| Stang70Fastback |
09-29-2017 12:53 PM |
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jordanwolf
(Post 2985339)
Pretty sure manual says "DO NOT TOW"
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The Owner's Manual states "Do Not Tow" because towing was never in the "official" design specifications when Subaru and Toyota were designing, building, and testing the car. Therefore the car was never tested for towing capability, and as a result, the Owner's Manual states not to do so, as neither Subaru, nor Toyota, want to be responsible for any issues stemming from something they never explicitly designed the car to do.
That statement was not written by engineers. It was written by lawyers to cover their butts. Even if it does state a towing capacity, that isn't necessarily the be-all, end-all of what the vehicle can do. A lot of things come together to define the "official towing capacity" of a vehicle, and the mechanical limits of the vehicle are only one of those things. The "safe limit" is different from the mechanical limit. The "legal limit" is different from both of those. And so on, and so forth. Any vehicle can tow something, though. And since I just got into an argument with someone about this on Facebook, I can conveniently copy-paste this reply :)
Quote:
Originally Posted by Me
The heaviest iteration of the BRZ has a curb weight of 2835 lb (according to Google.) The lowest GVWR of this car is 3682 lb. That means the car is rated to carry an additional 847 lb of "cargo" if we take the worst versions of those numbers. The actual rating is likely higher. If the driver weighs 185 lb, that leaves you with 662 lb of leftover capacity. My trailer (pictured here) weighs 650 lb at most (in my overestimation.) That means that when I tow my trailer, I am actually WITHIN the design criteria for what the engineers rated the engine, transmission, brakes, and all other mechanical parts of the car to be capable of. In addition, I'm actually well UNDER the maximum capacity of the suspension, since it is only carrying the tongue weight of the trailer, and not the entire weight of the trailer and its contents. So the car is operating fully within its rated specifications, and isn't prone to any sort of unusual failure as a result of towing.
As far as that 50 lb tongue weight, 50 lb distributed across those two tow points isn't going to do ANYTHING since each tow point is individually designed for many, MANY times more than that amount of load.
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