Improve Towing Capability
With a custom hitch and proper attention paid to tires and wind resistance, even unlikely vehicles like this Buick Enclave can become satisfactory tow vehicles for surprisingly large trailers. If you find that your truck is overmatched, it may not be practical to upgrade, but there are a few things you can do. By installing lower (numerically higher) gears, you may be able to get a heavier-than-advisable load rolling without stressing the transmission, rear axle, and cooling system quite so much. But you will have to tow at lower cruising speeds because of it, and mileage may suffer.
Another tactic would be to add cooling power, which might include a bigger/better radiator, an oil cooler and/or a transmission cooler, and temp gauges. The transmission, another limiting factor, can often be beefed up with a billet torque converter and re-programmed using a chip that allows you to lock up the torque converter on hills. With the transmission not hunting between gears so much, it will live longer. Newer pickups often have a "tow/haul" button on the shifter for just this reason.
A custom hitch can also make a difference. Factory hitches are "on the light side," says Andy Thomson at Can Am RV, a Canadian RV specialty outfit. "A lot of hitches are made to ship cheaply and bolt on easily," he says, so they make towing capacity a secondary priority. Thomson is a lifelong RVer who regularly writes on the subject of hitches for various RV publications. "We think about 5 percent of the trailers on the road today are really hitched up well," he estimates. According to him, when a tow vehicle, car, or truck does not tow well, it's not always the fault of the vehicle.
"People assume it's the vehicle, but more often, it's the hitch. A lot of crossover SUVs are really very good tow vehicles. They have independent suspensions, which gives them a wider stance for stability and, with a unibody, a lower center of gravity. We've done well with Ford Edges and Buick Enclaves, and we've done over 1,000 minivans since we've been in business."
At Can Am, custom hitches are designed to spread loads over a much longer distance, moving the load toward the center of the vehicle. Careful attention is paid to the distance the hitch ball is from the vehicle, so that unwanted leverage is kept to a minimum.
"It's not so much the weight of the trailer," Thomson tells us. "The weight really only matters on hills and acceleration."
Limiting factors? "Ninety percent of the time it's aerodynamic drag," Thomson says, adding that even slightly taller trailers can be much harder to tow at highway speeds. "The trend toward bias-ply tires also adds rolling resistance. We won't let a trailer go out with bias-plys."
Because new trailers generally have good brakes, the braking power of a tow vehicle has become less of a concern. He says, "It's pretty hard to buy a trailer without adequate brakes these days."