Toyota Tundra see-saw ad

Wouldn't any street legal trailer of that size have to be?

The trailer was only around 5,000 lbs. Even my Frontier claims I can tow 5,000 lbs but Nissan does recommend the use of trailer brakes for any trailer over 1,000 lbs. I've towed a trailer over 5,000lb behind an Expedition with no trailer brakes, but I wouldn't want to try to go down a 45 degree ramp that way.

The whole deceptive Tundra ads debate played out a couple of months back. The see-saw ad is one of a series of misleading/deceptive Tundra ads. Another was the one where they ran the Tundra down a ramp out over a canyon - they masked out the tether used in that one. Or the 0 to 60 to 0 commercial where the voice over implies that the Tundra stopped much shorter than the other trucks. Actually the Tundra has no advantage in terms of stopping distances, but it did accelerate to 60 in a shorter distance, allowing it to start stopping sooner. The commercial was factually correct, but implied something that was not actually true.

Ed

So don't believe everything someone tells you, even if you saw it on TV.

But it was on TV it HAS to be right!

The trailer hauling the load is required under federal law to have its own brakes, having to state so in the fine print is a formality. Toyota did nothing wrong.

The GVWR is the truck, trailer, and the load -- including any load tht is physically in the truck, not just the load that is on the trailer. Toyota did nothing wrong.

Stopping -- gaining traction -- on grating is perhaps the easiest part of the commercial. The grates are on edge, and this offers a very high coeffecient of friction.

But, if it's on TV, or in the paper, or on the news, doesn't it have to be true?

Steve ;-)

I am still trying to find one of those revolvers that never needs to be reloaded!

ha ha ha , thats the best laugh I've had in days. The coeffeciant of friction is next to none on them damn things even when dry and brand new. Wet they are a skating rink.

Whitelightning

Actually you could get better traction on a grating by adding saw teeth on the vertical ends, which are not large enough to be visually detected.

R>

While your at it also get one that never misses even when your on a galloping horse 200 yards from your target!

Ron

If you do the math the Toyota has more drawbar/pulling power than ANY

1/2 truck out there regardless of tow ratings. (anything other models are rated to tow, it will pul it harder) Sometimes ads do not really show this. As far as break, once I loast brakes and a 20K plus grain trailer in town near a mill at low speed (about 15 MPH) and it pushed me like I was not even there in slow motion with all 4 tires locked up until it stopped which seemed like for ever. You can tow 5k without brakes as many do but you will not be able to stop it effectively in a hurry, especailly at speed especail with a short wheel based vehicle like a explorer.

----------------- TheSnoMan.com

On the flats side they are slick, but on edge, there are several sharp (not sharp as in knife) edges that are gripping the tire. And, when they make ramps like these, not only are the grates on edge, the edges are spiked to make traction even greater.

I agree completely that a flat metal ramp is slicker than snot, but when the metal is placed on edge, it gains rigidity and traction.

They do bridges that way, and untill you have had the pleasure, or pucker up and chew a hole in the seat experiance of a tractor's rear axles kicking out to side pulling 80,000 lbs gross , or the trailer kick to one side or the rear tractor axle kick out to one side when braking, dont yak at me on this. The damn things flat suck for traction. Thank god they dont use steel grating very often for bridge surfaces any more. and before experiancing that joy, I used ramps of that construction to unlaod trailers and trucks in the service at areas that didnt have loading docks. Even with a 4k or 6k lb forklift you had to be damn careful becuase if you hit the brakes to hard coming down, the tires would lock up and slide. Lift operators learned real fast better too slow everytime than one time too fast.

Whitelightning

From a strictly personal perspective, the steel gratings that I have had the "pleasure" of driving on differed greatly depending on age. The new ones had traction galore, those that had been in service for some time and driven on regularly were very slick. It has much to do with how many tires have driven over them and smoothed off the edges of the steel. It also varies greatly depending on the relative hardness of the tire compound, a soft tire on a new grate will have very good traction, to the point that it will try to shred a tire, older grates with hard compound tires will slide at an alarming rate.

YMMV

George

I found it.

Same here. I'll bet cleanliness counts too. Some have a nice oil & grease coating if traffic sits still on them.

I've ridden bicycles over lots of them and seen a wide variety of traction. Think a slippery grate is scary in a truck? Try the slippery, slightly downsloped examples on a 25 MPH bicycle with a car

20-30 feet behind.

On the bike, I can even see a huge difference were the tires usually travel and where they don't.