How much wear and tear does towing put on the transmission, seeing as most cars don't have ATF coolers?
And does it do damage to the chassis? I heard someone say (but this kind of sounded a bit off) that if towing heavy loads it can somehow warp/stretch the chassis?
Just don't stress the gearbox, change manually down a gear at the appropriate time so you use engine revs rather than rely on the torque converter slipping a lot to maintain speed.Originally Posted by Spetz
Accelerate gently and perhaps shift manually at a higher rpm than you would normally.
Remember to look further ahead once moving and allow for longer braking distances.
I've also heard someone (smarter) say that if you stick to the correct load ratings for the towbar and car, nothing will stretch, self destruct or fall off.
Stick another Magna on a car trailer and tow it with your Magna, anything can happen.
Last edited by MadMax; 24-01-2016 at 08:18 AM.
I highly doubt anything would happen if towing up to the rated capacity
The towing capacity of 1500kg is not 'just barely 1500kg on a dead flat surface accelerating at a snails pace'. It's 1500kg at highway speeds and under expected conditions, which is some modest hills, typical acceration rates etc where the effective load could spike up to 2000kg or more periodically. If you started drifting a 1500kg load that's a different story, but I would have a hard time believing anything would be damaged if you were to tow say 500kg above capacity but compensate accordingly with very smooth roads, very slow acceleration and no sudden weight shift
That said, i'd be interested to see how much the engine would happily cope with. 1500kg seems rather low to me, I doubt it would break much of a sweat whilst hauling that
The bigger issue for me is the damn downforce rating, it's always piddly in cars. I'd like for it to have a 200kg+ downforce rating so I could use one of these
I believe the downforce rating is only something like 90kg?
Last edited by Millenium7; 24-01-2016 at 11:33 AM.
1500 kg towing, provided it is a braked trailer and you have the heavy duty towbar.
You don't mention that, but say 500 Kg over won't matter much?
2,000 kg on the back of a Magna, and you wonder if the engine can cope? What about the brakes?
How about the tow bar ball? What is that rated at? (shock load, not static load)
Anyway, I think there is a road law that says the trailer and load can't exceed the weight of the car.
Last edited by MadMax; 24-01-2016 at 12:53 PM.
One other aspect to consider is how would you cope with super light steering, it would be worse than driving on ice.
From what I understand you are meant to balance the weight on the trailer such that the car sits at the same level a without the trailer so steering would be ok?
I've towed twice in my life, once with a VT Commodore and once with an EF Falcon. Both cars did remarkably well to be honest (each was towing about 1,800kg)
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