I’ve seen a truck commercial lately that I just don’t believe. My roommate tells me that it’s possible.
A 6000 lb. dead weight drops off a cliff and a truck (non commercial) stops it from falling. Wouldn’t the force of the 6000 lbs. falling pull the truck over the cliff too? Are the brakes on a truck THAT good?
I haven’t seen the commercial so I’m missing some details, but the brakes are probably plenty good enough.
But this is a little bit of a trick, like the guy lying on the bed of needles. It creates a sensational presentation but really isn’t that big a deal.
I haven’t done the math but it depends on how far the load falls. Braking distance is significant for a moving vehicle, but a vehicle that is already stopped with its brakes on is going to experience friction failure where the rubber meets the road, not in the brakes.
So if the truck is stopped, then the weight falls, those brakes are going to hold. The question is, will the tires hold? My guess is also that the tires slip before the frame deforms, but that’s a WAG.
I’ve seen the spot twice. I didn’t read the fine print, but I caught a glimpse of a big framework and maybe a crane. In other words, the truck was only part of what raised the container. When the container reached the level of the road, it continued to rise straight up before falling to the road. That’s hard to explain, if it’s being pulled only by the truck. If a cable runs to the truck from an elevated pulley, it would pull the truck up, and it would have no traction.
I’m not saying it’s entirely fake, but there’s more than meets the eye.
I saw the commercial, and moreso, I bought the truck because of it!
First- the fine print - the fine print on the commercail does not specifiy any conditions or speical features - just a stock Toyota Tundra 5.7 with the 4WD.
Second - the one part of the commercial that is a little rigged… its not a ‘true’ free fall… the container is held in place at the end by a crane with cables - which means it only starts to fall when let loose… it’s on reasonably tight cables.
The commercial isnt about stopping the thing from falling, its about pulling it back up the hill.
As near as I can tell, once the crane lets go, it;s all truck - one neat feature about the Tundra’s is the new anti-slip stuff they put in… they designed its braking system to ensure that you don’t do alot of sliding… so once the truck gets a grip on the pavement, it’s going to pull. The container will go straight up till it hits the point that it can pivot and fall forward.
One thing I like about the new Tundra commercials - while they do say ‘proffesional driver, do not attempt’ - they do also say “actual demonstration”, and i have yet to find any info on the interweb that would make them appear to be rigged… (unlike the Ford commercials where there was significant CGI involved).
Thanks Dopers!
**simster ** - do you really hall heavy stuff regularly?
Wasn’t this one of Toyota’s “ACTUAL DEMONSTRATION” commercials?
“heavy” is relative… I do tow a 20’ bass boat every chance I get… that’s probably between 4-5k pounds all loaded up…
yes, it is.
Haul is spelled h-a-u-l.
I’m not always an idiot!
It’s crap. The curb weight of the a tundra is 5220 lbs (link). Add in a driver and that gets you to 5400. The coefficient of friction for a tire on cement is a maximum of 1.2, but a traveled roadway is between .6 and .8. I don’t know what the coefficient of friction for the rock they used, but I’d wager it’s less than traveled concrete. Using a coefficient of friction of .8 the maximum the truck can hold up is 4320 lbs.
Here is a “making of” the commercial. It looks like they used two tricks. The first is that they had a metal grate under the tires. This probably increased the coefficient of friction above 1. The second is that the load was attached at an angle. This caused the load to pull down on the truck increasing the normal forces on the tires, and thus increasing the friction available.
While not wanting to debate - the point of the commercial is pulling the dead wieght up… Nothing special about the truck itself (no extra weight in the bed, not special tires, not a special engine, etc…) At the beginning of the “test”, the truck is pulled backwards until it gets traction… yeah, the contraption they are on aids in that, but I’d hate to see what any other truck would do under the same circumstances.
So, decidedly not “crap” - maybe not entirely ‘real world’, but then most commercails and demonstrations are not… but it is a fair representation of the power the truck has… and the extra weight pulling down on the backend of the truck also helps to prove that the frame, springs, etc can handle such a load.
There had to be something special going on. A 6000 pound load pulling on a 5500 pound truck is going to pull it over the edge unless there is something fishy going on with the tire/ground interface that bumps the coefficient of friction over 1.
Why do you think it would do any worse?
Much the same, given the same weight and tires. Why would there be a difference? It’s good that you like your Toyota, but don’t attribute special qualities to it. :dubious:
The power is comparable with offerings from Nissan, GM, and Ford, and I mean baseline V8 trucks, not super-duty types of things. Notice I mention Nissan – I’m not trying to be some redneck here ;). As far as handling the load, I can’t say. It’s fine to see it handle the load one time; I’d be interested to know how it handles the load 1,000 times. I’ve gotta be on your side of the court, though, if you compare it with, say, a Honda Ridgeline!
Well one of these these would easily tow that load.
Or go get one of these and you could put the Toy truck inside the container and haul it up over the side.
This really isn’t that impressive a demo.
I want to come back to this for just a second…
Keep in mind that I do tow a bass boat, estimated at 4500 pounds (trailer, stuff, gas, fully loaded) - and regularly pull it up 30-45 degree inclines, and those are concrete and wet at the bottom much of the time. (if not muddy or worse)
I’ve towed that load out with my (former) Dodge Dakota - a much smaller truck… I have no reason to believe that any portion of the commercial in question is faked or rigged… If they had done a true free fall with the load? oh yeah, that babys going over the cliff… but they didn’t.
Certianly, the contraption they are on adds to the abiltiy for the truck to get traction, and in this kind of situation - keeping the front of the truck on the ground and not blowing the rear suspension, traction will then be the key to getting that load up and over.
Are the cables probably guided so as not to catch on anything? Sure… hell, I wouldn;t be surprised if they were riding on a pully (or rolled edge) to help eliminate any added friction of the cables going over a sharp edge. If you notice, they have the wieght fully free of the cliff… makes it a little easier, also, there is alot of cable between the back of the truck and the front of the container.
But none of those take away from the truck doing the work… and until I see evidence that the truck used wasn’t stock, I have no reason to believe it isn’t.
Why do I beleive other trucks would not fare as well? Because so far, none have done this kind of demonstration… certainly, most other 1/2 ton pickups out there will do what the Tundra can do on a daily basis - towing loads, etc - but from my research into the way Toyota engineered this particular model, they over engineered a great deal of it to handle things better and longer. The Tundra comes stock with the right gearing to do the 10K tow rating, and that is 20 percent better than anything else out there (in the 1/2 ton range - think 1500 series, the titans, F150, etc), couple that with an engine that has almost 400 horses stock - and you’ve gotta hell of a truck compared to the other guys.
This comes from a long time Dodge man - I did not think I would ever buy a Toyota!
Yeah, I’ve drank the kool-aid, but I did the research to atleast compare the claims… I too am interested in how the truck fairs over the next 5-6 seasons, if
Not that I intend to throw my boat off a cliff to prove them right, or anything.
The SuperDuty sure, but that is a dually and not comparing apples to apples… the F150, which is closer could probably do it as well… but they havent demonstrated it.
The question is wether or not the truck in question could do it, and wehter or not the demo is in anyway enhanced…
Sorry but bullshit.
You made a stupid comment
(bolding and underlining mine)
You put no conditions on your statement. I showed you that other trucks could easily preform the same task. In the case of the Super Duty you could pull the Toyota and and the cargo container. Or two Toyota trucks and the cargo container. I am willing to bet that if I went to the Chevy website, I would find the similar capabilities.
If you think this task is that difficult go back and freeze the video at the end where they explain what a drawbar pull is.
You’re looking for an argument and I am not going to give it to you…
Similar capabilities, sure, but go to the JD Power and compare apples to apples, you’ll find that the Tundra has all of them beat in the specs… and I did not say you wouldn’t find “similar” capabilities… and I also agreed with you that the “super duty” dually would easily do it the same demo.
I never said that it was a difficult task, I was simply answering the OP’s question as to wether or not the demo was realistic or not, wether or not the truck could do it as advertised.
Now, maybe this comment of mine:
was a little much, but you simply want to start an argument where none exists.
Have a good day.
I’m not looking for an argument, but if you make a stupid statement, you will get called on it around here. Fighting ignorance and all that.
Well if you want to know the truth about trucks you might look here and see what the actual parts look like under the skin.
Of course then again you might not. 
Of course no other company has done this type of demonstration because it doesn’t demonstrate jack. All it does is convince people who haven’t the slightest clue about vehicle performance to buy their trucks.
Ha! The steepest road in the US is 31.5 degrees, and boat launches are a good deal less than that. Unless you are going off-roading with your boat hooked up you aren’t going up a 45 degree slope.
I didn’t pay that much attention to the commercial, but it looked to me like they hoisted the box over the edge of the cliff with a crane. The truck then drove out on a special platform that has an end shaped like the top half of the letter H. This is important, because as long as the wheels of the truck are on the protruding “arms” of the platform, the box can’t pull the truck off of the cliff. The box pulls down on the truck, and the truck pushes down on the H shaped frame. All the truck has to do is not collapse under the weight of the box.
From there on out, the truck just has to pull the weight back up over the side. I suppose it does indicate a fair amount of towing capacity, but the whole cliff thing is a bit misleading (IMHO).
I don’t believe the crane did any of the lifting. The crane just lowered the box into place so it only dropped a very short distance once the crane let go.
Then again, I wasn’t watching very carefully so I could be wrong.