What do you tow with, and do you use a WD-Hitch?

[marc515]

When in doubt or just unsure as to what your towing requirements are, consider reading:

Before You Buy That RV, Truck or Other Tow Vehicle
Your guide to matching any tow vehicle to any towable.

Good site, and I believe if many of the folks towing with small SUV's plugged in their numbers, they would see they are over the safe towing capacities.

 

[FoCoNoCo]

Twoing with a small SUV/Minivan with a 3,500LB tow capacity is only borderline safe at best.

Our MPG-181 has a dry weight of 2,820 Lbs, and GVWR of 3,800 Lbs. While we may not load to the 3.800Lbs, (close guesstimate is 3,400Lbs) I would venture to say most of us are well on our way there. Stuff adds up.

I read in some tow guide that the tow capacity is computed with a 150Lb driver, and once you add passengers and cargo, the tow capacity goes down. There are sites that have spread sheets where you put in your vehicle and trailer weights, and it will compute what is safe. When I entered the data on 3,500Lb and 5,000Lb vehicles, we were over the capacity on the 3,500 vehicle, and boarderline on the 5,000 vehicle. **For calculations purposes I used myself, my wife, our dog, 300Lbs of cargo in the tow vehicle, and the 3,800 GVWR of the MPG. So you can see that in our case, a tow vehicle with a 3,500LB towing capacity now has about a 2,920Lb towing capacity; add on a 60Lb WDH, and we are now at 2,860Lbs towing capacity for our 3,400Lb trailer.

**Someone please chime in if my tow capacities are incorrect

So we ended up with a vehicle with a 6,000Lb tow capacity, and I now feel relatively safe.

These small trailer manufactruers are misleading folks when thay indicate smaller vehicles can tow these trailers. Yes they can tow, but pushing the capacity limits is not the safest thing to do.

In most manufacturer's tow ratings, this is correct, but not always. Toyota minivans are not rated this way. The safest way to figure the tow rating for them is to get an accurate weight of the van loaded, subtract that amount from the listed GCVWR, and that leaves the total allowable weight for towing, provided it does not exceed the 3500 lb limit, and hitch weight remains below 500 lbs for WD, or 350 weight carrying. Regardless, the tow capacity is pretty low. So realistically, you could very well end up with only a 2500 lb towing limit. The major problem with the minivans that I have found that the load capacity is generally so low, that you are severely limited in hitch weight as well....

 

[kb0zke]

I thought I'd look up my Mountaineer on the chart, but it isn't listed. Looks like only pickups are listed.

 

[DW_Gray]

I thought I'd look up my Mountaineer on the chart, but it isn't listed. Looks like only pickups are listed.

At the bottom of the page are other resources. I think you'll find what you're looking for from that list.

 

[Tumblebug]

This looks easy to use to obtain tow data of various vehicles.

http://www.campinglife.com/tow-ratings-database/

JD

 

[DW_Gray]

This looks easy to use to obtain tow data of various vehicles.

http://www.campinglife.com/tow-ratings-database/

JD

I looked at that site last week. It's alright but is still not as comprehensive and accurate as the information provided by the vehicle manufactures. Example, I looked up two trucks that I new the data for and in both cases, the info was slightly off when compared to the manufactures published data. It appears that Camping Life uses the same database that I have listed in my Other Resources list, "Searchable Database of Tow Ratings" and is provided by Ford. The other problem with both of these is the maximum trailer weight limits out at 17,500. There are a lot of trailers that have GVWR more than that.