Just towed a car for the first time

Picked up my buddy's 18' featherlite car trailer yesterday. Had to tow my neighbor's daughter's car (99 monte carlo) this morning about 25 miles. her serpentine belt broke, and the new one I put on didn't seem to want to stay on the pulley straight, I think the idler pulley is bad.

Later on this evening I have to drive to the ghetto in south atlanta to tow my buddy's 91 MR2 Turbo back from the shop that just finished a 3rd gen 3SGTE swap in it. He doesn't have insurance or a tag and the rear wheel bearing is bad so he doesn't feel comfortable driving it back. Its about 40 miles from there back up to canton.

Towing the monte carlo wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. I would have to guess around 5000-5500 lbs. The trailer weighs 1800 (gotta love all aluminum) and the car probably 3000-3500. With the monte carlo on it this morning it squatted quite a bit at first but once I got the car centered up on the trailer it sat a lot more even. It definitely takes a lot more to stop it since I dont have the trailer brakes wired. Mine is a 2007 6spd.

Here's a pic of the truck hooked up to the trailer, the trailer, and the lowrider pic from two weeks ago when I had the bed loaded up with 30 bags of mulch. It was sitting on the bump stops with that mulch in the back.

 

Showing love for toyota. Mr2 is loaded up. Sorry for the bad quality, the pic was taken from my buddy's iphone

 

Very cool, I have been thinking of upgrading to a 2010 Taco and give the Wifes Yukon a rest. The Taco would need to tow a 3300 lb Mustang and 1800lb car trailor with no problems. Did your truck feel stable and not like it was getting killed?

 

Nice truck. Like the first gen wheels on the second gen. Nice towing.

 

I ended up towing three cars that day. My buddy I borrowed the trailer from ended up popping the turbo on his WRX STI that night so I had to tow that car too.

You can definitely tell there is a car back there when you are accelerating but it doesn't bog down too much. Its pretty hilly where I live so I get a pretty good sample of different conditions. I'm sure it would stop a lot better if I had the trailer brakes wired up. I just kept a good distance.

I ended up finding out by some research that the featherlite trailer actually only weighs 1400 lbs so thats a little better.

I'm not a big fan of the first gen wheels. The previous owner put them on there, I'm not sure why he did. I will be swapping them out with some 17" TRD sport wheels in the near future once these tires are done.

 

I tow at the limits a 67 FJ40. Acceleration is obviously affected, but it doesn't matter what you drive when you more than double the wieght of your vehicle acceleration is going to slow down. But like he said, it holds it's speed pretty well in hilly areas or in the mountains. I have added supersprings, which made a huge difference as well as EBC 3GD rotors and EBC yellow stuff pads. Braking is supplemented with electric trailer brakes and a P3 controller which works great. Will it tow like a 5.7 Tundra, no. Will it tow better than most people expect out of a mid size, yes. I was coming from and 03 Tahoe Z71 with the 5.3 and the overall towing experience is better with my 07 Tacoma. Braking and stability are better and surprisingly enough the 4.0 to my 6 speed seems happier to work hard than the 5.3 to the 4 speed.

 

It looks to me like that car may be sitting too far forward on that trailer. With the bulk of the weight centered over the wheels, the length of the trailer in front of the wheels should give good tongue weight.

Did it tow ok?

 

And yes,,, around here if you should get stopped and not have trailer brakes, they will look at your load to towing vehicle ratios and you could be in trouble with that load weighing more than your towing vehicle.

 

Keep in mind most of the weight is in the back since the MR2 is a mid-engined car (engine in the back). It was actually sitting further back than it looks. The rear straps were actually almost vertical, attaching from the tow hooks down to the d-rings on the trailer. It towed just fine that way. Didn't have any sway at all. Towed at 65-70mph on I-75 to I575 from South of Downtown Atlanta up to Holly Springs about 45-50 miles which is a gradual uphill climb the whole way.

That was kinda a one day thing to do a favor for my buddy and tow his car back from the shop since he didn't have a tag or insurance on the vehicle.

If I have to tow a car again i'm definitely going to wire up trailer brakes. I just kept a good safe distance and gave myself a good distance to brake, and downshifted to help slow the vehicle down since I have a 6spd manual. The only thing I will be towing on regular basis with my taco is my seadoo which weighs practically nothing.

 

Curb weight of the MR2 is around 2800 lbs and the trailer weighs about 1,400 lbs. thats 4200 lbs total trailer weight. Plus me and one passenger weighing 300 lbs total. Thats well under the tow rating of the vehicle.

 

Ahhhh,,,,goood.... Shows what I don't know about new cars..