I think this is our 7th Toyota. Son has had a couple and daughter in law has one. Son in law has one. This one is the lemon of the bunch. I think it is often the dealer who is bad rather than the vehicle. Or at least how they deal with it. We were lied to and given bad info on this--such as insisting that we could use a brake controller with a four pin and saying there were no service bulletins on this although I have found several references online covering my year and the year before for exactly the problem we brought it in for. I would buy another Toyota and go to a different dealer for servicing.
I have a 2018 Toyota Tacoma with the factory tow package. I had to buy an "aftermarket" brake controller but it was completely plug-n-play. As mentioned earlier, fuses are there for a reason, even the brake controller has it's own inline fuse. This should not have caused that much damage. From the sounds of it, you found a dishonest dealers. I would contact Toyota Cooperate and see what they say, they might even have you file a complaint. Defiantly should get a second opinion either from your RV place or another Toyota dealer. Good luck...
$4k of “too busy” in this case. That’s a shame with all of those pre-existing things that it came down to one towing trip.
We plan on contacting Toyota corporate. Tell me about your Tacoma. We test drove a Ford Ranger last night and it made me really appreciate Toyota.
What would you like to know? My Taco took a little getting used to but I'm so glad I bought it. The biggest reason I got it was for the towing capability, (6500#). I don't plan to tow that much but it's great to know the truck can handle it. Any trailer I'm looking at I look to be sure the GVRW is around 5000# but no more than 5500#. One thing I did notice is when I tow our pop-ups they both tend to wiggle around at 60MPH so a weight distribution hitch with round bars is defiantly something to consider, it helped me...
Toyotas are usually pretty good. You might have gotten a lemon. (Alas the new Ford Maverick isn't the same cool old Maverick we all know and love. I had the Mercury version. That 302 V8 was the answer to fuel economy-pushing imports. )
I went with a 8000# WDH which is far more than I need but I decided, because it was only about $30 more, to go a little overkill. Yes that was the first thing I checked. Then I brought the truck to my dealer to have them check the alignment and frame. I had them put it on a frame machine because it was backed into a light poll hard before I bought it and I suspected it might be tweaked, it wasn't. We finally decided it was just the aerodynamics of the truck and the wind pushing the trailers. Once I put the WDH on it it was fine, I also have a soft top on the truck now and I think that helps a little.
Too high of load bars is just as bad as too low of rating.. Going over kill might sound like a good idea but with WDHs it's not recommended.. Going overkill on a tow vehicle is always a good thing..
OP here. We traded Highlander in for a Ford F 150. It has the hitch, 7 pin, and some brake controller thing but not the actual brake controller. I'll start another thread asking my millions of questions. Sadly I cancelled Fort Pickens. C19 if anyone is close and looking for a great place this weekend/week. We are not ready for a long trip with the new truck and need to get the brake controller figured out.
The window sticker shows a trailer tow package which includes an "integrated trailer brake cont". We had a brake controller added to our old vehicle and there is nothing here. The salesman was not at all familiar with it and talked about something that you could dial tighter or less. It also has trailer sway control and I wonder if he was calling that the brake controller.
