Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr. Adventure
My Toyota Highlander has a transmission temp warning light, and the Sienna probably does too. If so, then you could just keep an eye on it, and see if it ever lights on some hot day adventure in August. Most important for me in the decision would be if the factory towing package provides anything different for the transmission cooler, and I'd expect the dealer people to be able to match the stock numbers, and know the answer.
As for how much to tow, I'm a real big fan of trailers that weigh less on the road than their tow vehicles. So I travel a lot lighter with my TrailManor than I used to when I had heavier RV's, largely because of the hassles I used to have when I had heavier Rv's.
The weight distributing hitch is darned important for darned near everybody for 2 reasons: 1) it keeps you from overloading the rear axle (one of our posters discovered 700# on the rear axle in his pickup from just a 480# hitch weight) and 2) it keeps you from unloading the front axle, where most braking and all steering happens.
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I would not depend on dealer personnel to have much knowledge about tow-ability of any of their vehicles.
I worked for dealerships since I was 17 and I was Service Manager for many years before retiring. I was a factory rep for GM after graduating from General Motors Institute. Towing is NOT the norm and dealerships have
very little experience with what it takes. On occasion, we would get a vehicle with a burnt up trans from towing but the sales dept wouldn't know anything about it. That's when we would sell the customer a trans cooler.
There is very little (if any) written material, from the factory, for the sales & service depts to advise customers on customizing vehicles for towing. I will tell you for almost certain that most dealership personnel will quote the "Tow rating" in the owner's manual and have no idea what you are talking about when you ask them about the GCWR (Gross Combined Weight Rating) or any of the other technicalities about towing. It's simply not something that they are familiar with or have written material on (other than what is in the factory brochures or owner's manuals). They will also not know what is included in a factory "Tow Package". It's not like there is a list of parts that comes with the vehicle. The parts catalogs will ask if the vehicle has a tow pkg when looking up certain parts but there is no way of figuring out all of the parts that are associated with any particular vehicle. You might call the parts dept and ask them if there is 2 different radiators for towing and non-towing or simply a HD radiator but that's not going to help much.
If you ask a service adviser about adding anything to a vehicle that is under warranty, they will tell you, "NO" because you run the risk of voiding your warranty. After the vehicle is out of warranty, most people take them elsewhere for service.
If you really want professional advise about adding a trans cooler to your vehicle or not, go to a transmission shop. Those are the guys that deal with out-of-warranty vehicles and know the value of a trans cooler.
As far as the "Idiot light" on the dash is concerned...........if that comes on, it's basically too late. All you can do is pull over right-away and wait for it to cool. Best plan to to avoid that at all cost.