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Posts: 750
Location: Minneapolis, MN | How much towing capacity does one really need? Lets say you have a boat that weighs 2400 pounds, is a vehicle that has a towing capacity of 4000 lbs good enough? Is there a ratio of weight to towing capacity? |
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Posts: 1753
Location: Mt. Zion, IL | The boat may weigh 2400 lbs, but don't forget the trailer, batteries, motor, fuel, NMMA required equipment and the 1,000 lbs of tackle we all bring...
As a general rule, I like to keep the vehicle capacity 2x what I plan to tow regularly. |
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Posts: 1000
| What are you thinking of pulling and pulling with? Maybe somebody can weigh in with first hand experience. |
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Posts: 750
Location: Minneapolis, MN | We are pulling with a Chevy Traverse. Currently we fish out of an Alumacraft Classic and we are wondering if we can move up to an 18' glass boat or if we'd need a new tow vehicle as well. |
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Posts: 1638
Location: Minnesota | I had a 2011 Chevrolet equinox 3500 towing capacity. Up graded boat in 2012 bought a skeeter MX 1825 . Boat 2100 , motor Yamaha F 150 475, Three battery's tolling motor gear fill the gas tank and I was flirting with the capacity of my vehicle. I plan a trip to lake St.Clair did not want to take a chance and be over the limit and have something go wrong with the equinox and not have it covered under warranty because I was towing to heavy of a load. So bought a 2012 Chevrolet Avalanche .
What ever boat your looking at do the math boat, motor ,trailor, batteries, then all your gear and gasoline in the boat ,
If you have a 4000 pound towing you should be ok but do the math it adds up fast good luck with your boat shopping |
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Posts: 38
Location: Central Illinois | Keep in mind you need to think both about how much your are towing and how much stuff you have thrown in the back of your truck. There is a towing capacity / limit for your vehicle and also a total gross weight limit. Typically not a concern for towing to the local lake. However for the week long vacation trip sometimes we go overboard on how much we throw in the boat and in the back of the truck (especially if we have a topper and can stack stuff in). The situation can be really exasperated if the wife is going along. |
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Posts: 750
Location: Minneapolis, MN | Other then being able to carry/haul more, is there an advantage to having a higher tow capacity? Will being near the limit force us to drive in a lower gear and use up more gas? Sorry if these seem rudimentary, just trying to make sure we know everything we need to. |
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| You will put more stress on your brakes, fuel economy will drop a bit, and acceleration won't be exciting. I'd definitely keep the vehicle in overdrive off so you don't stress your transmission. Does your vehicle have a transmission cooler? I pulled a 19' ranger around town with a Nissan Frontier and it did ok. I never went more than a half hour from home with that vehicle though. |
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Posts: 1209
| I have a theory that the more power you have and don't use the better possibility for better mileage. If you have a small motor pulling at 65 mph and you are out of top gear and its 3/4 throttle to go 65 that would be horrible mileage. Now that being said if you have a new truck with 400 hp pulling at 65 at 1/5 throttle mileage is almost not effected. I would say you will be fine on any short trips but I wouldn't go to far away and I would be cautious on how long to get up to speed, stopping distance and potential for the boat to greatly affect stability in an emergency. |
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Posts: 73
Location: Cedarburg, WI | One other thing to keep in mind...Stopping Capacity.
It probably is covered by the previously mentioned general rule of towing at 50% rated capacity, but depending on the vehicle, there may be an asterisk by the rating referring you to a little footnote about "with trailer brakes" or something to that effect. Not being able to stop when you need (deer, etc.) because you're so close to the max capacity really sucks. |
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Posts: 8835
| Listed towing capacities don't always tell the whole story.
Best bet is to look at your GCWR and do a bit of math...
My truck has a listed towing capacity of up to 12,000#.
GCWR is 16,000 lbs
minus curb weight 6,097 lbs
minus 2 people @200#
minus 200# of gear/tools, cargo, food, etc
minus 30 gal gas @6.3lb
That leaves me with 9,114#.
So if you're pushing the limits with your truck, keep in mind that all the stuff in the boat (like batteries and gas) and all the stuff in the truck including you will diminish the towing capacity from what they say you can safely tow in the owners manual.
Edited by esoxaddict 5/20/2016 2:32 PM
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Posts: 1663
Location: Kodiak, AK | All good points that I was going to make and I'll chime in because I just went through a similar thing, when thinking about getting another 1/2 ton or going up to a 3/4 ton, when my boat and trailer sit right in the middle of decision-making land. I went with the 3/4 ton. It's like an outboard or a trolling motor...get as much as you can afford and there is no such thing as too much power. That said, I really think the "there's more to towing capacity than the number" really applies to a vehicle like a Traverse. There's things that a truck will just have that a Traverse won't, even though they may be the same listed capacity. Examples- spring rate, overload springs, transmission cooler, transmission temp guage, frame vs unibody, overdrive "off" ability, weight distribution of the vehicle...hell, can you open the Travere's back hatch with the boat hooked up? Stuff like that. And then, distance and frequency of towing. I remember a long time ago I had a ZR2 Chevy S10. Not a tow vehicle! But I towed my buddy's huge boat, like 7,000 lbs from time to time, a few miles and it did fine! That said, that was no highway, maybe a handful of times per year and I was able to take it slow and just take my time. Highway, frequent towing, demanding towing (hill country), then yeah, you'll want an actual tow vehicle and not what is basically a beefed up 4x4 car. Not knocking the Traverse...my parents and in-laws have one each. They're cool. I just don't consider them a tow vehicle for much of a boat. Its like when you see a Corvette or a Mustang with a tow hitch...cool car, but what the hell? |
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Posts: 13688
Location: minocqua, wi. | wheel base is a big thing too ... longer is better for your towing ride and it's really noticeable.
Jeff ... your boat is build for a 3/4 or 1 tonne ... will be night and day for you, just too bad you can't afford a Ford :0)
i'm starting to see a lot of station wagons masquerading as tow vehicles too (SUV's and Crossovers) and it's a recipe for disaster. |
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Posts: 750
Location: Minneapolis, MN | The Traverse does have a transmission cooler, not sure about overdrive off. 99% of the time the boat would be in the TV metro area, but once a year we take a trip that could have us going for 4-5 hours. |
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Posts: 13688
Location: minocqua, wi. | from that point it's all situational ... if you ever have to do a driving maneuver other than gradual, controlled acceleration and deceleration there would be the potential to jack-knife or run into a problem. it's done all the time though, so it's more a matter of understanding and managing your risk.
i see towing capacity not so much as how much you can pull but how much you can resist getting pushed too .... |
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Posts: 798
Location: Delavan, WI | Towing in overdrive is a BIG mistake! Do not do it unless you want to burn out your transmission, I am a mechanic of 20 some years and know this 1st hand. Your shift points are higher in OD which tends to make the trans run hotter when towing. Heat = Death to transmission. Might take some time, but if you do this on a regular basis especially on long trips, you are slowly, but surely cooking your trans! |
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Posts: 84
| Your tow vehicle will have a sticker in the drivers side door jam it will have a GVWR number (gross vehicle weight rating) that's how many pounds it can tow minus now this is very important, the vehicles weight, a full tank of gas, weight of the driver alone, I think they use a base weight of 150 lbs for the driver. Now whatever number you come up with should be the weight you could tow. The smaller the truck the smaller the tow rating. I hear all these people using 1/4 ton trucks (like say a chevy s-10) to tow 18ft boats around and that's fine and dandy but that's very hard on that rated truck. Everything is smaller the brakes, cooling system, tire rating and so on. Id error on the side of caution to be safe. That's why most guys use at least a 1/2 ton truck or bigger to tow 18ft and larger boats. |
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Posts: 8835
| GVWR speaks to max payload, which is the amount of cargo you can safely haul IN the truck. Using my truck for example: GVWR = 9,200#. Subtract the curb weight of 6,097#. That gives you a payload capacity of 3,103#. You are correct that you need to subtract the weight of anything else in the truck, including you and the gas. But that tells you nothing about what you can actually tow behind the truck.
Edited by esoxaddict 5/23/2016 8:09 PM
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Posts: 84
| A lot also depends on the trucks engine and driveline, for instance V8 engine and a rearend gear ratio of 4:10 is going to tow about any size fishing boat for fresh water. Compared to a V6 engine and a rearend ratio of 3:07 say in a 1/2 ton or smaller equipped truck. Get your boat and fill it with the amount of gas you usually run it with and all of the gear that you have when you go fishing, then find a truckstop with a scale to weigh your boat. Unhitch from the truck and set on scale and get a true weight of your boat, so there wont be any guess work on how much your really weighs. I know Ive done this to my boat and you will surprised how much it weighs. Then you will for sure what you got and take that info with you when you go truck comparing. |
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Posts: 143
| muskymartin67 - 5/22/2016 6:58 AM
Towing in overdrive is a BIG mistake! Do not do it unless you want to burn out your transmission, I am a mechanic of 20 some years and know this 1st hand. Your shift points are higher in OD which tends to make the trans run hotter when towing. Heat = Death to transmission. Might take some time, but if you do this on a regular basis especially on long trips, you are slowly, but surely cooking your trans!
Is there a difference between tow/haul on truck vs OD? Notice they don't really put OD on many trucks anymore and are now referred to as Tow/Hual? |
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Posts: 483
| yes, OD is overdrive and around 30% gear ratio drop and you will overheat the tranny (automatic) and tow/haul =different tranny shift points and redirection of fluid to the cluthes to hold more while towing. |
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Posts: 1209
| My 14 ram in tow hall is normally in a od gear. 5th is 1:1 6th is od 7th is od. 8th is od but it takes like 6 miles of no effort before it drops into 8th. (57 mph with flat and a tailwind)
I think you should buy the boat if it's a deal and worry about the truck later if need be. Just be cautious of your actions. |
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Posts: 483
| Fishysam - 5/25/2016 10:25 PM
My 14 ram in tow hall is normally in a od gear. 5th is 1:1 6th is od 7th is od. 8th is od but it takes like 6 miles of no effort before it drops into 8th. (57 mph with flat and a tailwind)
I think you should buy the boat if it's a deal and worry about the truck later if need be. Just be cautious of your actions.
i was talking older truck, when there is tow/haul option the operation of the tranny is controlled for towing and should not hurt anything ! |
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Towing capacity