For anyone who has a trailer or knows about trailers and towing, would my 97 ford explorer 2 door sport (v6 4x4) be able to pull my cavalier on an open trailer? I was just curious because I usually drive my car to all the shows, but next year i'm planning on traveling a little farther away and was wondering if my explorer could pull it or not. thanks for your help.
Look in the manual for the explorer, find the towing capacity and compare it to the curb weight of your cavalier plus the weight of the trailer
Not recommended by U-Haul. Explorers roll too easily.
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Yes, noob, the search button is for you...
I thought this thread was going to be about towing with a Cavalier! Thankfully, it's not!!!!!!
On a side note, I saw one recently that had a trailer hitch installed. They had cut a hole in the bumper and the mount was sticking through. I guess the hitch was bolted to the underside of the trunk. I took a picture of it on my phone but I've already deleted it.
2.2 97 Cavalier......the "Crapalier"
I towed a 97 pontiac grand am with my 02 explorer 4.0L V6 and it handled just fine with the exception of the braking and that was due to the brakes on the trailer not working for whatever reason. I used a uhaul trailer...we told the uhaul place that the moving truck was going to tow it. The explorer ban isnt cause they roll over too easy, its more to do with that whole firestone tread separation thing that happened with 2nd gen X's, but they banned all explorers. Funny part is that you can take a mountaineer or aviator (same platform as explorers just with different badges and exterior detail) to uhaul and they will have no problem with renting a uhaul. Pretty pathetic on uhauls part
explorer should handle it fine. i pulled my 300zx with my dads explorer on a 5 hour trip w/o an issue
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Primer Counts as Custom Paint Right?
BTW: This is my Sig.
Masin you mentioned something about towing with a J, i don't know if it would work on a J or not, but aren't there some that put the trailer hitch almost like down underneath the car instead of directly into the bumper almost like it's attached from under the bumper or something forgive me may have been the same as what you just said.
Masin tenn wrote:I thought this thread was going to be about towing with a Cavalier! Thankfully, it's not!!!!!!
On a side note, I saw one recently that had a trailer hitch installed. They had cut a hole in the bumper and the mount was sticking through. I guess the hitch was bolted to the underside of the trunk. I took a picture of it on my phone but I've already deleted it.
You shoulda slapped the driver of that car. I think any car with a trailer hitch is stupid. If you are going to tow, use a truck or SUV. Cars were not made for towing trailers.
I think it's stupid to think that cars can't tow. I really don't particularly like driving trucks or SUVs - especially their trips to the gas station, and I'm certainly not going to purchase one for the 4 or 5 times a year that I NEED to tow -
that would be STUPID!
I drive my car approximately 600-700km per week (around 400 miles), and even though the gas prices have dropped a bit, I couldn't imagine wanting to spend a couple of hundred extra every month to feed a truck. I only tow about 1000km per year (about 600 miles), and my Sunfire has handled it just fine so far (228,000km and counting). Even today I used it to move my boat across town. Anything up to about 1,000 pounds hardly phases these cars - not much different than loading it up with several people and a trunk full of luggage.
My car is just a base 2200 LN2 with 5 speed. My wife has a mini van (which gets used for towing if the entire family is going on a trip), but even that gets worse mileage when it's NOT towing than my Sunfire does with it IS. Obviously acceleration is affected somewhat, as are stopping distances - but that's the same with ANY vehicle I've ever towed with.
By the way - my hitch is a purchased part made by Reece that bolts onto the rear frame as well as the bottom of the inner bumper. The receiver is barely noticeable under the bumper when not in use (called a shadow mount), and there were certainly no modifications done to the plastic portion of the bumper at all. I've seen MANY of these cars towing around here - gas has been priced higher here for years compared to the U.S. (although thankfully not anything like Europe), so we've just adapted differently. I'm not saying that nobody tows with trucks around here, but it's certainly not unusual to see cars pulling small boats and campers on the highways in the summer.
Back to the original question - just make sure you're running a good transmission cooler (if it didn't come equipped with one), stick close to the speed limit, and watch your temperature gage. Keep the overdrive locked out - your transmission will thank you later.
If you use a tow dolly, it will probably have surge brakes - so you shouldn't need any other modifications. If it's a flat bed - make sure it has some kind of brakes, and if necessary, install the controller in the Explorer to match.
Also - make sure you're using a frame mounted hitch - not the bumper hitch they had on some models. I used a truck (gasp - not mine) to tow a Pontiac 6000 on a tow dolly once with just the bumper hitch - but I was especially careful to avoid any rapid starts or stops, and I only had about an hours drive. I wouldn't have wanted to test it on a busy highway.
Sorry for the rant - couldn't resist!
John
I didnt say that cars cant tow. just said they were not made to tow....
John i agree with you about the temperature gage thing, now if it was a bigger engine say V6 or a small V8 then you probably wouldn't have to worry about the temp as much but a smaller 4 banger like ours yes.
The vehicle in question above is an 11 year old truck. Depending on how the cooling system has been maintained, it's entirely possible that it isn't working at the same efficiency it did when new. Adding an extra load to the engine and transmission is going to require extra cooling capacity is not normally required on a daily basis. It's just always a good idea to keep a close eye on that gauge whenever towing with any vehicle. The extra heat from the transmission is also partly (or entirely depending on design) dealt with by the engine cooling system, so it certainly can't hurt to monitor closely. It only takes a few minutes of running too hot to do some pretty expensive damage.
Up until the last 8 or 9 years, I owned mostly 6 and 8 cylinder powered cars - and even those would tend to run hot if pushed too much when towing. Remember - although it's a larger engine, it's also pushing around a larger, heavier vehicle. The temperature in my Sunfire actually tends to stay more consistent when towing than a couple of my older 6 cylinder cars I used to own. I just have to make sure I keep my speed up on the hills so that I can stay in 5th - if I try to maintain anything over about 90km/h (55mph) in 4th, the temperature tends to creep upwards fairly quickly (obviously only when towing).
Just my 2 cents...
John
That's very interesting John, i wouldn't have figured on a 6 or an 8 running hot when towing i always figured the bigger engines had auxilary fans other than just the main one in the middle. In other words the main one in the middle and another one off to the side or something so the engine wouldn't get excessively hot .
Not all vehicles have auxiliary fans... you shouldn't make a general statement like that without some research
There is no reason J-cars can't tow small trailers. It's even mentioned in the owner's manual, if anyone's bothered to read theirs... it says to only tow with a 2.4L or Ecotec engine, with a 4 speed automatic transmission. I don't know the "official" reason why GM limits it to that, but I can make an educated guess!!
As for the OP's Explorer... as long as your Explorer is in good shape, I see no reason NOT to tow your Cavy with it.
...j
i never said they all had them, i said i figured they did meaning i thought they did big difference from saying they all do period.
