Toyota Tacoma tow vehicle

MadFinnHockey wrote:
This may have been covered somewhere already, but I couldn't find it, so here I go.

I've got a 23 ft hybrid with a unloaded vehicle weight of 3303 that I've been towing with a 2000 Chevy Suburban 4x4. The Suburban has over 200K on it and its time to retire it.

I'm looking at the Toyota Tacoma 4X4 which boasts a towing capacity of 6400 lbs, but its only a V6. Its towing package comes with a oil tranny coolers. I would install an electric brake controller on it.

We don't tow a lot, a handful of trips a year, most less than 50 miles each way. I'd also be using it to tow my boat, but its a 15ft Boston Whaler, so not a lot of weight there.

So, anyone here use a Tacoma to tow a similar size (or larger) trailer, and what are your experiences?

Thanks

I have a Sunset Trail 17' Hybrid. Our 2010 Tacoma TRD V6 4X4 Owned for 45000 miles, towed 9500+) was noisy, bouncy, underpowered, inefficient, with poor shifting. On flat terrain it was marginal whenever a head, or cross wind was present. In hills, it was so unpleasant, my wife declared she was never doing another cross-country towing trip. Come to think of it, that was towing our previous 12' popup, the Hybrid was exponentially worse.
Terrible choice. I owned a 2009, followed by a 2010 Tacoma.
I switched to an F150 with the base 3.7 liter V6. Not only was the power a lot better and more effortless. The overall composure while towing is night and day. (I am not a nervous driver whatsoever btw).

There are other factors that make the Tacoma a poor choice. The rear frame is not boxed, in addition it is lightweight, and every bump that the trailer hits, reverberates back through the chassis. With the lightweight composite box, the rear axle is undersprung to provide a decent unloaded ride, which leads to wallowing, and bottoming with a decent tongue load.

I know this is an aweful post, but the Tacoma is an aweful tow vehicle. Did I mention that my mileage towing and unloaded is 15% better with my heavy pig of an F150?

The Tacoma with the rear locker also has an undersized ring gear in the rear diff to accommodate the electric locking mechanism. I had 3 of them get noisy enough for Toyota to replace them under warranty.