Tow boat with Toyota V6

[hubbard53]

Re: Tow boat with Toyota V6

I think we've all seen things like that. Believe the technical term for those drivers is 'Moron'.

Seriously, my wife's RAV 4 could PULL my 8000 lbs of boat and trailer with a strong enough hitch. Getting it all moving is the easy part...

My .02

honda pilot has a towing capactiy close to 5000lb. What does a 19-20' ski boat weigh fully loaded? 4k?

 

[642mx]

Re: Tow boat with Toyota V6

I think you'll be just fine with the 4.0 Toyota engine. My Dad had a 3.0 in his 94 Toyota 4x4 pick up and pulled a Chaparral 187 for years with no issues.

 

[JoLin]

Re: Tow boat with Toyota V6

honda pilot has a towing capactiy close to 5000lb. What does a 19-20' ski boat weigh fully loaded? 4k?

Actually, I was thinking of a different Honda when I read that. My error- you're probably right.

 

[larry1167]

Re: Tow boat with Toyota V6

Update- I bought the 2008 4Runner with 4.0 V6 and took my boat to the lake yesterday. It towed my boat well. Plenty of power on small hills and the flats. I like the transmission shifter gate. I manually shifted down when climbing larger hills to keep the RPM's up. The transmission shifted very smoothly. I can already tell it's a better tranny than the Explorer.

We have a very steep hill on the way to our neighborhood. It's only about a 1/4 mile long. The 4Runner struggled a bit to get up the hill, but so did my friend's 5.3 liter Tahoe and my other friend's 2009 1/2 ton Chevy pickup. Unfortunately you have to attack this hill from a dead stop because of stop sign. Once I got the RPM's up a bit(3500) on the 4Runner, it pulled pretty hard.

The best thing is the 4Runner averages 19-20 mpg around town when not towing. My old Explorer with V8 only got 12-14 mpg.

 

[Bob_VT]

Re: Tow boat with Toyota V6

Larry best of luck with your new 4runner

Yes the Toyota makes the torques in the lower half of the RPM range. I will not part with our's unless it is for a newer one.

 

[larry1167]

Re: Tow boat with Toyota V6

Thanks Bob. How much weight are you pulling behind your 4Runner?

 

[642mx]

Re: Tow boat with Toyota V6

Congrats on the new ride!

 

[marlboro180]

Re: Tow boat with Toyota V6

Larry,

You have seriously overlooked the Toyotas recommendation of posting a photo on iboats! Glad you are happy with it thus far. We really like ours.

 

[larry1167]

Re: Tow boat with Toyota V6

Good point Marlboro. I will post some photos shortly. Very impressed with the 4Runner so far. I need to do some 4 wheeling in this thing too.

 

[reelfishin]

Re: Tow boat with Toyota V6

I towed with several Toyota 4x4 pickups for many years. In my experience, they did not stand up to heavier towing.

If your truck has a five speed manual transmission, tow in fourth gear. Fourth is direct through the transmission and using it helps prevent very expensive transmission rebuilds. Ask me how I know. The transmission repair shop compared Toyota manual transmissions to sewing machines; in other words - light.

I also took out several rear wheel bearings on Toyota pickups, presumably because of towing. That truck did not have many miles on it either when the wheel bearings failed.

I had the same experience with Toyota trucks, all manual transmissions. They got noisy after being used to tow only a 1,200 lb aluminum bass boat. The dealer swapped out three, then the warranty ran out and I did 3 more, luckily the ex totaled it, it was getting expensive. A buddy owns a trans shop, he said it's about even between the Toyota transmissions and Ford Transmissions, both have a few inherent issues. Toyota has had a problem with weak planetary gears in the automatic, and Ford has sprag and OD clutch survival issues if not kept cool. According to him, the Ford can be made to handle a much larger load than the Toy can, if your talking automatics. From personal experience, all the Asian manual transmissions are too light, even those that Ford used which were sourced through Mazda and Asian Warner.

If your Explorer is sound otherwise, why not have a someone that knows transmissions upgrade yours a bit and you'll probably see another 200K out of that truck.
I've had 4.6L engines go over 350,000 miles.

From experience, the Toyota pickups I had were maxed out at around 1,500 lbs, and only good for short runs at that. With all the trans issues, motor issues, and ball joint issues I had, I wished it would have gotten totaled far sooner. That truck and the two before it cost me a bundle to keep going. After I moved to all Fords, I've had no further issues. The Fords are also far more comfortable than the Toyota, which never seemed to be built for a guy 6'3" tall.

 

[larry1167]

Re: Tow boat with Toyota V6

What year and size Toyota pickups are you referring to? Just curious.

It was tough to give up the Ford because of that stellar 4.6, but I was concerned the rest of the truck was going to fall apart slowly and nickel and dime me to death. I agree with the comfort issue. I am only 6' so it doesn't bother me as much, but my head is closer to the liner than in the Ford. Ford seats were more comfortable too.

One thing that turned the tide was mpg. My wife drives our tow vehicle around town a lot more than we tow. The Ford 4.6 got about 14mpg average at best. The 4Runner gets 19mpg average.

It is also a short tow to our lake... 5 miles.