steep mountains. I locked out ovrrdri...
Forum Discussion
BarneyS wrote:
The main cause for transmission temperatures rising is the transmission is unlocked. Try to pick a gear that is within the engines best RPM range and still leaves the trans locked up.
Barney
This is not stated correctly.
"Lock up" refers to Torque Converter lock up...which only occurs in top gear and cruising speed, not under load.
Simply "locking out" top gears, be it from "OD off" or using a manual shift mode to 4th or 5th, is not the same as having the trans "locked up" and I am not aware of any trans that allows the TC to lock up when below top gear.
Heat builds fastest with excess shifting and a lot of slippage, which is generally normal unless excessive under load. Holding a gear, or locking out higher hears, will keep help keep temps down. But this truck (Tundra) in particular has no issues with ATF over heating. It runs hot by design (thermostat is even inline to keep temps around 200) and there are no reports of overheating that I have seen. (I drive a 2010 Sequoia with the same engine and trans)
If in doubt, just leave the OD off (if you have such an option, Tundra does not), lock out top gears using manual shift, or just hit the tow button and let the truck do what its designed to do.
