Camper Trailer Towing with 4 speed

[Smickbus Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Smickbus]

Hello all, long time lurker but this will be my first post.
About to become part owners of a Deluxe camper trailer and heading off to NSW/Victoria for a mates wedding and a bit of a holiday with the wife. My question is do I need to keep the gearbox in 3rd gear when towing on the highway at approx 100km/h, or is leaving it in "D" adequate? I have always been told that you should never tow in overdrive but that has been in my old commodores that had the "power" switch, whereas the prado does not have this. The trailer fully loaded would weigh approx 1 tonne. does anyone have any experience with the 4 speed auto. Obviously when I venture offroad I would drop the gears down manually as needed but just curious about towing at highway speeds. thanks in advance

[Justo77 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Justo77]

I tow a camper which weighs about the same as yours and a boat which is about 1200kg and I find that it is fine in D, if i'm on a hill where it keeps changing between 3rd and 4th I shift it into 3rd. As far as I know keeping your auto trans in 3rd is mainly to prevent wear and tear caused by the gearbox constantly switching between 3rd and 4th.

[MidLifeCrisis Out of control poster! Find all posts View Profile Close MidLifeCrisis]

Tried out towing the camper trailer (Challenge Merridian) which weighs over the tonne with all the gadgets to see how the newe chip performs.

Drove up the Princes Highway hills coming out of Adelaide which gave the d4d some issues previously. Well very happy with the result! The chip enabled me to acdelerate up hills as if there was no trailer and no hill. I still cannot believe this is the same car that struggled to gain speed a few months ago.

I did lock it in 4th for the exercise.

[chester ver 2.0 Member Find all posts View Profile Close chester ver 2.0]

Towed a 1.2 tonne camper half way around oz last year 95kph in 4th seemed to be the sweet spot in really hilly areas or in some big head winds i have locked it back in to 3rd to prevent gear hunting but this was a rarity. I found if you get it up to speed in 3rd and then back off just a touch it will then drop into 4th and lock everything up nicley. I did not bother much with cruise as it s tolerances are to fine so it would hunt a lot between gears i just drove normally on about 95 and would then get a bit of a run up for the hills