Towing with a 4Runner or Explorer---experiences, please!

Crazy, but that is the way of it...

Closed a couple of my small controls firms back in the day...

One was industrial controls (segment was in people movers) and had over 70% of the USA Ski Lift controllers in the 70's...till too many lawsuits with HUGE awards...on old, old equipment and saying it should meet 'current' safety standards...even though some of the stuff was over 10 years old.

YAN took up that vacated market and is doing well from what I can see

BenK wrote:
Bryan...very sage advice and suggest anyone thinking of that...ask their welder or shop if they would stand behind something like this...ditto if their insurance will...

carringb wrote:

camp-n-family wrote:
You can easily have a custom hitch made for a couple hundred bucks.

Maybe in Canada. There's not many shops willing to put their name on a custom fabricated hitch in the US. To many $ at risk if something goes wrong.

I hadn't thought about the American aspec of it, the land where everybody sues for everything and anything. It's not that way in Canada. Many shops here will custom fabricate. I've had it done several times. I guess that's why people come from all over the US to CanAm RV for custom work.

Bryan...very sage advice and suggest anyone thinking of that...ask their welder or shop if they would stand behind something like this...ditto if their insurance will...

carringb wrote:

camp-n-family wrote:
You can easily have a custom hitch made for a couple hundred bucks.

Maybe in Canada. There's not many shops willing to put their name on a custom fabricated hitch in the US. To many $ at risk if something goes wrong.

Madmartigan wrote:

SweetLou wrote:
I didn't read all 4 pages of reports so if I repeat I'm sorry. Short wheel base should be understood. Balance your loads and don't speed. Whipping a trailer with a short wheel base vehicle will be lets say exciting.

We started out towing a 19ft Fleetwood with a 2000 Jeep Grand Cherokee V8 Limited with an Equalizer hitch. I installed HD rear coils, an a/m tru-cool tranny cooler, heavy duty rear sway bar and all things considered it towed like a champ. Tranny took everything I threw at it and motor and tranny never over-heated even during high altitude heavy pulls. No, it wasn't racing up the hills, but for what it was I was pleased.
Then one day we were flying along a highway in WY and the trailer blew a tire. It whipped the Jeep around like a rag doll and we were inches from laying the whole rig on its side. My parents were towing behind us and saw the whole thing. That was the last year we towed with the Jeep and I went and bought a 3/4 ton truck. Speaking from experience, wheel base was the biggest issue with those smaller tow vehicles.

Case and point. All the Mods made come standard for towing with a full size truck usually and the longer wheelbase just might save you and your family's lives.

SweetLou wrote:
I didn't read all 4 pages of reports so if I repeat I'm sorry. Short wheel base should be understood. Balance your loads and don't speed. Whipping a trailer with a short wheel base vehicle will be lets say exciting.

We started out towing a 19ft Fleetwood with a 2000 Jeep Grand Cherokee V8 Limited with an Equalizer hitch. I installed HD rear coils, an a/m tru-cool tranny cooler, heavy duty rear sway bar and all things considered it towed like a champ. Tranny took everything I threw at it and motor and tranny never over-heated even during high altitude heavy pulls. No, it wasn't racing up the hills, but for what it was I was pleased.
Then one day we were flying along a highway in WY and the trailer blew a tire. It whipped the Jeep around like a rag doll and we were inches from laying the whole rig on its side. My parents were towing behind us and saw the whole thing. That was the last year we towed with the Jeep and I went and bought a 3/4 ton truck. Speaking from experience, wheel base was the biggest issue with those smaller tow vehicles.

camp-n-family wrote:
You can easily have a custom hitch made for a couple hundred bucks.

Maybe in Canada. There's not many shops willing to put their name on a custom fabricated hitch in the US. To many $ at risk if something goes wrong.

Go to any hitch shop and get one modified or custom made. I did a little searching on the t4r.org forum and found some that were able to use a hitch off the Lexus460, slightly modified. I wouldn't do anything drastic like trading before trying it first. You can easily have a custom hitch made for a couple hundred bucks.

Well this really sucks.

Turns out that there are NO after-market hitches for the 2010 4runner. So I can't replace the factory hitch with one that is more robust for weight-distribution.

And - I got an authoritative answer from Toyota that they do not recommend weight distribution with the 2010 4Runner.

So now I have to trade in my 4Runner for a truck. I'm thinking a Ford F150. I'll open a new thread for that discussion.

I traded my Highlander which was rated for 3500 lb for the 4Runner which is rated for 5000 lb thinking I was doing the right thing. Now I find out that I was barking up the wrong tree.

-Speak

I didn't read all 4 pages of reports so if I repeat I'm sorry. Short wheel base should be understood. Balance your loads and don't speed. Whipping a trailer with a short wheel base vehicle will be lets say exciting.

MFL wrote:
For your application (smaller light wt trailer), I would take a close look at the F150 with 5.0 V8. It will get about the same mileage as the 3.5 Eco, towing or daily driving. It will be cheaper to purchase, with good availability in used market.

The short bed 150s are very car like, but still truck advantage, with things like stronger hitch, integrated brake controller, and anti-sway control.

Jerry

Worth checking into, thanks.

My significant other has a F150 with the Ecoboost, and is very pleased with it for towing and general use.

I do NOT like the big console from the 40/20/40 seat fold down. It's very clunky and in the way. But apparently they can be swapped out for a regular console, not cheap though. That's really the only thing I don't like about the truck.