I pulled my father-in-laws TT about 150 miles this past weekend down to the river where he is parking it for the weekend. Dry weight was around 3800 lbs. maybe 2-300 more in gear and supplies. I towed in 4th. My truck is non BT, stock tires 245/75/r17. I went 60 most of the way. In 4th rpms at 60 were around 2000-2300ish there was a few good size hills, but the truck didnt seem to labor on any on them and maintain speed. after reading on here I guess I am paranoid. So I want to see how it performed on the hills, from 60 pressing the gas gradually it didnt down shift and I got up to about 67. I figured the load of the trailer, going up a hill, and pressing the gas the tranny would downshift. So the next big hill half way up i shifted to third and rpms jumped to around 3800, I think. I left it the until the top of the hill about 1 mile later, it seemed a little unnecessary but again I am now paranoid. I am going to order a temp gauge soon. Should I be worried about my tranny? Or am I just being paranoid?
Paranoia or not???
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Ditto for above posts. These engines rev high and actually your tranny temps would probably drop a little at higher RPMs as there is not as much of a load on the engine and more air being pushed through from the fan. My temp gauge in the BT package goes down a little when I downshift on a hill and increase the RPMs.
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You should be fine. However, if you plan to do a lot of towing, I would reccomend a tranny guage. I've found my Titan pulling hills and seeing the tranny temp guage rise. When the guage hit's 3/4, I downshift and it always falls back to 1/2.
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Your only issue is do you know when the converter unlocks?....If the trans stays in 4th up a hill, but the converter unlocks the trans temps will climb...by manually downshifting to 3rd you avoud the whole problem...
With out the trans temp guage you don't know, but many trucks don't have a guage either...You need to get a feel for what your truck is doing.
With out the trans temp guage you don't know, but many trucks don't have a guage either...You need to get a feel for what your truck is doing.
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Our trucks (ones without BT) have a nice lil dash light that lights up bright yellow and says "AT". In the owners manual, it states the "AT" light stands for Automatic Tranny, and this light comes on when the AT starts to overheat.
Now one question I've asked a few times, never got an answer on is what temp does it need to reach, before turning that light on? Does the light come on when it reaches the threshold saying "hey I just crossed the border where now it's too hot and if I keep going, I'm going to die soon"..or is it when it reaches "okay, I've been overheating for awhile, but now I'm really up there".
I for one, don't have BT, and I've never seen this light come on..Then again, I have never towed with the Titan. That's the Broncos job.
Yeah I know when the converter locks and unlocks most of the time, it really drives me ape **** when in town. As far as towing it isnt a easy for me to feel it, but I notice rpm changes. So if you are going say 60 mph and you give it gas, the converter unlocks, builds heat. The extra load of the trailer and hill won't cause the transmission to down shift on its own from 4th to 3rd, is it still building to much heat? I mean for all I know driving 70 with no trailer and you come to a big hill the converter will unlock causing more heat, but wont downshift unless it needs more gear. It just seems to me the if you drive in 4th and under capable towing capacity of the truck, it should know on its own when to downshift and when to hold a gear. after all it is the era of computer controlled everything.
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I just pull it into 3rd in a lot of stop-and-go situations. Problem solved.
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