Towing - tips and advice

Hi everybody, newbie tower here.

warning: long post ahead! Skip to the bottom for a tldr

My girlfriend (who has had a decent amount of experience under her belt towing small horse trailers when she was younger— albeit with an f150..) and I will be taking to the road next year with a (relatively) small camper behind my 4Runner that we will be temporarily living from for the next couple of years ~travel nurse style~ while she completes her clinical rotations for med school. We have already purchased the travel trailer—a Keystone Hideout 186ss with dry weight of just over 4000lbs— as well as a weight distributing hitch. A trailer brake controller was installed from the lot, and I also have a pedal commander.. if the eco mode from that could be beneficial or anything. We are planning to keep the trailer and 4Runner as empty as possible to relieve stress on the rig as it will already be pushing Toyota’s 5000lb tow capacity. She’ll be towing mostly, with me following behind in her Mitsubishi crossover loaded up with most of our stuff, and we will set up camp as permanently as possible at plug-in campgrounds for months at a time. The problem is she won’t know exactly where her clinical sites are until later on from now, so it’s all a bit up in the air in terms of where we’ll end up going and it could very well mean towing this thing through multiple states across the country.

Like I said, she’ll be doing most of the towing and I have faith in her, but I know towing with a 4Runner will be a lot different than with a dedicated truck and I want to take as many precautionary measures as possible for the safety of us and the vehicle.

So far all I have done to prepare is purchased the WDH, but I plan on adding the Air Lift 1000 inflatables to the rear suspension to hopefully further stiffen any sag in the back. It should be mentioned that my truck came lifted when I bought it, and I believe it’s a 2.5” Rough Country lift all around with maybe a .5” leveling spacer up front (?) not too sure on that. I’m running 33 inch A/T tires- recommended psi?? I’m new to all of this, so any and all help is appreciated

TLDR: girlfriend and I will be living in camper next couple of years, she has tow experience (with an f150) but I have none. Would appreciate any tips and advice for safe travels and reduced wear/tear on the 4runner.

already have:
-Brake controller
-Weight distributing hitch
-Pedal commander (eco mode??recommended settings for towing?)

will be installing:
-Air Lift 1000 inflatable suspension leveling kit

load me up on tips/tricks/dos/don’ts and any experienced advice you have to make this journey we are about to embark on a bit less scary (for me at least). Thanks in advance!

 

Congrats on taking on this challenge to both of you, especially your girlfriend going through clinicals! I don't have this kind of experience, but I do recommend watching the 4Runner YouTube videos. There are content creators on that platform and all they do is travel the country in their 4Runners and pulling trailers of some kind to go camping, overlanding, etc. They learn their lessons the hard way and pass it on to the audience. Also, there are a lot of creators who focus on how-to's and what-to-do-whens, and what's-this-button-for with 4Runners, anything from what to lift them with to replacing puddle lights. Definitely worth a look!

 

I have a travel trailer of similar size. After the first tow in the Texas heat and monitoring the transmission temp (I think it was 220-240F range) I decided that I needed an auxiliary transmission cooler to go inline with the factory cooler. After the install the temps have been around the 200F range now. Mind you this was in 100F+ ambient temp. The cooler I used was the B&M 70268 SuperCooler. It comes with most everything you need to get started. I also bought an additional 6 feet of 3/8" hose and nuts/bolts/washers to hard mount the cooler. I chose it as it is supposed to have a low temperature bypass to prevent over-cooling the fluid. It's not a valve, I believe it uses the viscosity of colder fluid to bypass the plates. Also dropping down into 4th gear and going 65MPH is recommended from what I read. In practice that is good advice. Don't get in a hurry as steeper grades got me down to about 30-40MPH(Think super tall overpass bridges, no experience with mountains).

Edit: Here is a crappy pic of the cooler installed.
https://www.4runners.com/threads/wh...h-gen-4runner-today.2261/page-883#post-492990

 

I came here looking for advice as well. From what I'm hearing on a couple of different videos is that the 4Runner doesn't do well even at 4,000 lb.

I am considering a small camper trailer (under 20 feet and near 3,000lbs). Going over the Rockies is a possible route. (Southern California to Tennessee is the ultimate.

 

Honestly, I wouldn't want to tow that heavy of a trailer all over the place with a 4Runner. I'd rather tow a slightly smaller trailer and not have to take 2 vehicles.

But, since you already bought the trailer...

I'd load any cargo in the trailer rather than the 4runner, ahead of the axle (s).

Keep it in S4, drop into S3 for any steep inclines.

Do not exceed 65 MPH!

Take your time accelerating. You can hammer down and get up to speed a little quicker, but it's harder on the transmission and will really guzzle gas.

The transmission cooler mentioned by @Nubes is a good idea!

 

We have a 2022 4Runner and we pull a small 5x8 enclosed trailer that weighs less than 1000 lbs. Our 4Runner is 2wd. The trailer pulls very easy, but, just that small amount of weight on the rear of the 4Runner caused the headlights to shine higher and we get a lot of pissed off drivers flashing us to turn off our “bright “ lights. The bright lights are not on, but, the regular lights shine into the eyes of on coming drivers.

 

I wouldn't be feeling confident towing anything over 1,500-2,500 lbs with this truck. I have my good old diesel for towing.

 

I went looking at camper trailers and I was shocked at how much garbage is in them and how clumsily they are made. Easily 30% of the weight is useless.

The cheaper ones use heavy OSB all throughout the trailer. Then there's all this stuff that isn't essential for living, things like television sets and radios, electronic fireplaces... Yikes. I thought camping was about going out in nature and exploring.

I have looked at cargo trailer conversions as a possible alternative. Since I'm not going out in the wilderness, just using this as an alternative to motels because I have special needs pets, I guess I don't need the toilet and shower, or a stove. I guess I could sleep in the passenger compartment.

The weight concerns are definitely in my mind. It's also good to know to keep it out of 5th gear.

I don't have a problem driving like a grandma with a trailer behind me, since most of the trailers have a speed limit on them anyway, based on the wheel size, I am presuming.

Since I bought my 4Runner to last me and my daughter decades, I'm rethinking a few things.

 

There are easy ways to measure your trailer tongue weight with a bathroom scale and some boards. Look on the internet for specifics regarding simple home make device easy to store and carry.