By Bruce W. Smith
Vehicle manufacturers use a huge arsenal of advertising angles to woo potential buyers to the showrooms, but the sales games most often used to attract a buyer to today's pickups and SUVs focus on two subjects: horsepower and towing capacity.
Horsepower is straightforward. New regulations require independent test facilities to verify the numbers so consumers are protected; if Brand X claims its new V-8 pickup makes 380 horsepower, you can rest assured it does.
Bruce Smith
Towing capacities are an entirely different animal.
It's not that the manufacturers are lying about their vehicles' tow ratings, but rather they're only giving the buyer the part of the story that sounds best to make the initial sale.
The touted maximum tow ratings for just about every brand are based on the vehicle being "properly equipped," which means the vehicle can only tow that weight when it has the right engine, transmission, axle ratio, and body style. More important, it means the vehicle has to be towing the trailer using a weight-distribution hitch--not towing on the trailer ball that's connected to the standard hitch shank. That information is often conveniently buried hundreds of pages into a tome few new-vehicle buyers ever read called the owner's manual.
Tow a trailer without the tow vehicle being properly equipped, and you risk warranty issues and put yourself at great risk from a liability standpoint should an accident occur.
Here's the problem: Very few boat trailers can be towed with a weight-distribution hitch. The reason is simple: A boat trailer's surge-braking system depends on the tongue of the trailer moving about an inch fore/aft to engage the brake master cylinder located just behind the ball couple mechanism. Any type of sway-control or weight-distribution device interferes with or incapacitates the trailer's surge-brake system. That means the largest boat/trailer combo your vehicle can tow must weigh equal to or less than the manufacturer's stated "weight-carrying" capacity, which is towing on the basic ball-and-shank. The boat/trailer combo can't exceed the weight-carrying tongue-weight of the truck or the hitch itself.
For example, the Chevy Avalanche is rated to tow 8000 pounds. But the fine print on the 15th page of the towing section in the 630-page owner's manual says any trailer over 5000 pounds requires a weight-distribution hitch. GMs midsize SUVs such as the TrailBlazer and Envoy require a weight-distribution hitch on trailers over 4200 pounds. Then there's the 2WD Dodge Ram 2500 with the V-8, rated for 12,000 pounds. But that's only with a W.D. hitch. Tow a boat trailer with surge brakes, and you're limited to 5000. The same type of limitations apply to the Titan, Super Duty, Tahoe, Yukon, Tacoma, and more.
There are other caveats about tow ratings. For instance, Toyota's pickup and SUV owner's manuals have for years limited the vehicle speed to a maximum of 45 mph when towing. It also requires the use of a anti-roll-control device on trailers over 3500 pounds. Tow beyond those limits, and you're on your own from warranty and liability standpoints.
Unlike the horsepower wars, there are no industrywide tow-rating testing standards in place to ensure the buyer's safety isn't being compromised for the sake of bragging rights. The upside is that a number of conscientious towing engineers from several of the vehicle manufacturers have formed a loose group within the Society of Automotive Engineers to discuss setting standards for testing and rating. If they succeed, tow ratings will be dictated by numbers derived from criteria based on a vehicle's real towing capability.
Until that happens, the only way we can protect ourselves from towing liability and warranty issues is to read the fine print in vehicles' owner's manuals and tow accordingly. That could mean the trailer you tow may end up being a lot smaller than originally intended.