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Holding gears when towing

paulnanrod

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Now, this might be completely normal as I've only ever towed with a manual before, but I moved my caravan from storage to home and then back. My Land Cruiser seemed to hold the gears a lot and sounded like it was revving higher when towing. Is this normal?

With other automatics I've driven there is the manual option by knocking the gearstick over, and I've never used the gears on my land cruiser, but could this be used if it is revving unnecessarily, or just let the gearbox do the work? Its a 2007 LC4

Thanks....
 
As a bit of background here, one of the issues with autos and towing is heat build up in the transmission. If the box continually changed 3rd, 4th 3rd 4th 3rd 4th it would cause a lot of additional heat. Before the Cruisers had the flappy lever gearchange option, the remedy was to click off the OD button to cut out 4th so the box didn't try to change up. Now if yours is holding revs higher it might be trying to stop itself changing up and down constantly. If you were in a position out on the road where you wanted to control that yourself, you could use the gearshifter option perhaps. I don't think there's any issue with changing manually, but again if you find yourself going up and down constantly you will heat up the transmission.

Of course what I can't tell you if there's any underlying problem with your Cruiser at all.
 
Thanks for that Chris - just wanted to see if anyone has had this when towing with 120s. It may just be that I was on a shorter trip, as storage-home is 10 miles, but we're away on the bank holiday (assuming no underlying problems!). I've only had the car 6 months, but within the last 6 months there have been no noticeable problems and running fine/smoothly, and had a full service a month ago to make sure all changeable fluids are renewed. Thinking ahead (and assuming the tunnel is open in July) it should be towing to near Bordeaux so would want to eliminate any problems beforehand....
 
I don't tow much with my 120, but when I have towed (car on trailer) did not notice the revs staying any higher
 
I felt the same when I got my 120 after always towing with a manual, it changed down sooner than I expected and was sometimes reluctant to change back up to 5th, it was a 2005 so the same 5 speed transmission you have.
As Chris has already said , if the box is constantly changing up and down it will overheat so the transmission ecu is set up to avoid this.
I found it was best to let the box make its own mind up, if it hangs onto 4th for too long you can always flick the gear change across to 4th then back to 5th, this will coax it to change up, providing your road speed and throttle parameters allow.
Once you get used to it you’ll probably prefer towing with an auto!
I also fitted a chip to mine which was a good all round improvement both solo and when towing, but then the Amazon itch got so bad it just had to be scratched!!
 
It will hang on to the gears longer and rev higher because you'll be using more throttle/fuel to power the higher weight along, hydraulic pressures inside the box will make the gears hold longer to prevent labouring.

I thought the conventional wisdom when towing heavy was to use the 4 position on the box and not D, to stop it shifting into too high a gear unless easy cruising such as on a flat motorway.

Have you changed the gearbox oil Paulnanrod? whilst it isn't as easy as refilling via the dipstick on older models it's not too hard either, my box was definately improved in shifting when i changed the oil at around 100k miles, i didn't spend a small fortune on Mr T's Gucci oils either, Dexron 6 full synthetic also covers WT standard...edit, that should read WS standard.
 
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Thanks for the help/advice. I'm pretty sure it is because it's automatic, and getting used to it. Did a longer run with the caravan on the way back from storage yesterday and paid more attention and it seemed to drop from 5 to 4 quicker than I would have with my old Q5, but i did as you said, Geoff, and knocked it to 4 then back and that sorted it, as the road was relatively flat. Certainly don't look back at the change from the Audi to the Land Cruiser, but am thinking of 150/Amazon next....

I haven't changed the gearbox oil Juddian, but have done all other fluids on service. It needs to go back in to find the leak on the AC and repair that soon, so will get that done at the same time, thanks.

Going away tomorrow so will see what it is like on a long run.
 

Pretty sure this is the transmission we have, this chap is a Toyota master tech and he's got nothing bad to say about the gearbox...which appears mainly unchanged since 2003, if you get it right why replace it.
 
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