Towing with Highlander

Ringo

Crew Member
My buddy is planning to tow his 4,000lb boat (wet weight, all in) up the Coquihala and to the Okanagan on his 2016 Toyota Highlander v6. The car has a towing package and is rated for 5,000lb. He’ll be travelling with his kids in the car so I warned him of the hot summer days and the horror stories of towing up the Coq in hot and long summer days and suggested he might be better off with renting a truck just for towing the boat and get his wife and kids to travel in the suv. Not sure if this was just too conservative but is a highlander really capable of safely getting them up the Coq and down to the valley with that size of load in the tow?
 
Just my 2 bits, but I think he could have potential overheat problems.
nothing worse than being broke down on the side of the highway with a young family.
 
He will definitely be maxing it out with passengers in vehicle. That is challenging terrain for that setup.
 
Definitely worth warning him. Hopefully, he'll travel dry at least and fill up with gas and beer at his destination. I've done first aid on a flipped travel trailer/suv setup and wasn't fun patching over a kids eye on the side of the highway. Kids have changed everything for me and travel on our highways. Overheat on the way up and ruin the brakes and stopping distance on the way down, yikes!
 
Traveling at night will also help, temperatures will be lower.
 
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