Trailering 3000 lbs

The problem is in the suspension, the brakes, the engine, the
transmission, and the strength of the unibody (frame), particularly where
the hitch attaches. None of these components were designed to handle that
kind of load. Most of them would put up with it for a while, but I'd
really worry about the strength of the body where the frame is attached.
Having your hitch fall off can ruin your whole day.

Your "big fast engine" is a 3.0 liter V-6, designed to put out good
horsepower at fairly high RPM. For towing, you want a broad, flat torque
curve, i.e., a wide RPM span between the torque peak and the power peak.
The Maxima doesn't have that (I don't recall the numbers from tests, but
I'd guess the torque peak is somewhere above 3500 rpm).

Front wheel drive can also be a problem for towing, especially for pulling
heavy boats up steep launch ramps. But there are FWD minivans rated to
tow 3500 lbs. or so.

Your transmission (assuming it's an automatic) _might_ live if you add a
transmission cooler. Without one, I think your tranny would be cooked in
short order.

And of course you'd void your warranty, if it's still in effect.

Think of it like this. Was a screwdriver designed to be used as a pry
bar? Probably not. Can it be used as one? Sure, if the load isn't too
great. But load it up too much and you'll bend it, which makes it pretty
useless as a screwdriver. The folks at Nissan definitely didn't have
towing 3000 lbs. in mind when they designed your car, either.

Bill Walker - - QUALCOMM, Inc., San Diego, CA USA
"First thing we do, we kill all the lawyers." - Shakespeare

: my Nissan Maxima is rated to pull only 1000 lbs. So, if I hook up my 3100
: lb boat to it what really will happen? What problems will I have? This
: car has a big, fast engine, putting out 200 HP. It's front wheel drive. Is
: the problem in the suspension? Reply only if you really know. I've asked
: so called trailering experts at RV places and I think they're full of
: borax in their answers. Help !!!!!

Don't forget that beside PULLING the trailer/boat, you've got to STOP the
thing too! Even if you have sufficient horsepower, what about the brakes??

--
John Novotny Chesapeake Bay - The Final Frontier

The CV joints in front wheel drive vehicles are the weak spot. I
know of an instance in the late 70's where an individual tried
racing a Cadillac Eldorado on a dirt track. He did really well but
his CV joints had melted the boots off.

Russell D. Jacques

: my Nissan Maxima is rated to pull only 1000 lbs. So, if I hook up my 3100
: lb boat to it what really will happen? What problems will I have? This
: car has a big, fast engine, putting out 200 HP. It's front wheel drive. Is
: the problem in the suspension? Reply only if you really know. I've asked
: so called trailering experts at RV places and I think they're full of
: borax in their answers. Help !!!!!

In many cases trailering weight capability is also set by the strength of
the fram (or lack there of), and the ability to transfer loads from the
hitch to the car structure. Many small cars with uni-body construction
can't pass much load from the hitch through the sheat metal floor/body
location where the hitch will attach. If you tow too much weight the hitch
attach locations may fatigue and tear out. Cars (usually trucks actuall)
with REAL frames to attach to are less suseptable, but can also be limited
by the thickness of the fram rail material.

I would advise you NOT to do this. I used to tow a 17' boat and trailer that
weighted little less than 2000 lbs. with a Toyota Celica. This was just plain
suicidal. This car did not have the suspension or transmission (no tranny cooler) to
do this type of towing. I couldn't find out exactly what the towing capacity was but
I'm sure it must have been around 1000 lbs. The car overheated on me a couple of
times during the summer months and the ride in general wasn't too comfortable.
Trailer would sway considerably during highway driving. I bought a Grand Cherokee
with a trailer tow prep package and, needless to say, the difference was incredible.
I have since sold that boat and my new boat is too large to be towed. Although it's
probably more expensive to keep a boat at a marina I'll take this trade-off any time.
There have been many days where I was so tired at the end of the day and I had to
trail the boat back while nodding off on the highway. Anyway, Maxima is a nice
strong car but I really wouldn't attempt to do this. Hope this helps.

Paul

In <42mphh$@cronkite.seas.gwu.edu
Hi All:

Don't forget tooYou've got to get it up the ramp. My Shamrock
weighs 3400 Lbs. Pulled it around for a week with a S-10 Blazer. Works
great on flat surface. Tough slowing down and ranks from bitch - to -
impossible when trying to get it up the ramp. You need a full size
truck or at the minimum a 4-WD. I now use a 4WD SuburbanI
knowOVERKILL.

Happy waves::::::
--

| St. Petersburg Fla.
H & G Brown | Only I Know When

Does your boat trailer have brakes? (it should, all trailers over
3000 pounds are required, at least in California, to have brakes.) If
you don't have trailer brakes, the biggest problem you will have is
just getting the rig to stop. The boat probably outweighs the car by
a large margin.

The next problem area will be in the drive train, especially the
transmission. If it is an automatic, the bands and shift points were
designed for expected driving conditions and the weight of the car
plus normal passenger cargo. Adding 3000 pounds really messes up the
conditions that the transmission was expecting.

The result is that the transmission bands may give out a lot sooner
than they otherwise would have. Shifting may be very erratic, and
performance could be very poor.

If it is a stick shift, the weak spot is probably the clutch. Again,
the clutch was sized for a 2000 pound load, not a 5000 pound load.
The massive slippling it will have to do to get the rig started moving
(especially up a steep launch ramp) may be the death of it rather
quickly.

The transmission isn't the only area of concern. All the drive
train (gears, axels, CV joints, etc) were designed for the weight of
the car alone. Adding the boat is going to put a constant load on
them that is greater than the short duration maximum loads they were
designed for.

Another area of concern is where are you going to attach a hitch
that will support *over* 3000 pounds? I doubt that there are many
class III hitches made for a Maxima, or that the available frame
members that a hitch could be attached to would support it. I can
tell you from personal experience what happens when you tow a trailer
that weighs more than the hitch was designed for (the car and trailer
tend to part company at unintended times).

Overall stability will be anohter issue. Enter a sharp turn just a
little too fast and you will find the trailer doing the driving. If
your trailer has a tendency to sway (don't they all, at least a
little?) you may find yourself on the short end of the stick as to who
gets to decide which direction you go. The short, narrow wheel base
of the Maxima might not be up to the task at hand.

Last but not least is the tongue weight. Your 3000 pound trailer
will probably have two to three hundred pounds of tongue weight. Add
a foot of leverage for the draw bar, and that is a lot of force trying
to push the rear down (and the front wheels up).

I cheat the tow rating on my vehicle a little. But you are talking
of exceeding it by 3 to 1. I really doubt that the engineers built
that kind of margin into the car.

In short, I wouldn't recommend it.

Rod McInnis

There are a lot of problems, but since you seem to want more specific
answers, here you go. Lets take your drive train as an example.

Your car basically moves through the motion of the crankshaft and gears
(dozens of gears in the engine and drivetrain). In a vehicle the
crankshaft and gears are designed and made from materials in the least
costly manner to provide for sufficient life under expected load
conditions. As you add weight to the vehicle or begin to tow things, the
contact pressures on the crankshaft and gears increase. The lubricants
used in such systems are also selected for the design load conditions. If
the load increases too much you can have localize microwelding between the
materials in contact when the lubricant is no longer able to handle the
load. This is called galling.

By towing a trailer heavier than the rated load you run the risk of loading
the system beyond its desin limits. Yes, there is obviously a factor of
safety built into those numbers. But it may not be as much as you think,
maybe 25%.

BTW, big and fast and 200 HP doesn't mean diddly squat in relation to
trailering. Lotus makes a 4 cylinder aluminum block engine capable of over
400 HP. But that's 400 HP at 7000 RPM. How much power and torque does
that engine produce at a more typical 2000 RPM. Not nearly that much.

I say go ahead and do it. There's nothing like personnal experience as a
learning tool. So what if 99 out of 100 people tell you you're a fool.
That one person may be right. You do wear your seatbelts, don't you?

kevin

I hope you mean 2.8L or 2.5L 2wd s-10 Blazer.

My 4.3L S-15 4WD pulls my boat and trailer (3800+ dry) just fine.
BTW- I really never have to use 4wd, but I do have a LSD rearend and
235/75 BFG All-Terrain tires.

Great truck... I'd like a 2dr Yukon/Taho as my next tow vehicle.
dsc

Dudley Cornman
Systems Programmer
Academic Computing Services - EKU