People ask me why I drive a big American truck.   "Because I am a big American" is what I tell them. 

VW 2008 diesel Jetta has a curb weight of 3100 lbs. Axle rating is 2100 lbs front and rear - combined equaling 4200 lbs carrying weight. Five passenger sedans are often 1000+ lbs carrying weight since they will carry five people and their stuff in the trunk. (This is far more likely scenario for auto manufacturers and a liability risk they have to deal with.) Put 500 lbs on a well built and dialed in WDH, leaves 600 lbs for a couple and two small kids in the Jetta. 

I don’t expect to convince full-size pickup owners…just giving everyone else something to consider before they take out a second mortgage.

Impressive, yes, but obviously a marketing ploy. I can see how the conversation goes:

Customer, "What type of tow vehicle do we need to pull one of the tandem Airstreams?"

Dealer, "Well, we deliver all of our trailers with a VW Jetta"

There is a an Airstream dealer in Canada that tows up to 26 foot dual axle trailers with a 2008 diesel VW Jetta. Car is stock front wheel drive but they built a custom hitch receiver and use higher load rated tires. They have over 135,000 miles on it of which more than 75,000 miles towing and delivering trailers with no issues. The dealers towing videos claim the Jetta’s lower center of gravity along with a properly setup WDH make it handle better during sudden evasive maneuvers compared to a full size pick up. Interesting perspective on real world towing. Of course these are empty trailers and only one driver, but still impressive.

I am making a case for diesels in general.  

For the $10k premium in cost, they last 2.5 times as long as a gas truck. 

They out pull everything else. 

They get better mileage. 

I can sleep in the back. 

I get 22 mpg around the valley and about 13 mpg pulling a big heavy trailer.  I expect about 17 mpg pulling the rpod. 

I don't want to drive a big vehicle for the majority of time that I'm not towing.

+1

The premium for the (short lived) diesel F150 was outrageous, and the 3.5L EcoBoost pulls like a diesel anyway, and is a much nicer driving power train too. In fact, IMO, I think the 2.7L EcoBoost is more than enough to pull an Rpod, and even some TTs a bit larger.

People usually go with what they got. If I was a full time RVer, I may consider a diesel, but aside from that, I have zero use for a diesel when my F150 will do everything I need it to do. Plus I don't own a 29' camper, either.

I will never understand people that want to pull with just enough truck. 

For 8 years we towed our 2011 177 with a couple different front wheel drive Explorers ('08and '13).  We usually boondock and carried the full 36 gallons of water (tank behind axle).  Fully loaded with water and supplies for a 30 day journey, weight of the 177 was 2940 lbs.  Keeping the tongue weight above 10% is critical to eliminate sway, which we did - tongue weight is 340 well above 11% of the 177.  We did utilize a friction bar which certainly helped as we have driven through blizzards, heavy snow, sleet, hail, heavy rain and cross winds in excess of 20 mph without incidents.  Mileage averaged 12 with both vehicles, and that includes a lot of driving in and throughout the Rockies.  The last 6 years, same setup but with a couple different F-150's - nice ride and again, no incidents.

OTOH, our 2015 F150 with the 3.5L EcoBoost and the 36 gallon gas tank can go all day long (or 400+ miles anyway) without a refill, and the EcoBoost laughs at 8,000 foot elevation.

Just to give you a data point, we pulled a 179 with a 2015 Nissan Frontier with a 4.0L engine for about 50K miles. While the Nissan was up to the task, it did struggle in hills and spent a lot of its time in 3rd gear. We were limited by overall payload capacity and worse, range due to a smallish gas tank. We got somewhere between 9 and 12mpg, it seemed we were always hunting for a gas station, sometime after only 150 miles! At the time we lived in Albuquerque, NM and if we wanted to go anywhere, we had to deal with hills and wind. Things were a little better on the flats, but no matter, we stayed between 60-65mph. We used a Fastway E2 weight distribution hitch with built in anti-sway. 

Your Tacoma has one big thing going for it, it is a body on frame vehicle. I know folks swear that unibody vehicles work just fine, but I'm old school that way. 

Good luck and safe travels.

Absolutely, i agree, I have no intention on pushing it, speed wise or otherwise.  No liquids in the RPOD (due to weight) and I'm more and more inclined to move over and let others race down the highway.  I'm looking to replace an old small ranger (in my small fleet of vehicles) with an 2010 Tacoma. The Tacoma has a larger 6 cylinder (than the Highlander).  I'm thinking i may put a hitch on it, e brakes & a trans cooler to see if it'll pull the 179 better than the Highlander.

Happy trails.