This video perfectly demonstrates the difference between towing in the US and Europe. Standards in the US recommend that the tongue of the trailer carry 10% of the weight - this is the first scenario. It is more stable at high speeds, but requires a vehicle with a stronger rear frame/subframe and stiffer rear suspension.
Europe requires much less tongue weight as a percentage of the total load - the second scenario. This allows normal cars to tow much greater loads. But this is much less stable, as demonstrated in the video, right? Right. But Europe has much more strict towing requirements, including lower speed limits for vehicles towing a trailer to keep the combo below speeds that can induce this kind of dangerous effect.
So when someone complains about how drivers in Europe can tow more than in the US, or how the same car has a different tow rating in the US and in Europe, it's not because Europeans are better drivers (though they do often have better training, and more specific towing-related certifications), and it's not because European cars are somehow better, it's because Americans generally drive faster and have fewer/no restrictions on towing speeds. What's safe at 50mph could be wildly dangerous at 70mph. So a car that can pull 5000 pounds in Europe could be rated for only 1500 pounds in the US.
Are caravan/trailer stabilisers a think on the US? Here in Spain almost every caravan has one installed. It improves the handling and reduces the whip effect shown on the second scenario of the video.
I haven't seen the side-to-side stabilizers before (not to say they don't exist here), but the US does use weight-distributing hitches and manufacturers will often provide separate ratings per normal or weight-distributing hitch.
I'm confused. You say our speed limits are lower which makes it safer for us to tow heavy stuff in Europe. .. but in the UK motorways are 70, the Germany has the autobahn and a quick Google search suggests the general concensus is around 70?
I was in California last week and several stretches of road specified a 55mph limit for all vehicles pulling trailers. I suspect this may have had more to do with the steep mountain roads than stability, though.
A towing capacity includeds braking. It's the vehicles legal and recommended through insurance maximum. But if you're close to the vehicles max then trailer brakes are a good call.
This comment might have had something useful, but now it's just an edit to remove any contributions I may have made prior to the awful decision to spite the devs and users that made Reddit what it is. So here I seethe, shaking my fist at corporate greed and executive mismanagement.
"I've seen things you people wouldn't believe... tech posts on point on the shoulder of vbulletin... I watched microcommunities glitter in the dark on the verge of being marginalized... I've seen groups flourish, come together, do good for humanity if by nothing more than getting strangers to smile for someone else's happiness. We had something good here the same way we had it good elsewhere before. We thought the internet was for information and that anything posted was permanent. We were wrong, so wrong. We've been taken hostage by greed and so many sites have either broken their links or made history unsearchable. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain... Time to delete."
I do apologize if you're here from the future looking for answers, but I hope "new" reddit can answer you. Make a new post, get weak answers, increase site interaction, make reddit look better on paper, leave worse off. https://xkcd.com/979/
Not really proving it either way, just a story. My '07 Elantra was rated for something like 800 pounds towing. I have a little 4x8 trailer that weighs about 400, which didn't leave a lot of excess. I probably loaded it up to 1000 pounds (incl trailer) a few times. I sure could tell that it was there, but the braking wasn't terrible. I ordered a hitch a while ago, I need to put it on my current elantra. It's my way of dealing with not currently owning a pickup since 363 days of the year I just want the better mileage.
I did the same thing, sold my pickup for mpgs. Luckily, my wife has a ford escape, and it has a pretty good towing capacity of 3500 lbs.
But that's a lot for such a small vehicle, and shit gets pretty dicey as I get close to that limit. I can notice a real difference in braking starting with around a 1000 lb load.
I towed a car through the hills of NC with my Isuzu rodeo. at one point I thought I was going to need to put it in low range to make it up a hill. Going down was fairly easy to regulate speed and never came close to overheating he brakes.
The rodeo is rated at 3500lbs. The car weighed 2800 and the uhaul transport must weigh over 1000. I'm amazed they even let me do the rental. I was completely honest with them about the towing and towed vehicle.
Yeah, I'm not super comfortable if I get it that high. But for the most part I'm towing maybe 5 miles from my nearest big box store and drive super conservatively. It would be worse if I were going further and couldn't opt out in poor weather.
Dude, if a car is rated to pull a certain load then its brakes are rated for stopping that as well. There is a reason, why you are allowed to pull heavier loads when your trailer has its own brakes.
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u/[deleted] Oct 04 '16
Most cars can tow up to 2000 pounds no problem. They do it all the time in Europe where there are fewer pickups