Golly. You wander off for a couple months and folks say all kinds of interesting stuff.
I never said the calculations don't apply to Toyotas. What I said was that the Toyota manuals at that time did not rob you of rated trailer capacity for all the pounds you carry in TV payload. My owners manual and drivers side labels say my gross combined weight capacity is equal to a 3500# trailer completely in addition to the Gross Vehicle Weight Rating of my tow vehicle. And I appreciate being referred to as "stalwart" because that's a lot better than some other possibilities.
I have posted in this forum pictures of the drivers' side labels, the relevant owners manual pages, and my scale weights showing that I am on the road at less than rated capacity on each of 3 axles and the gross vehicle weight ratings of both trailer and tow vehicle.
But that's old news because current Toyota owners should be reading their own owners manuals and following those instructions. A few years ago, Toyota published a really good towing guide (I once posted that, and it's probably still here somewhere, too). But it is no longer available on the Toyota website. On this subject, that guide netted to something like 1) Use a WDH, 2) keep your tongue weight 10-12% of the total traiiler (or so), and 3) do not ever exceed your GVWRs and axle weight ratings. Toyota has done a laudable job of actually stepping up to the 2013 standards for defining towing capacities, as has been discussed elsewhere in this forum.
And maximum tongue weights are potentially a concern. Typically, you would need to find a Class IV hitch for a rated tongue weight capacity above 500#. Class IV hitches are not made for many of the vehicles we tow with (we tend to have Class III hitches), including many light trucks. Therefore, many of us are operating at the edge of this rating. The WDH substantially reduces the loads on the hitch receiver mounting bolts and the frame mountings they screw into. Lots of vehicles are rated higher by their manufacturers for use with a WDH. Therefore, those concerned about maximum tongue weights should tow with a WDH. (NOTE: I have revised this paragraph from my original post after reading Padgett's comments in the post following this one)
And, probably the most important point: You can't really know what you are towing until you put it on the truck scale and get your actual axle weights.
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2005 TrailManor 3023
2003 Toyota Highlander 220hp V6 FWD
Reese 1000# round bar Weight Distributing Hitch
Prodigy brake controller.
"It's not how fast you can go, it's how fast you can stop an RV that counts."
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