Why no max tow with the manual transmission?

[spectre6000]

Yeah I remember Mark Allen talking about how the truck knows it's under load and adapts automatically. That annoys me and I'm not sure I believe it. I just traded a 2020 Ram 1500 with the same engine and same transmission. It had a tow/haul mode with a switch on the dash. And it made a noticeable difference. When I tow the same trailer with the Gladiator, that difference doesn't occur. I'm calling shenanigans on his claim that the JT automatically adapts.

However, the JT does allow true manual shifting which the DT does not so that sort of makes up for it, at least a little bit.

That's sort of a throwaway statement though given the way modern fuel injection is calculated... Even an old school system would have no trouble "adjusting" to a load based on throttle position relative to RPM. I think they did what they could to be as competitive as possible on numbers with towing since it is a truck, but I think they also knew towing would not be a primary concern for the vast majority of buyers.

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[ShadowsPapa]

Well 8th might not exist at all with a tow mode. Depends on what kind, some are engineered to shorten shifts and some just simply lock out O/D. This thing kind of does both. It’s not perfect, but it adapts really quickly from what I’ve experienced, though I haven’t touched the weight youre pulling. My boat is only about 2k fully loaded. But my gen 2 Titan for being rated at 9800 or whatever was awful compared to the Jeep. Also why they only offered the 7spd tranny for like 2 years before dumping it for a 9. That and I think it had 2.93 gears in it with a tow package. Much better at deadening rough roads but probably more because of the total truck size and weight than anything.

I think I may have an understanding now of why my truck sucked so badly a year ago towing my trailer empty, maybe 1600 pounds tops - this is a GUESS, SPECULATION but here goes............
You and others say these sense and "auto adapt". That makes sense and it's what I heard way back in 2019. When I towed my car hauler to Omaha, it was only 1600 pounds. My bet is that it wasn't enough for it to sense the extra load - and didn't adapt but tried to keep shifting and running engine RPM as if the truck was towing nothing.

It WAS different with the car on trailer behind it yesterday. Not great as far as still wanting to keep the RPM down in the mid to upper teens on gentle slopes (as soon as you realized you were losing speed and tried to accelerate back up again - it all but lugged before it dropped out of 8th or 7th)
But it did hold gears longer and kept the RPM up higher - a lot higher. I was pleased to see it so often 2500 or above. I thought - THERE! Finally! That's where it should be running.
But with the empty trailer, it acted like there was nothing there and tried to keep the RPM way down and hunted so badly it was really stupid about it.
IMO, when there's this sort of load, 8th gear should disappear.
I believe 5th is high or direct and the top 3 are OD anyway - lock out 8th. You don't want to be towing 4800+ pounds and running 1500 - 1800 rpm. There's zero power, no torque there.

It's been 2 years since I towed with my Chevy - I'm trying hard to recall - how did that transmission do? How did that gutsy LS engine do? I seem to recall it did a lot of shifting on our highways, too. Not as bad, and it DID have a tow mode which made it better, but it wasn't without a lot of up and down, down and up, shifting.

Our ground here is hilly - head to I80 east of Altoona or Newton and watch the truck drivers struggle and constantly shift, etc. This ain't Colorado, but the constant up and down is a pain towing.
Looking back to when I had my Chevy, my MPG always jumped up at least 2 when I towed and got out of Iowa. I don't like Illinois roads but I was happier as mpg jumped and my Chevy stopped shifting so much.

 

[flsupraguy]

because the manual sucks.

Thank you for your logical contribution.....

 

[Benbean66]

I've towed a variety of weighed trailers, and there (at least in my personal observation) is definitely a point where the 8-speed recognizes a trailer and adapts it's shift points accordingly. Like @ShadowsPapa said above, I found it holds the rpms higher for a longer period of time between gears. I honestly love the Auto in my JT, and have my YJ or bike to run thru the gears if I feel the urge.

 

[ShadowsPapa]

I liken this 8 spd tranny to a 5 spd with a granny gear and 2 ODs. Driving from Albuquerque to Denver and back with the cruise set to 78 mph I rarely saw it hit 8th gear. There are a lot of gradient changes and only a few spots that were truly flat straight aways. 6th was the sweet spot and it would stay in 7th often enough on down hills when the cruise wasn't downshifting to slow it down and staight aways. But any slight uphill changes it would go right back to 6th.

Wouldn't that make 5th high or direct, and 3 OD gears - 6, 7 and 8th?
On the Overland, low isn't all that low but it does take off just fine with a load behind it. Doesn't take much at all to get away from a stop sign, or even out the end of my driveway after stopping - and it's uphill. So low is good on this. No issues going slow, no issues taking off.

I wish mine would rarely hit 8th. Hitting 8th on a slight grade with a trailer behind is just dumb.
That's what mine did - but not for long as it lost speed once it shifted up! That's just plain dumb - upshift, drop RPM to sub-2000 and then lose speed and have to downshift 2 gears?
That's what really got me - when it upshifted into 8th, every time it lost speed because there wasn't power to maintain speed on the slight grade, so down it went again as I had to press the throttle harder.

Over-all I think it will be fine.
---- But - I ever find a device to lock out 8th while towing, I'll be looking very closely at it.
Manual mode is better.

This truck DEFINITELY won't be towing over 65 mph. I had trouble even getting to 70 with it. But it did fine at 65 as long as the PCM kept it out of the higher gears.

 

[MrJeep]

I'm calling shenanigans on his claim that the JT automatically adapts.

I thought it was BS too but after towing several different weight trailers and putting 25k miles on the thing I absolutely think the Jeep can "tell" when something is back there. I hooked up a 1000# utility trailer and it "changed things" oh so slightly and then I loaded it and it changed things again.
It's really not hard; they should have been doing it years ago. Computer thoughts: "Hey, I'm not on a hill and it is taking 1 second longer to get to 30mph at 25% throttle. Oh, there must be something back there. Adjust shift points to regain part of that second."

Also, as an aside the '05-06 TJ 6 speed was a sweeeet shifting tranny even if it is not as durable as the 5 speed in my '04.

It's funny I prefer manuals for off roading and autos for towing.

 

[red/green hawk]

Wouldn't that make 5th high or direct, and 3 OD gears - 6, 7 and 8th?

PO-TAY-TO, PO-TAW-TO
TO-MAY-TO, TO-MAW-TO
You know what I mean...i think I would leave it in 6th while towing and shift to 7th occsisionally if even at all. My old Chevy 1500 work truck was a 4 speed auto but essentially a 3 speed with OD. I never put it in OD when towing.

 

[ShadowsPapa]

PO-TAY-TO, PO-TAW-TO
TO-MAY-TO, TO-MAW-TO
You know what I mean...i think I would leave it in 6th while towing and shift to 7th occsisionally if even at all. My old Chevy 1500 work truck was a 4 speed auto but essentially a 3 speed with OD. I never put it in OD when towing.

As I recall, my F250 automatic tow mode blocked the OD gear(s)
The Silverado modified shifting (and turn signal lane change flash numbers from 3 to 5 as did the Ford)

Mine seemed pretty happy in 6th. RPM was up, and it could actually keep or gain speed on mild hills.
Most JT owners here have the 4.10 ratio - I have the 3.73 ratio which right out of the gate isn't the best when coupled with the 8th gear in the automatic

Here's something I'll be watching closely next month, about 2-3 weeks from now - my mpg dropped, but wasn't as much of a drop as expected. Hmmmmm.

 

[ShadowsPapa]

I thought it was BS too but after towing several different weight trailers and putting 25k miles on the thing I absolutely think the Jeep can "tell" when something is back there. I hooked up a 1000# utility trailer and it "changed things" oh so slightly and then I loaded it and it changed things again.
It's really not hard; they should have been doing it years ago. Computer thoughts: "Hey, I'm not on a hill and it is taking 1 second longer to get to 30mph at 25% throttle. Oh, there must be something back there. Adjust shift points to regain part of that second."

Also, as an aside the '05-06 TJ 6 speed was a sweeeet shifting tranny even if it is not as durable as the 5 speed in my '04.

It's funny I prefer manuals for off roading and autos for towing.

Mine definitely changed. I'd say it was BETTER towing ~4800 pounds than it was towing 1600 pounds in 2020. May sound weird, but if I had to get my trailer somewhere far away, I'd want a load on it! The truck would do better.

 

[MrJeep]

Mine definitely changed. I'd say it was BETTER towing ~4800 pounds than it was towing 1600 pounds in 2020. May sound weird, but if I had to get my trailer somewhere far away, I'd want a load on it! The truck would do better.

Very interesting. Maybe this algorithm is the source of your problems! Have you tried a throttle controller? I may have asked you this before.

 

[ShadowsPapa]

Very interesting. Maybe this algorithm is the source of your problems! Have you tried a throttle controller? I may have asked you this before.

I have not tried one. It's tempting but didn't want to spend the money on something that's just a "maybe" thing.
It doesn't respond well to foot input - a lot of lag and yesterday I had to do a lot of pushing to get it to "giddyup" LOL.

I guess I'm used to things breaking tires loose when my foot just twitches.

 

[LostWoods]

Most manuals nowadays are pretty weak units. Auto manufacturers haven’t put any R&D into them at all, and they have done all kinds of work on auto transmissions. Used to be you’d expect several mpgs higher on a manual 5spd trans over an auto 4 or 5spd even with OD, and that’s not the case anymore. Almost every car made now is rated for less mpgs w/manual vs the auto. There was a good article I read somewhere about why the gladiator doesn’t have a tow/haul mode and it essentially breaks it down that the auto trans is so good with gearing and so adaptable it doesn’t need a special mode, it just does it. After towing with mine, I have been exceptionally impressed even vs the Titan I came from which did have tow/haul but still made questionable shifts.

Toyota didn't half ass it with the Tacoma... still gets the full 6,500# rating and it tows a hell of a lot better than the AT does.

Jeep's problem is that they needed a short unit to avoid crazy driveline angles in the JL and stronger units like the Tacoma's RC62F (also Aisin like the Jeep box) are generally too long. It's a compromise that is acceptable in a vehicle that has a GCWR of under 10k and why the manual JT has little towing capacity over the JLU. Adding 40% more to the JLU's GVWR is just too much stress for the transmission.

 

[ColoFreeJeeper]

...Also, as an aside the '05-06 TJ 6 speed was a sweeeet shifting tranny even if it is not as durable as the 5 speed in my '04.

It's funny I prefer manuals for off roading and autos for towing.

That's exactly why I have an NSG-370 in my '05 TJ and the 850RE in my '21 JT.

 

[arneb04]

Toyota didn't half ass it with the Tacoma... still gets the full 6,500# rating and it tows a hell of a lot better than the AT does.

Jeep's problem is that they needed a short unit to avoid crazy driveline angles in the JL and stronger units like the Tacoma's RC62F (also Aisin like the Jeep box) are generally too long. It's a compromise that is acceptable in a vehicle that has a GCWR of under 10k and why the manual JT has little towing capacity over the JLU. Adding 40% more to the JLU's GVWR is just too much stress for the transmission.

They might have half assed it a little bit with the smaller, weaker engine that still gets worse fuel economy somehow. Just because the trans and suspension can handle more doesn’t mean it’ll do it any better. Still a midsize.

 

[LostWoods]

They might have half assed it a little bit with the smaller, weaker engine that still gets worse fuel economy somehow. Just because the trans and suspension can handle more doesn’t mean it’ll do it any better. Still a midsize.

I'm not sure I get your point here. They're all midsize and that will always limit towing. The point is that Toyota selected a box that was designed for the application whereas Jeep compromised. I've towed heavy (relatively speaking) with both and while neither are a super duty, the Tacoma and Gladiator both tow in the 6k range just fine.

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