Towing questions

[Scottnbarbi]

What would be the best shocks for my '93. I plan on towing a 2,000 pound tent trailer behind it.
Do the shock mounts on a rust free Pathfinder have what it takes for an air shock upgrade, or should I be looking at bags?
Thanks

[fueler]

not sure on the air lift but my buddy has a 95 and he replaced the rear coil springs with ones from www.4x4parts.com and he also installed bilstein shocks, it drives pretty good loaded down

also, if your pathfinder is an automatic, then an external transmission cooler is usually recommended

[Chuck Tribolet]

You shouldn't need to do anything if the tongue weight on the trailer is right. My boat trailer is about 2000 pounds, and my '95 and
my current '01 have towed it just fine for about 90,000 miles. Tongue weight should be 5-10% of trailer weight. Mine is about 125
pounds.

And 2000 pounds seems high for a tent trailer.

[Scottnbarbi]

It's a big trailer, I took it over the state truck scale and it was over 2,000 puonds loaded. But it sure is comfortable.
I went ahead and ordered some Monroe Sensa Tracs on closeout from Amazon. I'll let everyone know how they work.

[donald]

so what is the maximum tongue weight the R50's can handle?

I figure this is more of a body/weight/suspension question rather than a engine/power question, right?

the edmunds.com specifications say the max tow-weight is 5000lbs... so if we go off of the 10% rule for tongue weight - does that mean the R50 structure can handle at most 500lbs on the tongue?

Yeah - the reason for asking this is I also need to upgrade my suspension... because I want to tow my motorcycle. But instead of going 55mph with a trailer, I want to go 55mph with a hitch-loader (ie. 400lb bike sits on an attachment that sticks out from the hitch.

[Chuck Tribolet]

Find the Gross Vehicle Axle Weight for the rear axle in your owners manual. Subtract the weight on the rear axle with a full
tank of gas, driver, and anything that will be in the vehicle. That's a good estimate of the maximum tongue weight.

VW got in trouble with their Toureg. They speced a certain trailering capacity (say, 5000 pounds), but the GVAW would only allow
a max tongue weight that was about 3% of the trailering capacity. So 10% of trailering capacity is a bad bad bet.

[Scottnbarbi]

According to the manual my '93 is OK towing up to 3,500 lbs. Nissan recommends trailer brakes for anything over 1,000 lbs, but that seems a little much to me. As a retired truck driver I know how to conserve my brakes for when I need them.