Tow vehicle Safety Tips and Warnings

My 2000 Chevy Z 71 with less than 25K miles on it had a steering column "clunk" under the hood. The repair shop said it was a common problem and an easy fix. It's been a while, but I remember they changed out some rubber sleeves plus did some adjustments. $80 for the repair.

They also have a shifter that can easily fool a driver into thinking its in park. Likely killed actor Anton Yelchin.

www.theguardian.com/film/2018/mar/24/anton-yelchins-family-settle-jeep-lawsuit-over-star-trek-actors-death

bigbill, I just had exactly that problem on my 2006 GMC Sierra. Brake pedal got real mushy all of a sudden. I looked at each wheel expecting to find a break in the line and there were none. Fluid was dripping from fuel tank area. A tip from my mechanic. If you do have a leaky line near a wheel just crimp it with vise grips and you'll maintain enough pressure to drive with brakes on three wheels. The line will have to be replaced anyway so you're not really hurting anything.

Can I post general things about tow vehicles? Some random points I have encountered:

Tongue weight rating is typically the allowed tongue weight applied to the vehicle -including- cargo & -people-. I have discovered many don't know about this and don't consider their passengers as cargo for that calculation. Check your owner's manual for specifics, sometime there is an allowance for the driver.


For tow capacity of the vehicle, be cautious of relying on ratings that are not directly from the OEM. I have seen conflicting information on sites like Edmunds. The best bet is to review your owners manual. Sometimes that specific axle gear ratio your vehicle is equipped with will change the rating. As an example my Envoy is rated to tow 6000lb but if it had the 3.73:1 gearing it could tow 6500lbs. Sometimes all else equal a 2wd can tow more than a 4wd truck due to the extra weight of 4x4 components. It pays to get into the details.


People are often aware that adding a transmission cooler to their automatic trans tow vehicle is a good idea. Note that if you live in a cold climate, they make coolers with a cold bypass built in so the cooler is bypassed until such time the trans has warmed up which avoids a restriction in the cooling circuit from thick oil trying to get through a secondary cooler. Something to think about when shopping for one. As usual, you get what you pay for with these things. www.trucool.com/products

HTH, cheers.

Thanks Viks for input. Trailer not that light and I agree on looks. The tailgate issue is a pain though. Also, twice I’ve bent the jack on steep paved gutters pulling out of parking lots. Not a rare problem I think from all the gouges you see in pavement. Maybe a scissor jack not attached but carried in the tool box?

Thanks. I’ll mess around with those good ideas.

My worst towing incident was at Bandelier National Monument. We stayed a few nights at the Juniper campground which is really nice. There are trails from the campground to the bottom of the canyon where you can explore the ancient pueblo. We wanted to get more information about the hike, so I started down the road into the canyon with camper in tow, thinking we’d go to the visitor’s station.

The road was very narrow and pretty steep at the beginning. All of a sudden my wife said “We just passed a sign on the passenger side of the road. It said something like, “No trailers allowed on this road”. The problem was that by then I was committed and there was no way to backup or turn around. I put the truck into low gear and kept tapping the brakes ( thankfully I do have trailer brakes which I adjusted as we descended.) That road was the steepest I’ve ever been on, and I was really afraid the transmission and / or brakes were going to fail. Our camper is 3200lbs loaded, and the TV was rated for 7500lbs, but it did not feel safe at all. Worst of all was not knowing how much further it was to the bottom, and thinking about having to go back up. I wasn’t sure there would even be a space to turn around at the bottom. We did make it and there was a place to park, and room to maneuver. Going back up was not quite as scary, but again, I was unsure if everything would hold together, but it did. As bigbill said, “engage your brain”, before you get into a situation like mine. We would have been like a runaway freight train if we couldn't slow it down, and probably would have plunged over the cliffs to our certain death. Our epitaph "They died doing what they loved best".