Your car can be one of your most important assets while moving heavy equipment or loads, such as boats, trailers, or even other cars.  However, before you even consider moving the car, you should always know your towing capacity so that you can safely and legally tow a trailer.  This takes only a few simple calculations, and then you will know how to determine your car’s towing capacity.

Check the owner’s manual

First and foremost, you should check your car’s owner’s manual, which usually list this information in an easy-to-understand format.  However, if you’ve lost your owner’s manual or don’t have it handy, you can still figure our the towing capacity by looking at your car.

Check the vehicle data tag

The vehicle data tag should be located on the driver’s door jamb and should have the towing capacity listed in both metric and imperial measurements.  If it does not list the towing capacity, then you just need to do some simple calculations to figure it out!  The combined gross weight rating will be printed in the same area.

Simply add the weight of the passengers, cargo and fuel together.  Subtract the combined weight of the occupants and cargo from the combined gross weight rating and the resulting number will be the maximum weight your vehicle can legally and safely tow.

Weight of passengers + cargo + fuel = Internal Weight ;

Combined Gross Rating – Internal Weight = Towing Capacity

Safest Towing Practices

In general, you don’t want to tow over 70% of your maximum tow weight, since it will cause considerable wear and tear to your vehicle.  Furthermore, you should also consider the type of roads and the route you’ll be towing along, as poorly paved roads and steep inclines may cause engine and transmission problems.  Lastly, don’t forget to ensure that the weight capacity of the hitch is sufficient for your load as well, since that may be the limiting factor in some cases.

How Much Can You Safely Tow?

If you have any concerns about towing a new trailer or about your vehicle’s towing capacity, you should contact a towing professional to get a personalized assessment.  If your car is not fit for towing the desired weight, then you can also hire a towing professional to do it for you. TalkLocal can have you talking with up to three, high-quality, local towing professional in just minutes!

This entry was originally posted on Thursday, March 21st, 2013 at 10:00 am and is filed under Towing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.