I still find it frustrating to see the exact same vehicles get significantly different tow ratings here vs Europe.
The other day the dealer tried to warn not to tow my utility trailer with my car as it would hurt the transmission (trailer was empty by the way). I pulled up an article from the UK where it was in the top three of best towing cars for this year.
Dealer looked at me like his brain needed to reboot, after which he told me the cars in Europe must be built differently or get different transmissions and left it at that.
It’s truly baffling that manufacturers here hold that towing capacity hostage for arbitrary reasons.
There might actually be technical reasons for this.
E. g. top speed in Europe while towing is 100 km/h (some countries and trailers less), whereas in the US you can drive up to the designated speed limit.
Bearing load is also different, in Europe it’s usually 4 % of the trailer weight, in the US at least 10 % is recommended.
Trailers are also different, e. g. unbraked trailers only exist up to 750 kg in Europe, whereas in the US I’ve seen much heavier trailers without brakes.
Trailer brakes are also different, Europe uses overrun brakes, the US electronic brakes.
I’ve never heard the term “overrun brakes” (TIL!) before. I’ve always called them surge brakes, and they are widespread in the U.S. on the majority of boat trailers.
I’m not a native English speaker, so I may have used the wrong term here. ;)
You are 100% correct. I had to search overrun brakes online, and from what I found it seems to be a regional language variation.
That’s actually the most reasonable explanation I’ve seen so far, and it helps explain a bunch (one small correction: most states have a towing speed limit of either 55 or 65 mph, so just about the same or slower than in Europe. Canada is even worse with most provinces limiting highway towing speed to 80-90kmh). That said, it still doesn’t make any sense that our tow rating does not take into account the presence of a brake controller (that is to say, the stated towing capacity does not list braked and unbraked separately in most cars except trucks).
one small correction: most states have a towing speed limit of either 55 or 65 mph, so just about the same or slower than in Europe
Interesting, thanks for the correction! I didn’t spend the time to research it for all states / provinces, when I researched this topic a while ago.
brake controller
In Europe electronic brake controllers aren’t really a thing. Mechanical overrun brakes are used instead to brake trailers.
That said, it still doesn’t make any sense that your tow rating does not take into account the presence of a brake controller
Cars in Europe usually have two tow ratings, one for braked, the other for unbraked trailers.
My bad, that was a typo - I mean our tow rating. Most vehicles (except for trucks) don’t list the tow rating with a brake controller installed and the only way to get one is to have your vehicle rated and tested individually.
It’s so they can sell you SUVs.
My SUV can have a hitch addon but it’s towing capacity is less than a ton lol
I agree but diesel cars are much more common in Europe and they have better towing capacity due to higher torque.
Not the core issue. My car does not run on Diesel, but I would not have any issues dragging such a caravan around. That is perfectly normal in Europe.
Why the Americans think one would need a thick fat pickup or truck just to pull a caravan is beyond me. Maybe it is just smart marketing to make people buy even bigger cars than they ever need.
A quick search shows a civic can tow 1,100 lbs. A dodge caravan can tow 3,600 lbs. An F-150 tows 14,000 lbs.
Now someone may have a legitimate reason to need to tow thousands of pounds, such as someone who moves horses around.
But for normal use, my tool trailer comes in under 1,000kg (2,200 lbs); maybe someone working in a mountainous area would need more power? Most likely marketing.
It’s like choosing to drive a tractor around. Those F150 are great machines in circumstances where they are needed, but to go food shopping, you don’t need that. I have a RAV4 hybrid (my work requires a large trunk space, and I have kids and a dog) and I get 50mpg and people are amazed compared to 12mpg of their truck. Go figure.
Yep. I’ve got a SEAT Alhambra because I need trunk space, too - and it’s a nice trunk space, easy to use. And I can tow 1800kg, despite it being not a diesel.
I haul more stuff with my little 4x8 utility trailer and small hybrid than most of the big F150 people around me. I routinely get full loads of compost from the municipal dump.
My parents used to have a 2008 dodge Durango that they were told would be good enough to haul their 3500 lb camper. (Needed 7 seats for 5 kids + them)
This thing did not do well hauling the camper. It struggled going up the mountains where we vacationed and it struggled just as bad coming back down because the brakes couldn’t handle the dead weight.
Now us kids have grown up and moved out and they got an F150 that hauls their new camper, about the same weight (3700 lb) like it’s not even back there.
I think there’s a lot more to it than how much weight the car can actually pull. But I couldn’t say since I’m not that knowledgeable.
The caravans in Europe are much lighter than the trailers in North America.
I’ve seen plenty of small “Euro-sized” cars pull fully loaded horse trailers, so I suspect weight is not much of an issue. You need to get power on the road, and for that bulkyness of the frame is hardly the main factor.
Are they? As caravans are quite popular in Europe, I can’t imagine we are missing something in a lighter caravan, so who do Americans have in theirs that makes the heavier?
From a quick look at an store for caravans a bit back it seems like the American caravans are much longer and have expanding sides. Basically you would need a lorry permit in Europe to be allowed to pull one of those.
Many of those are not really intended for travel, but as permanent housing. See also: Trailer Park.
It was caravans in this style:
https://usacaravans.nl/stock?token=4nplMHTi4fpWnU0C1uGPxmoGQzV6M6YEKi4xsZO1&vehicle_type[]=travel-trailerSo they don’t really look like the ones that are intended to be left in place.
The lightest of these you might be allowed to drive in Sweden with a standard license but most would require an extended license for heavy load at the least.
I’d still consider these not “caravans” but “mobile homes”. That’s some monsters I’d expect to be hauled around by film crews and circuses for permanent living on the move.
deleted by creator
Well our Rv are way larger then that most of the time. That’s why the most popular models are self mobile
Have you ever seen those Atros-based RV’s that I’ve seen here in Europe?
That’s about to change. After finding out the vast minority, if not all, car manufacturer were found cheating emissions tests, diesel car usage has been limited and production stopped, or will stop in the near future.
deleted by creator
They were all basically at it, it’s the only way the emissions and performance numbers could be hit.
deleted by creator
Many have been caught. Not all of them have made a big deal about it.
You simply cannot build a compliant engine without cheating. The fight has gone to the courts to find out what kind of cheating is permissible…
No. Simply that Volkswagen, then another company was caught, then they went after all of them and they all admitted before they could look into each individual company.
Basically all of them have cheated. You needed good emission test results, but without having a miracle idea that evaded everyone else in the business you simply had no competitive results without cheating. That’s physics, and physics is a very hard and unforgiving ruler.
Once at work I said “My Audi sedan has a towing capacity of over 5,000 lbs, isn’t that crazy?” A coworker said “That’s almost as much as my Tacoma!” (Early 2000s model). Turns out 5,000 is closer to his combined vehicle weight + towing capacity.
I remember my grandfather using the Grand Prix to tow and pull out stumps and stuff instead of the work truck.
deleted by creator
I pulled a teardrop (with trailer brakes) with a diesel wagon for years. Just had to drive mountain passes slowly. (Utah)
Diesel wagons are the absolute best daily drivers for most people that actually need a car. Great for long distances, great for towing, and the cargo space is amazing, while the balance of sporty handling and comfort is better than an SUV because with more mass and height, you just have to sacrifice comfort to get any sort of sportiness and of course nearly every manfuacturer does, so you end up with a more compromised ride quality.
Of course short distances at cold temperatures are where diesels suck, but I mean, if you only drive short distances in the city, the car might be needed after all.
Good job buddy. U tah man!
But will it pull a camper for two that actually sleeps 10 at 85 mph up hill in a 65 mph speed zone?
Out of experience: yes, but illegally.
no no it’s a 55 cuz it’s the interstate and it designed for you to safely drive 100
My people out east can teach you something.
Does it count as a motorized vehicule?
There’s definitely an engine, i think that checks out
that’s a much better set up !
Its probably worth noting that Europeans get more powerful cars than we do here in the US. I drive a 02 Golf TDI and it was only available as a 1.9L 90hp front wheel drive. The base model in Europe has a bigger turbo and offers 4wd versions.
I wonder why that is
for make you buy a suv or pickup with a v8 i guess.
Diesel emissions regulations specifically are stricter in the US than in the EU. Gasoline emissions are not. And I guess pickup trucks aren’t cars so they might have different diesel emissions standards than cars?
I’ve also noticed the European versions of cars are rated to tow more. The Hyundai Ioniq I had wasn’t rated to tow anything in America. It would void my warranty. The European version was rated for 1000lbs or something like that. Europeans demand the ability to tow while I guess in America we just don’t expect a small car to do it.
Probably a result of how legislation is designed for different towing strategies. From what I’ve seen, the US favors trailers with higher hitch weight and axles further back, requiring more substantial and heavy towing vehicles, but allowing for higher speeds. In Europe, trailers are more balanced with hitch weights in the 100-150lbs range, but speed limits are lower (50ish mph).
Well, in the US you only need to pay cash to get the law that you need. The best democracy money can buy.
The same goes with laws like extending copyrights, forbidding selling cars without dealerships, low safety margins with rail cars transporting dangerous goods, no drinking breaks for people working in the heat, most modifications (mainly exceptions) in the tax code, etc, etc, etc. The list is long. Each one bought by someone with serious money against YOUR interests.
deleted by creator
No, it definitely wasn’t an option. If you see a hitch on small cars here in America, is usually just to mount something like a bike rack. Our cars just aren’t rated to tow.
This was my exact point from earlier - most cars that can tow a bunch of stuff in Europe or Australia simply don’t get tow ratings here at all. And yes, manufacturers will void your waranty of you do tow anything. It’s infuriating.
That’s crazy I didn’t realize they had such low horsepower. I guess that makes sense, a diesel engine has high torque. I have a 2017 golf tsi, and it gets around 170 horsepower for comparison. I have always loved and wanted one of those TDIs.
deleted by creator
Dutch people must not have many steep hills.
You wouldn’t believe it, but they routinely haul these over major alpine passes. Works well on climbs, but sharp corners and switchbacks require careful handling, causing everyone else a bit of grief.
The don’t… but the neighboring countries do. That’s where this caravan is going
Don’t worry, we’ll even tow them to and trough Norway.
Yes, going 50 km/h on a 80 km/h road with 300 cars behind them. 😄
That’s about half a trainload of people in all those cars. Sidenote: trains very rarely get held up by slow moving traffic.
Where do you hitch a camper to a train?
You can also camp without a camper, just carry a tent with you.
or sharp corners
We certainly do in the UK and I’ve seen people pulling Caravans up them with their cars. Maybe Europeans are just better drivers than yanks?
Yanks are so accustomed to the idea that “more litres = more torque” that they actually can’t imagine the amount of engineering that’s gone in to smaller more efficient European and Japanese engines.
≈1hp per cc is pretty standard in modern cars but why invest in all that engineering when you can pour cheap gasoline down the throat of your 5 litre V8?
The most popular pickup truck in the US is commonly bought with either a 2.7 liter turbo or 3.5 liter turbo v6, I think you’re a bit behind the times.
In 2018, the average engine in the UK was 1.61L, in 2022 in the US it is 3.42L (literally over twice the capacity), but yh, it’s me that’s behind the times.
Edit: Imagine getting down voted because someone doesn’t like the data. No rebuttle, no counter data, nothing to show my data might be wrong, just burying it because you don’t like it lmao
You’re the one who pointed put the five liter v8 not me.
It’s called hyperbole. Although I wouldn’t say that it’s an extreme exaggeration, the sentiment remains.
And you’re still wrong. Most new cars in the US (other than sports cars) are using small turbocharged four cylinders. But keep trying to act like you know anything about cars in the US, it’s fun to watch.
if you saw the sheer scope of trailers, campers, Tour Bus RV’s, custom toy haulers etc that invade the coastal areas of where I live, you would realize the problem isn’t the semantics of tow vehicle size. the whole “adventure camping” myth when two people bring a 800 square foot Motorcoach with a car in tow makes me want to vomit. its like a car brain with sepsis. leave your fucking house at home.
Whenever I see a giant RV towing a giant SUV bigger than any of the vehicles I own I get a little frustrated and irritated. If you want to explore the country you can do it without taking every amenity and gadget from home. Just go out there, see and be in the world, don’t take the ‘world’ with you.
Just make sure it’s rated for the load you’re towing and whatever works.
But that’s the point. The same exact same vehicle rated in Europe will not have any rating in the US and they will tell you how you need a truck to tow.
I’ve found a tow rating for almost any car I’ve had, at least the past 15 years.
Of course, otherwise you get a fine for endangering traffic.
Just yesterday I was towing about a half to 2/3 of a cord of a wood with my wagon. Folks assume you need a giant truck to tow anything. Full disclosure though I was pushing the limits of my car, it pulls this weight without issue but stopping it risky and I have to drive very carefully and keep huge buffers between myself and the next car.
Been there as a kid in the 90s. Sitting in the back my my parents Toyota Carina with my 2 siblings, while we were towing a caravan.
That car had a 2l, 4 cylinder petrol and got through the Alps and Pyrenees. Iwas more comfortable touring that way than going by tent only. Now I’m in Australia where I’m gobsmacked by how much shit people “need” to go camping. All while I’m exploring the same locations and actually spending more time camping in the bush as I tour on a tiny, economical 125cc motorcycle.
Almost to prove a point, I took that little thing to Cape York and will take it RTW next year, partly to show that you don’t need much.
The question isn’t “can you”, but “should you”.
An engine that’s always working at near it’s maximum capacity will fail long before an engine that’s working at a quarter of it’s capacity. Most people wouldn’t dream of constantly running their engine bouncing off the red line of rev limiter. The same applies to towing; if you frequently tow large, heavy loads (for instance, earth moving equipment), you want to get a vehicle that’s rated for much higher tonnage than the weight you’ll regularly be towing. Given that campers are usually very light weight (but only slightly more aerodynamic than a brick), you can get away with towing on in a car infrequently. You should probably not do it daily.
You may also find that it’s less fuel efficient to tow a heavy load in a small-ish car than the same load in a light truck.
(BTW - I’m generally opposed to taking vacations in this way. I prefer my vacations on a motorcycle, or on foot with a backpack. I’m not currently in the kind of shape I would need to be in in order to do bicycle camping.)
Edit: I don’t have a truck. It’s cheaper for me to rent one on the rare occasions that I need one than it is to buy one and deal with the associated costs of owenership. That said, the Home Depot rental trucks suck, because they’re solely RWD, and they have no grip on my road unless there’s a literal ton of weight in the back.
Nobody complains about big cars whilst they’re towing, and if they were doing it everyday you would see them… well… everyday towing, but they typically are not.
Fuel efficiency that you lose whilst towing you would gain on the other 99% of your kms.
Yep. There is one guy in town with a private pickup. I wonder what he is shopping for in the bakery when his F150 blocks two parking lots.
I live in a country where everyone buys used cars from western Europe and it’s semi-common knowledge among car people that you should avoid Dutch cars with tow hitches (and the used car yards that bring their cars from Holland tend to have the worst reputation).
That said, if you only tow heavy loads maybe a thousand, tow thousand kilometers a year, it doesn’t really matter. It’s prolonged heavy towing that kills the small car.
Anyway, my midsize diesel car can tow way more than I personally am legally allowed to and I prefer throwing a tent in the trunk to towing a camper, so my car sees maybe <500 km of light-weight towing a year and under a metric ton you can barely feel the hit to fuel efficiency or performance (because diesel torque is ridiculous)
(for instance, earth moving equipment)
That’s quite some reach.
Any time I’ve needed an earth mover, it was always delivered? Who’s out there picking up a earth movers themselves?
The people who deliver them?
I don’t any earthmovers, that’s a real high cap item; everyone I know who owns one has a specific job/jobs for it, and it’s always a skid steer.
I’m more generalist and I’d need to own a fleet to cover any given project.
Edit: I think I misread this. The equipment comes on a flatbed with a tractor, not on a pickup.
They do have a real truck, not a pickup and a trailer.
Really? Home Depot and Sunbelt Tool Rental doesn’t deliver around here. You have to pick that shit up yourself, and they will check the gross towing weight before they’ll let you hook up. I’ve towed a wood chipper from Sunbelt with a Civic, and it was pretty much the maximum that the car would tow.
Sorry, when I hear earthmover I think backhoe, grader, skid steer, not wood chipper.
Regardless, sounds like your civic met the need instead of a RAM 2500 super-duty?
Well, except for the part where then engine skipped timing and died a terrible death few months later. So, I dunno, did it really meet my need? Or was the engine failure purely coincidental? I do know that the mountain roads around here are pretty rough on cars in general; towing at your max capacity while going up a steep grade probably isn’t very good for an engine.
Renting a truck would have been far, far cheaper than what I spent replacing the engine.
I don’t know your car, it’s possible. I’m not here to judge people on their needs analysis, I’m here to judge people for not doing a needs analysis.
The point is people should buy vehicles based on needs not wants. The chance of maybe towing a thing up a hill one time in a 15 year vehicle lifetime is probably not a satiasficing for a vehicle that’s primarily used to travel 8.7km each way for a commute and a 1.8km round trip for groceries 5.43 times per month. (Canadian figures).
Only very few people regularly pull caravans. I worked for one, but he a) sold caravans and b) had the car to pull them.
True, but the reason in the US is different is because of laws.
Yeah, a lot of laws seem to favor trucks in the US. The vehicles aren’t different, the laws and regulations are.
Well, the US has the best democracy money can buy, and someone paid a lot to make the worst kind of cars the de facto standard.
Something interesting about a camper like in the picture in Europe, to me, is where the axle is. It looks much more centered than the campers I see in the US and I have no idea why. The way the axle is in the picture certainly reduces tongue weight on the car. I wonder if the trade off is less stability at high speed? Genuinely curious!
The typical tongue loading for a traditional trailer like that is 10%. If you start getting too light it will start swerving from side to side at higher speeds and can lead to a jack knife accident from the tail wagging the dog. Most likely the trailer has heavy stuff designed into the front.
In the US, in Europe trailers are much more balanced however the speed limit for trailers is lower.
It will also likely have a stabiliser fitted.
Tongue weight in Europe (EU) is much less than in the US. In Europe it’s typically 4 % of the trailer weight.
Instability at higher speeds is less of an issue in Europe, as the maximum allowed towing speed is 100 km/h. Depending on the type of trailer and country, it can also be lower. Trailers above 750 kg are always braked with overrun brakes and require an additional driver’s license (class BE instead of B).
Trucks are limited to 90 km/h, buses to 100 km/h. As you can see, caravans and motorhomes in Europe fit right into the flow of other slower traffic.
Having vehicles traveling at different speeds, requires good lane discipline though. It is the law in most of Europe to drive in the rightmost lane possible, unless you are overtaking.
![[image] Since many people seem to believe you can't tow with cars, here's roughly what dutch people end up doing on vacation.](https://feddit.de/pictrs/image/ea1db421-ccea-4e3d-af37-aec9b3e62de4.jpeg){kind=link}