Gurvy522
Well-known member
- Joined
- Apr 17, 2024
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- 214
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- Location
- Chicago, IL
- Vehicle(s)
- 2024 Tacoma Limited
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- #1
Just got back from a week long trip towing my camper all the way from Chicago to Moab. All in all, loaded with gear including the tongue weight of my 4000lb camper, the truck was sitting just a hair below the GVWR, so this was a really good test of my Limited (non-hybrid) starting from close to sea level and crossing the divide at just over 11,000 MSL over to Utah.
Overall, the trip itself was mostly uneventful - a week before, I installed the Timbren SES kit, which I believe was a great help in providing additional stability to the rear-end under load. The only complaint I had was on some concrete roads, the expansion joints led to a bit of porpoising, in particular, some stretches of I-76 between Denver and the border of CO/NE. I think this was due to a combination of my WDH and the truck "bouncing" on the Timbrens, next time I'll try and see if adding a spacer to the Timbrens would create more constant contact and smooth out the ride a bit. I was using 600lb load bars so I think those are in line with the tongue weight of my camper (approx 535lbs).
There were times where we had a significant amount of crosswind and I felt like my WDH hitch did a good job of keeping things manageable - at no point did things feel sketchy, the truck did great even on steep up and down grades through the I-70 "gauntlet".
Aside from that, the truck performed excellent - the only concern I had during the whole trip was on the way back, as we ended up in a 3 hour delay a few miles west of the Eisenhower tunnel, which led to a combination of standstill and stop-and-go traffic (I guess there was a crash on the other side of the tunnel causing a road closure). Going up the 6-7% grade definitely in stop-and-go traffic elevated the transmission temps to approx 80% of the bar, which seemed quite high and it didn't really have an opportunity to cool down as there wasn't much wind moving past the trans cooler. Nonetheless, the rest of the trip once we got moving went well.
This was a family camping trip and we met up with some of our family from Cali at our campsite in Moab. I wasn't planning on doing anything too crazy, but we had some spare time one day and my brother-in-law kept pushing me to hit up some trails. A bit of a "when in Rome" type moment, but decided to head over to Fins & Things for some off-road fun. Not gonna lie, was a bit nervous doing it without a lift or locker, but the truck did great on some 33" AT4Ws at stock height. The E-LSD did great at getting me up and down some of the steeper more technical parts of the trail. My skid plate and poor exhaust did take a bit of a bashing but that's part of the fun, right?
Settling in at the campsite (Ken's Lake) :
Spme pics from Fins & Things :
Overall, the trip itself was mostly uneventful - a week before, I installed the Timbren SES kit, which I believe was a great help in providing additional stability to the rear-end under load. The only complaint I had was on some concrete roads, the expansion joints led to a bit of porpoising, in particular, some stretches of I-76 between Denver and the border of CO/NE. I think this was due to a combination of my WDH and the truck "bouncing" on the Timbrens, next time I'll try and see if adding a spacer to the Timbrens would create more constant contact and smooth out the ride a bit. I was using 600lb load bars so I think those are in line with the tongue weight of my camper (approx 535lbs).
There were times where we had a significant amount of crosswind and I felt like my WDH hitch did a good job of keeping things manageable - at no point did things feel sketchy, the truck did great even on steep up and down grades through the I-70 "gauntlet".
Aside from that, the truck performed excellent - the only concern I had during the whole trip was on the way back, as we ended up in a 3 hour delay a few miles west of the Eisenhower tunnel, which led to a combination of standstill and stop-and-go traffic (I guess there was a crash on the other side of the tunnel causing a road closure). Going up the 6-7% grade definitely in stop-and-go traffic elevated the transmission temps to approx 80% of the bar, which seemed quite high and it didn't really have an opportunity to cool down as there wasn't much wind moving past the trans cooler. Nonetheless, the rest of the trip once we got moving went well.
This was a family camping trip and we met up with some of our family from Cali at our campsite in Moab. I wasn't planning on doing anything too crazy, but we had some spare time one day and my brother-in-law kept pushing me to hit up some trails. A bit of a "when in Rome" type moment, but decided to head over to Fins & Things for some off-road fun. Not gonna lie, was a bit nervous doing it without a lift or locker, but the truck did great on some 33" AT4Ws at stock height. The E-LSD did great at getting me up and down some of the steeper more technical parts of the trail. My skid plate and poor exhaust did take a bit of a bashing but that's part of the fun, right?
Settling in at the campsite (Ken's Lake) :
Spme pics from Fins & Things :
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