We're doing a long trip for the first time this summer, so I've been looking at a couple of things for the truck. It gets good gas mileage (20.5 towing), but is low on power on hills & mountains, so we just drive slower & wait for things to work. It's a 2007 with 80K miles on the clock, but has been maintained well since it was new. It's a plain vanilla model with cruise, stereo & basic stuff & a manual transmission. Here's what we're doing on the truck for a couple of long summer trips.
The rear suspension is a bit soft with the hitch, camper, coolers, water & other stuff for a longer trip, so I'm adding a set of the Firestone air bags to help level things a little at the rear end. On our recent trip to New Mexico, I noticed some "squatting" for the first time due to some extra stuff & weight, so the air bags will take care of that for us. The truck is rated at 1/2 ton & 3500# towing capacity. It won't take much air pressure to even things out & a small bicycle hand-pump is all that's needed for a shot of air to level the truck.
New tires; I'd run the old set over 50K miles & they were 6 years old. I got a set of good Michelin radials at Discount with a rebate card, so we have some new sneakers on all four corners. It always amazes me to see & feel the difference in ride, handling & steering when new tires go on a vehicle. Not sure if we will get a bump in mileage, but the ride is very smooth now. Biggest worry with the old tires was a load at highway speeds in the heat. The freeways around us are littered with blown tires from the heat in summer. No worries now so this is checked off the list.
Brakes; we still have the original brakes in place & they have about 35% of their life left, but I'm concerned about stopping power on hills at speed, so I did a bit of digging & found a good deal on some better rotors (slotted & drilled) & better pads. I was concerned about brake fade at high speeds, since the trailer doesn't have its own braking system. At some point I may change axles & do a brake setup on the trailer, but for now we're in good shape. Hopefully the new brakes will make stopping a bit safer & better.
That's about it for this summer towing season. Belts & soft parts were done at 60,000 miles, along with a brake system flush, coolant replacement & synthetic lube in the rear end & transmission. New filters were just done. The suspension looks to be good still, so no shocks are being done this year. Next year I'll probably do all four corners on those as well, but for now we're about ready to roll.
This trip will be from Tucson to Wyoming & the Dakotas. In August, Bonneville is planned, so there's a few thousand miles coming this summer.