The truck you use for towing needs to be mechanically sound. If you’re having to go through the effort of repairing the transmission in your truck, it might be a good idea to upgrade what’s inside to make it last longer. To do that, you need to make sure you have a few key parameters addressed within the transmission. We spoke to Irvin Gers from Raybestos Powertrain and he was gracious enough to provide some insight as to why you would want to upgrade your transmission’s internal parts for a tow vehicle.

When you got your truck from the manufacturer of your choice, it already has a transmission they deem sufficient for towing. These OE-built transmissions are designed to adequately deal with the rigors of pulling a load in most conditions, but they still have their limits.

Gers explains just how towing can affect your truck’s transmission.

“The weight of the trailer determines how much stress the trailer exhibits on the vehicle. Usually, a trailer loaded with a vehicle can cause the temperature to rise in the tow vehicle’s automatic transmission. Also, the trailer can present additional stresses on the friction clutches in the tow vehicle’s automatic transmission. The amount of temperature rise and the amount of additional stress depends on the tow weight of the trailer.”

Aftermarket transmission parts and accessories are designed to help your transmission deal with the stress towing can put on it. These parts add both strength and durability to your transmission, and there are different options available, depending on what you drive or what you’re towing. A simple heat control device like a transmission cooler could be enough to make your transmission last for a long time while towing. If you’re towing heavy loads over many miles, you might want to upgrade the clutch packs inside the transmission with ones that are made of a performance friction material to deal with the heat and stress of towing.

Raybestos makes all kinds of transmission parts for just about any high-performance application you can think of. The company has taken that knowledge and used it to develop parts for truck transmissions to make them certified beasts that specialize in towing almost anything.

“Raybestos has a line of GPZ friction plates. The GPZ materials are designed to handle heat and stress much better than a stock friction material. We choose which clutch pack needs what material depending on how the clutch pack is used in the transmission, and what kind of heat and stress it may be subject to,” Gers says.

You can check out all the transmission parts options Raybestos Powertrain has for your truck right here on the company’s website.