Did some towing the other day...

[Loggato]

Drove down to Waco to grab this Passat TDI last Friday for a friend. Drove down without a trailer, rented the Uhaul and then loaded the car and towed it home. I knew those Uhauls were heavy, but with that car on there, It struggled!

Uhaul says their trailers weigh 2200, which is at least 700 more than my old POS trailer we chose not to take (bad tires).. then the car weighs 3500 (non AWD), then the additional 2 extra passengers.

Could do 80mph without issue, but it took a while to get there, and any passing wasn't going to happen. Granted it was almost 100 degrees that day and every time I needed to accelerate the clutched fan was whirring away stealing necessary HP. So total weight was probably at 12,300 lbs. almost to the top of my rating! It's nice to have a heavy duty truck, but It just doesn't seem as capable when it comes to towing. I think my next truck will have a Cummins!

however.. on another note, I did get 10.8 MPG with all that load!

 

[Marley]

You should also look at an HD with 6.4 8spd auto.....very capable.

 

[turkeybird56]

IMHO U had that 5.7 at the big upper range of what built for. I do OK with mine cause I do not tow that often, but when I do, it is a 2200 lb stock trailer filled with 2 hossies (1250 lb each) or 44 bales of hay (@ 70-80 lbs each). I still get 12-13 mpg towing hay, as long as I take my time, since using standard ball, no WDH, but just a local run, FWIW...

 

[justin13703]

Last time I took my truck over a scale with a BIG load of dirt on my dump trailer, it was just shy of 18,000 lbs lol. Way over what it’s rated for but honestly it does fine. It’s no race car but it has no problem doing the speed limit like that. Stopping is probably the sketchiest part but with the trailer brakes turned up, it stops pretty well.

I’d love to have a diesel too but at least here (in the northeast) diesel truck prices are out of hand. I mean like 15k for a rusted out second gen 2500 with 400k miles out of hand.

 

[dhay13]

Last time I took my truck over a scale with a BIG load of dirt on my dump trailer, it was just shy of 18,000 lbs lol. Way over what it’s rated for but honestly it does fine. It’s no race car but it has no problem doing the speed limit like that. Stopping is probably the sketchiest part but with the trailer brakes turned up, it stops pretty well.

I’d love to have a diesel too but at least here (in the northeast) diesel truck prices are out of hand. I mean like 15k for a rusted out second gen 2500 with 400k miles out of hand.

yep. Son was looking for a slightly used one. Found a 2016 Laramie with 45,000 miles for $46,000 and another 2016 Big Horn with 20,000 miles that had 2 carfax accident reports for $45,000. The cheapest he could find a new 2018 Big Horn for was $58,000

 

[JohnnyMac]

Maybe you should have tried pulling the truck with the Passat....

 

[Loggato]

I'm fortunate that the truck is so heavy because it does make for great towing stability... those stupid Uhaul trailers make you put the vehicle all the way forward which adds to the tongue weight, otherwise we would have balanced it out better. Based on that, we were thankful that it was a 2500. A 1500 would have been squatting BAD.

Oh well, I bought it to do truck things, so I shouldn't complain when it does truck things!