Pathy Towing... Impressed

[Densetsu]

So today I was voted in by my family to haul some topsoil to my parents acreage, because I have the most powerful vehicle in the family. Why two families on two acreages don't have a truck between them, I don't know. My sister-in-law rented a utility trailer from U-Haul for this, with a dry weight of 1250 lbs and a cargo capacity of 1650lbs. The towing capacity of the '03 Pathy is 5000lbs.

We went down to get the topsoil, and the guy there just filled up his backhoe and dumped a load of dirt into the trailer, then put a bit more. When we asked, he said it was 2 cubic yards on the first dump, about a half a yard on the second. When we mentioned the trailer holds 1650 lbs, he gave us a weird look and said "take it easy, you don't want to bust an axle on that trailer. You're a bit over 1650."

All went well, and while the Pathy wasn't zooming when I pressed on the gas, it didn't have too much trouble getting up to highway speeds. It was a relatively short trip, about 20 km back. We unloaded it, went back for a second load, and unloaded that one too. Finished the day by hauling some big trash items to the dump, and returned the trailer.

I'm finally home, and when I did some Googling, I discovered a cubic yard of topsoil weighs around 2500 lbs. On the first trip that was 6250 lbs in the trailer, well over it's 1650 lbs capacity. Furthermore, adding in the weight of the empty trailer, that was 7500lbs that the Pathy was towing, more than a ton over the towing capacity. The stock suspension held up good, nothing was odd on the gauges, and it felt like it could easily handle more.

I've towed a few things in the Pathy, but mostly it's been light things like boats, loose garbage in trailers, etc. Nothing like dense topsoil. Very surprised that it handed that weight so easily. Also very surprised at the quality of the U-Haul trailer, and that a single-axle trailer handled that weight without collapsing. Props to them.

Edit: Now that I know how much weight that was, I'm not volunteering to do that again since there is a big risk of damaging my Pathy. But it's just kinda cool to know it handed the task pretty well.
Modified by Densetsu at 11:45 PM 7/17/2009

[K03sport]

Hopefully you turned the overdrive off.

For advice on your next towing experience, turn your overdrive off (usually a button on the gear selector lever). The OD clutches are not meant to pull that much weight over the weight of the car + 5 people.

As long as there weren't too many hills and you didn't go that fast, you should be okay. If you want to be sure, you can get a sample of your transmission fluid analyzed by the folks at Blackstone labs.. Their website should be able to answer your questions. To get fluid out of the trans, you can get a hose that fits in the dipstick tube and then put your thumb over the hole and pull it out; much like a straw in a drink soda. You will create a vacuum and keep the liquid in the tube.

Towing in OD too frequent;y with heavy load will cause the clutch plates in that gear to wear faster and begin to slip, much like the slipping clutch of a manual transmission car.

Also, some more towing tips...air your rear tires up, almost to or to the max psi to help support the weight of the trailer. The more air in the tire, the more weight it can support, but only up to its rated load rating. Do not exceed the cold psi inflation rating of the tire. For this job, I would have had the tires inflated to roughly 45psi. Not the max, but roughly 15psi over normal inflation.