Re: toyota tacoma 4 cylinder
I have to agree, about 3500lbs would be the max and at that, I'm not sure it would like pulling up a ramp.
It reminds me of a time when I volunteered to help a buddy move. He asked me to drive his pickup and trailer since I was the only one helping that regularly towed a trailer. He had a mid 80's 4x4 Toyota SR5 pickup and had a 7,000 lb GVW tandem axle car trailer on it with his 1970 Z28 and assorted other items strapped on anywhere he could find space. I'd have guess the trailer and load were in the 6,800 lb range. The truck was also loaded with various other items. He had it hitched with a load equalizing hitch and the motor was a 2.2L injected 4 banger with a 5 speed trans.
He owned a larger pickup but that was hitched to a larger enclose trailer with everything else he owned in it. What didn't fit on the two trailers was distributed among several volunteer's trucks and a minivan.
The drive was only about 90 miles, and it did the job, but getting rolling and stopping had to be done cautiously. It was OK once I got it up to highway speeds, it moved along fine once it got rolling but stops had to be well thought out and planned for ahead. It took 4x4 low to get it up his driveway though which was a pretty serious incline and gravel road.
There's no way I'd have tried to launch a boat at anywhere near that weight with that truck. I was most surprised that the rear axle and transmission stood up to that drive. I was waiting any minute the whole way for something to explode and the truck to come skidding to a stop. The worst I had ever seen him do was to fill the bed with crushed stone about a foot over the bed rails or more with plywood sides, it put that truck down about 8" in the rear. He did eventually blow out the tailgate, it bowed out to the point that the latches tore away and the gate flopped open with about a ton of rock in the bed.
I did own a 1988 4x4 Toyota truck myself and regularly pulled and launched a 17' aluminum bass boat but that was probably it's safe limit on the ramp.
I had bought that truck after seeing how much my buddies truck would haul, but mine turned out to be a real lemon, it all but fell apart within a year.
