On Thu, 03 Apr 2008 06:57:24 -0500, "Pete C."
wrote:
"Bruce L. Bergman" wrote:

lot of good stuff snipped

The executive summary: Towing with most any *car* is risky at best,
especially in these days where high MPG numbers mean no safety margins
in the design for towing loads.

The response - yes, if you plan to go to the local Dragstrip and
make 1/4-mile trap runs with the trailer attached.

With small cars and the necessarily small trailers that are all they
can handle, you have to consciously take it easy on the equipment.

If your average car broke that easily with no or little passenger
load and a full trailer, they wouldn't last long with the same weight
carried as 5 passengers and a trunk stuffed with luggage, either. And
people would be making valid warranty claims if the car couldn't carry
the rated passenger and cargo load.

The weight loads are roughly the same, the only difference being
where it is stowed. Yet the car makers have the balls to say you can
carry four passengers and 1000# of luggage, but you can not tow a
trailer with the same load.


How to drive a car the right way:

There's an apocryphal story about Ivan Ironman Stewart and a manual
transmission Class 8 Toyota race truck in the old Baja 1000, where he
felt 2nd gear start to get lumpy and noisy (like it was going to go
away) soon after the start of the race. He slammed through the race
as usual - except as he soft-pedaled it into, on, and out of second
gear for the entire race. One brain fart, one moment of inattention
to the task, and his day is done.

He completes the race and won the class, pulls onto the trophy
stand, gets all the adoration and pictures...

...The pit crew goes to pull the race truck off the trophy stand and
put it on the trailer for the trip home, and even after a warning the
driver grenades second gear on the first try, which immediately turned
the whole box into shrapnel - nothing works.

They had to push it onto the trailer.

-- Bruce --