The boat and trailer do not exceed 3,500 lbs, I’m sure, nor is the tongue weight anywhere near 350 lbs. So I had them install just the wiring harness and hitch ball, and I saved nearly $200.00. Knowledge is power. When I buy a camper, I’ll have the class III hitch installed then.

Kovachian:
I read the owner’s manual front to back for every vehicle I own. As you know, owner’s manuals contain everything you need to know about the vehicle, to include towing specs and bumper ratings. In fact, I’ve had to show the service writers at the dealership a few things in the manual. Again, knowledge is power.

Now if I can just get some time off of work to pull that boat to the lake!

Get real…

Tow bars come manufacturer-provided in Europe, or with strict instruction for aftermarket conversions on how to weld or bolt the tow point to the body hard points of the car. If it’s not done right, the car won’t pass the yearly inspections.

Also, there are strict regulations on how much you can tow with a regular driving license. In Sweden, the limit is a total weight of 3500 kg between car and trailer, and the trailer can not weigh more than the car. Pass that limit, and you need a special license for heavy trucks. You get caught with overloading, your license may be revoked on the spot.

I like the confidence of solid rig… Mainly tow with my 2002 Tahoe LT.. Full towing package including coolers.

Getting ready to install the tow behind rig on the RV. Going with a Roadmaster non-binding setup.

Also going with the US Gear active braking system to engage the power brakes on the towed vehicle. RV also has a tranny brake.

One thing to be young/dumb and see what works… Putting your whole family in an RV for a couple weeks and crossing a mountain here or there..
If something happens, I want to know that I didn’t go cheap…

Factoid.. My first car.. 1972 Sedan Deville.. 7.7L V8… could have towed a house…

Physics were definitely in favor of the truck… Like 300 to 1.

I am the safety chairman for my Airstream club unit, so I am very aware of trailering safety. I see plenty of trailers pass me at well above the tire rating speeds. A good number of them have either no sway controls installed or have the hitches set up wrong. Worst of all are those with a heavy trailer without a equalizer hitch, with their front tow vehicle tires barely on the ground or with an obviously inadequate tow vehicle.

Airstream now builds the same trailers in the US with the axles moved back to put about 12% on the hitch and making them less suitable for small tow vehicles.

If your vehicle will be towing a trailer, part of the load from your trailer will be transferred to your vehicle. Consult the manual for transporting a trailer to determine how this will reduce the available cargo and luggage load capacity of your vehicle.

The Cooper manual has the same info on page 87.

So, apparently hooking up a trailer is ok for a MINI. Actually, some of their dealers do sell and install trailer hitches.

I looked at the Airstream site and they sell lightweight trailers that are probably light enough like the “Basecamp”. It seems to be as light as the Clubman if I’m reading the specs correctly. Just don’t load it up to the GVWR. Supercharged engines have enough torque that you wouldn’t necessarily need the diesel.

Personally, I wouldn’t want to stress the car and would buy a tent and a roofbox instead. Besides, in a couple of months they’ll probably have a “Buy an Airstream, get a free Ram pickup” deal.

People who didn’t pay attention to that would do interesting things to their transmissions, causing the dealers to rate the allowed load much lower.

Manufacturers don’t like tows now, because it tends to ruin engines and gearboxes – people shoot along at high speeds, overloading the drivetrain, chewing up gears. And for this reason they’ll discourage tows, or state very low loads.

But here’s a nice tow:
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3121/3351377803_823776bec6.jpg?v=0

It was strong enough to drag my Cabrio (which outweighs it by 500 lbs) home from the shop after an A/C job went sideways.

I just don’t get it, but I am glad to have found the Volvo. I love the car, and I love that they have not fallen in with the rest of the conspirators. I damn sure did not want to buy a BMW, use it as it should be, then have somehting go wrong with the car. I know damn well the dealer would try and blame the towing. Just too much hassle.

Thanks for writing the article.

Yeah, the Panther’s tow rating mysteriously changed with the 1998 restyle at the height of SUV sales, was around 5,000 lbs towing and got downgraded to 1500 lbs at most IIRC. Although a handful of Panther fans over at Crownvic.net have towed in excess of that with better rear shocks and common sense. Anything to peddle a few more SUVs and a few less Panthers, eh?

England’s Practical Caravanning.uk gave the Subaru Forester XS it’s “Tow Car of the Year Award,” while over here, the whole idea of a tow car is out of fashion. Techs from both Subaru and Scamp warned me not to hitch them together, though the trailer weighs only 80% of my car’s 2,400-lb tow rating.

I didn’t listen, and now my trailer has ridden almost 4,000 miles in two years. It’s crossed the Continental Divide four times and roamed deepest Dixie during August. The car’s towing just over half its weight, but the temp needle has never risen a tick. I still don’t know what trailer sway feels like. I get a steady 18 mpg under tow, and my knuckles have remained pink all the way. And my 4-cylinder engine isn’t even a turbo! For me, that proves the British trailer site is right, but try to tell that to a man who’s finally found a use for his jumbo pickup truck.

This is a funny, rare case of a manufacturer sandbagging its own product, hiding its abilities in order to direct ustowards more profitable pickups and jumbo SUVs.

Just don’t try that again! Great story

They are when it comes to steering and breaking. Either one is going to take a week and a half to 60 with a trailer in tow.

The fictional low tow ratings of modern cars is just fine with me b/c I see too many folks who are not qualified to tow anything heavier than 500 lbs. Substandard equipment, driving entirely too fast, recklessness while towing. I’ll never forget being passed by two $250K motorhomes towing fullsized SUVs at 80+ mph on I-40. They couldn’t stop in a half-mile if something went wrong and they couldn’t swerve to miss anything either. Anything that big (commerical or private) ought to be restricted to 65 or slower. Any other vehicle towing anything – boat, camper or utility trailer ought to be limited to at least 10 mph below the posted speed limit as well.

One of our daily drivers is a ‘99 CR-V we bought new and it does fine up to the 1,500 lbs limit in the book. I generally use it to pull our $400 utility trailer to the hardware or appliance store. That’s maybe 500-600 lbs all together. I have hauled 500 lb motorcycles across the mountains to Chattanooga as well. I have pulled my stripped down ‘65 Beetle to ‘nooga and back (800 lbs tops on the Beetle). I even “rescued” a single mother we are freinds with who couldn’t afford a tow truck when her Chrysler Acclaim (what a POS!) broke down. I towed it on my tow-dolly for 50 miles at 50 mph with 5 people in the CR-V. It had plenty of power but like always the brakes are the main concern. They fade much two quickly. The hitch is the other. It is a heavy bracket bolted to a unibody panel (not frame). It’s not gone anywhere but I need to beef it up jsut for more safety margin.

Am anxious to get my ‘78 VW van back on the road. It has a REAL hitch and 110 Corvair HP.

When I got out of the Navy in VA in 1995 I owned a ‘65 Beetle (warmed over with a 2.0L engine, dual carbs, and 4 wheel disc brakes, lowered just slightly) and a ‘91 Hyundai.

I had traded for the a CR-X for the Hyundai just a month or so before and did not have the title yet so I could flip the Hyundai and make some cash.

Needed to get both cars home. Prob should have driven one car to TN, rode Greyhoud back up and driven the other car to TN. But no, that wouldn’t be exciting enough. I have a Euro-spec hitch for the Beetle that attaches to the rear torsion bar housing, the transmission forks, and the rear bumper. It would pull a house if a Beetle could pull a house. I also had a generic towbar that I mounted on the Hyundai. And 500 lbs of tools. And me. And 100 lbs personal items. And another 300 lbs of car parts. And a couple of cases of oil…

4000 lbs? 4500 lbs?

I was young and invincible, right?

I started south around dark. Beetle pulled the Hyundai just fine up to 60 mph with good cool engine temps, good oil pressure, and I actually got 25 mpg.

Brakes were good but b/c the Hyundai was heavier than the Beetle it quickly became obvious panic stops were not an option this night.

My plan was to miss the July heat and the other kind of Heat too. The kind that drives black and white Crown Vics. All was well until I reached Salem, VA on highway 58.

As I came over a hill I was greated by a DUI roadblock with at least 5 police cars and all their flashing blue lights. OH **** ****! ****! ****! ****! A lone police office was swinging his flash light this way and that to indicate I should slow down. If I could. The hill was steep.

With a firm foot on the brake, the other working the clutch and shifting down, I got stopped right in their hive -’er right in the middle of them and turned the engine off. A nice oily cloud mixed with the smell of hot brakes encircled us all. I should mention that somewhere along the way an unneeded (?) bolt fell out of the engine case that allowed oil to pour out onto the exhaust during acceleration and left turns. I used a bit more than a case of oil that night…

Anyhow, the officers began to circle the cars mumbling to each other and calling out violations. First the Hyundai had out of date plates. Then they noticed that the Beetle had Italian plates. Then my insurance was – well they quickly backed away from that one b/c it is was in Italian too. I had recently recieved the car from Italy where I was previously stationed. Went all the way to Italy and bought a former TN car!

The hitch was firmly attached to both cars but it looked bad. The Hyundai had running lights only (parking lights really with a single wire running from the Beetle to the Hyundai to keep the Hyundai battery charged). Jail would be my next stop I was certain. They wouldn’t even bother to list the violations. Who had that much time?

(marginal seatbelts in the Beetle, no horn, oil covered Hyundai, loose rear bumper, dubious safety chains, no brake lights on the Hyundai, interiors, full of apparent junk, loose tools..)

Finally the senior man came to my window and asked for my license. Not registration or insurance. He asked if I had been drinking. No sir I replied. I’m just a little touched in the head. (Didn’t really say that part). He told me to get on out of there and out of VA and not to come back with either of those cars.

(5 different brands of tires on the two cars, cracked tail light, gapping rust holes in non-structural parts of the Beetle, dubious seat belts, non-US spec headlights, noisy exhaust, bailing wire electrical system, no turn signals on the Hyundai, dubious windshield wipers….)

I thanked the officer, recieved my license, and mentally crossed my fingers before twisting the Beetle’s key. It roared (literally) to life instantly and I thanked all the heaven’s deities. Into first gear it went and began the long climb straight up and out of the valley. I imagined the officers swearing to each other they’d never mention me or my cars again.

I ran the engine up to what I imagined was max torque and shifted making enough noise for two or maybe three Beetles. The old girl had dual carbs, dual turbo muffler exhaust and no soundproofing and sounded much more impressive than she was. What did that engine have – 80 horsepower? 70 horsepower? 60 horsepower?

With nervous glances in the cracked side mirror I reassured myself that they weren’t chasing me to nail me with a list of moving violations as well as the violations they had on me when they inspected the car up close moments before.

The trip after that was long and uneventful until I got within 10 miles of my parent’s house around 6AM. This was the climb up Signal Mountain. Let’s just say that VW Beetle constant velocity joints are rated at something like 75 HP and about 4,000 lbs because mine started to seize and pop as I rounded some of those curves on the old road. A full sized conversion van started to pass me at one point where the road widens to two lanes. The van dropped back apparently to see if I could make the climb. I did (pop! snap! ruh-ruh-ruh pop!) and at the top they passed me with a half dozen thumbs up and cheering faces pressed near the glass. I was finally home.

20 minutes later I pulled into my parents’ driveway and my tired parents walked out to greet a weary newly minted civilian. The look on my mother’s face clearly told me she was considering sending me and my old cars back to the Navy.

I have visions of that old Hyundai sitting in someone’s back 40 acres – worn out and still rust free, it’s crevices and underside still coated with two cases of Havoline 10W-40 sprayed on with a 1965 Beetle. The Beetle is still with us, patiently sitting out in the shed, hopefully rejoining the traffic of Tennessee after a thorough restoration.

Worked perfectly fine, though the car itself was rubbish and probably not very safe. And it was quite slow even without the trailer, 0-100kph about 18secs with one person and a top speed somewhere around 140kph, but pulling a trailer you are limited to 80kph anyway. And i think the max you are normally allowed to tow is about 700kg without brakes, more if the trailer has brakes, but it really depends on the car.

A large RWD or 4WD car would obviously be better, but for occasional towing a normal FWD car works just fine. Pretty much the only people i see towing with any kind of SUV are people with horse trailers, but they probably tow quite a lot. And some of them just get something like a Subaru/Audi 4WD.

All semis, some buses and vans/trucks are only allowed to be driven at 80kph, and as far as i know semis are physically restricted to 90kph, which is interesting when one semi decides to pass another and you are stuck behind them for ten minutes..