Posted: Jul 01 2004 at 9:03am | IP Logged

I had my first towing experience yesterday.  I picked up one of those cement mixer barrels that you rent to pour concrete.  The first load had 1 yd of concrete and not knowing how much it weighed I pushed the tow button on the dash (which is supposed to cause the transmission to shift earlier?) and took off.  I had no problems, and soon turned that button off.  My next load was 3/4 yrd of concrete with the same mixer.  I really didn't feel any drag when I was accelerating with the full load, but I was cautious about stopping and started applying the brakes a little earlier than normal. 

I was very please with the performance, and although it really wasn't much of a challange I did find that the turning radias when backing the concrete tub up was pretty wide compared to the Ranger that I sold to buy this truck.  Can't complain though, with size comes wider turning radias!

Stan

Central Calif

Posted: Jul 06 2004 at 11:28am | IP Logged

Overdrive is usually ok on cool days and flat land.  5th is overdrive so you dont want to use it if your climbing or if running in 110 degree weather.  If the manual states you can tow in overdrive I would be surprised - usually the frown upon it because of temp problems. 

Posted: Jul 09 2004 at 11:36pm | IP Logged

First, let me say that I am a pretty big fan of Nissan products.  I owned an Infiniti Q45 that I drove like crazy and traded in on an Altima.  I found it to be underpowered for my taste and traded it in on a 350Z roadster that I just love.  Based on that experience, I bought the Titan SE crewcab with the Offroad package and various options.  This is where my troubles with Nissan began.

I wanted to be able to tow my 27' Jayco trailer which the gross weight is max at 7500.  I had it at about 6500.  I broke in the truck for the first 500 miles and put the trailer on the back and towed it 400 miles driving between 50 and 60 miles per hour.  I got home, and the rear end was whining at freeway speeds.  Sure enough, the rear end had burned out.   Once the dealer was able to find the part number (wierd story there), it was installed and my truck given back to me.  After about another week, I noticed an odd 'clunk' when coming to a stop and taking off.  I took it back to the dealer who acknowledged the problem and gave me another loaner while we tried to figure out how to get me a new truck.  I needed to break in the loaner to tow for the 4th of July and after towing it about 300 miles, you guessed it, the clunk was now in the loaner truck.  I told my dealer that this truck model isn't right for me and they thanked me for my patience and promised to make it right.  Well, they boned me, but that's another story.  I just traded it in on a Dodge Ram 2500 with the Cummins Turbo Diesel.

My $0.02 here is that if you are towing a couple of jetski's this should be a great truck.  But anything more than that and I'd have no faith in it whatsoever.

Other problems:  Poor radio reception, power windows did not work smoothly, power driver's seat did not work smoothly, CD player skipped over light roads.

On the positive, the truck has tons of power is very peppy and my wife liked to drive it.  Nice little features like the little cubby in the side of the bed and all the overhead compartments.

Overall, I'm probably done with Nissan.  Maybe I'll be back.  I love my Z, but there's some pretty scary stuff about them on other discussion groups.

Posted: Jul 13 2004 at 9:37am | IP Logged

Doesn't add up. Do you have a crew or a king cab with or with out the tow package?

What model and year of camper do you have? I looked on Jayco web page and looks like they are ~7,000lbs empty with a gross weigth of 8500lbs. Maybe you overload the truck and didn't realize it.

Posted: Jul 14 2004 at 4:26pm | IP Logged

Hi folks.  I'm definately not a veteran tower, so I'm open to the possibility of screwing it up myself.  I don't think this is the case though.  Here's a link to my trailer's specs.  From what I can see, it's unloaded weight is 4925 lbs with a max of 7500.  Like I said, the max I think I had it at is 6500 pounds.  My truck was a SE CC with the offroad package.  It's a '04 Jayco 27BH.  Here's the URL:

http://www.jayco.com/html/catalog/floorplans.php?prod_id=36& amp;mod_id=173