this post was submitted on 12 Aug 2023
1541 points (89.9% liked)
Fuck Cars
9390 readers
1437 users here now
A place to discuss problems of car centric infrastructure or how it hurts us all. Let's explore the bad world of Cars!
Rules
1. Be Civil
You may not agree on ideas, but please do not be needlessly rude or insulting to other people in this community.
2. No hate speech
Don't discriminate or disparage people on the basis of sex, gender, race, ethnicity, nationality, religion, or sexuality.
3. Don't harass people
Don't follow people you disagree with into multiple threads or into PMs to insult, disparage, or otherwise attack them. And certainly don't doxx any non-public figures.
4. Stay on topic
This community is about cars, their externalities in society, car-dependency, and solutions to these.
5. No reposts
Do not repost content that has already been posted in this community.
Moderator discretion will be used to judge reports with regard to the above rules.
Posting Guidelines
In the absence of a flair system on lemmy yet, let’s try to make it easier to scan through posts by type in here by using tags:
- [meta] for discussions/suggestions about this community itself
- [article] for news articles
- [blog] for any blog-style content
- [video] for video resources
- [academic] for academic studies and sources
- [discussion] for text post questions, rants, and/or discussions
- [meme] for memes
- [image] for any non-meme images
- [misc] for anything that doesn’t fall cleanly into any of the other categories
Recommended communities:
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
SUVs and pulling shit is kinda funny you see: Automatic transmissions have shit torque out of the box, they'd overheat pulling simple trailers so they need additional cooling so they need additional space so Yanks buy oversized cars (whether or not they actually pull anything).
Anyhow if America learned to drive manual transmission like the rest of the world they could pull trailers with Golfs, like the rest of the world.
Heck that SUV there looks larger than a Unimog and I can guarantee you it is nowhere even close to Unimog capabilities. Those things are honorary tractors.
Lol. Most tractors (tractor trailers) are automatic now. To say it needs to be manual otherwise it’s bad at hauling is quite possibly the most ignorant shit I’ve read around here in awhile.
Automatic transmissions are perfectly fine for hauling as long as it’s designed for it.
Genuinely curious, are they automatic or automated?
Tractors tend to have erm Lastschaltgetriebe dunno the English term. Transmissions that can shift under load, without dropping torque. With regards to what I said what's important is whether they have a fluid coupling as that's where torque losses and heat generation occur, and they generally don't, they have dual clutches instead. You also see continuously variable transmissions, as well as plain old manual ones if you simply don't need fancy.
Computer-automated clutches, sure, but that makes them computer-actuated manuals, not automatic as in something that can select gears in a purely mechanical fashion.
Coming back to Unimogs: Also, in principle tractor transmissions. Number of clutches can get involved because power takeoff points. From a driver's experience they either shift completely automatically, or you select gears but the computer does the clutching, or, and this is something you don't really see in tractors, you can also operate the clutch manually because it's very useful in certain offroad situations. Mechanically, though, as said, they're manual transmissions, hydraulically actuated, controlled by computer.
My SUV's towing capacity: 3500lbs
The car version of my SUV (built on the same platform, with the same engine and transmission and actually 4" longer), towing capacity: 2000lbs
Why? Suspension, not transmission.
The Golf you're talking about has no official towing capacity in North America because North America is actually more strict about towing safety than Europe. I've towed with my Jetta though and anything past 1k lbs was a stretch.
A Unimog doesn't hit highway speeds, they're road legal farm vehicles.
Transmission oil coolers don't require much space either and they're required if you're towing heavy loads with a manual transmission too, so packaging doesn't change.
Before sharing your opinion as if it were a fact you should make sure you actually know what you're talking about.
A Golf has a capacity of 1.5 to 2 tons. That's more than your SUV. And no American safety standards aren't higher than Europe's. It's just taken as a given that you drive differently when you're towing something and not merging onto the Autobahn at 120km/h. That's because we have driver ed and, in fact, you need an extra license to pull anything of any size.
Europe:
Golf towing capacity 1600kg
My SUV's towing capacity 2400kg
And having towed with a manual Jetta I can confirm that only a moron would tow more than 500kg with a Golf and think they're safe, and the Jetta is longer than the Golf so it's actually more stable.
And yes, towing standards are more strict in North America (SAE J2807) vs Europe (determined by the manufacturer)
I would never pull more than 1000 pounds with a golf. Irresponsible, unsafe, and unhealthy for the car itself.
I really want to see this golf pulling 4400 lbs while not being a hazard to everyone on the road. Good luck climbing a hill on a busy highway without getting into an accident or shitting out pieces of transmission on the road.
That's fucking insane, my "giant" 1/2 ton pickup is only book rated for pulling 5500 lbs.
Maximum load for a Golf is 2t, at least as built by VW. Maximum speed for trailers is usually 80km/h, 100 if they're light and built for it (all those caravans).
Long story short: You'll have no more trouble with hills than the trucks you're stuck in the right lane with.
If you're regularly pulling heavy stuff, say, horses, you want an Audi Q7 or such, 3.5t. But a Golf is perfectly adequate for a caravan or a couple of motorcycles. If you're regularly pulling bricks or logs or whatnot... don't. Lorries exist.
You try going 20km under the speed limit in Canada, and you're going to get rear ended. If you can't drive near the speed limit on level ground you are overloaded.
Your brakes, tires, suspension, motor, and transmission are not built for towing. You are going to cause an accident.
The brakes, tires, suspension, motor and transmission are rated for that load by the manufacturer.
Also what fucking speed limit, generally speaking. Lorries etc. still are limited to 80km/h on Autobahn stretches without speed limit that's why the right lane is full of them, they're not out there racing Veyrons. On rural roads you could come across a tractor that's limited to 40km/h, quite a bit shy of the usual 100km/h limit. If your compatriots can't deal with that I suggest introducing something like a scheme where people have to demonstrate that they can operate a motor vehicle before they're allowed to do it on public roads. Call it a driving license or something.
In North America we have bright orange florescent "slow moving vehicle" signs on the back of farm equipment and the like. If you are impeding the flow of traffic and you don't have a slow moving sign, you're committing an offense. Most of our rural highways have no passing lanes; the yellow line in the center indicates when it's safe to pass using the oncoming lane.
Also,, as someone else mentioned, the government dictates towing vehicle limits here, not the manufacturer. We all know how honest vw is when it comes to reporting their vehicle specifications.
I still can't envision a VW golf pulling a 4400lb trailer. I'd be surprised if the tongue weight alone doesn't lift the front wheels off the ground. My GMC Sierra with a 4.8l v8 struggles to pull my 6000lb travel trailer. According to GM, it's slightly overweight but according to traffic safety laws I can pull it, considering it's vehicle class.
This isn't Germany, people don't drive like robots, so you have to drive defensively at a relatively equal speed to the rest of traffic or some idiot will end you.
80kg max. That's why you want a Kombi if you want to pull actually heavy loads on single/twin axle trailers (up to 3.5t, then it's lorry territory), a Q7 has 115kg because wheels further apart than anything a compact could have.
I can very well imagine that European trailers put much more weight on the wheels as opposed to the tongue, the US sites I looked at speak about tongue weight as a percentage of trailer weight, not an independent value. Here, 3.5t trailer, practically zero tongue weight.
Are trailers with that front dolly axle common in europe? We practically never see setups like that aside from slow moving farm equipment, or you're pulling two or more trailers as a train
Not terribly, no, they're harder to handle as in reversing is a bitch because of the additional point of articulation and a twin axle is plenty to transport a mini excavator and if you have a mini excavator you're probably not towing it with a Golf but at least a minivan (Chassis. Could be a flatbed). If you're hauling bricks then probably with an actual lorry. It's a middle of the road solution. You also need a license, no matter the weight they're not included in the default one.
One application I see them used in is delivery of beverages, they can handle uneven weight distribution way better than twin axles, you don't want to have to double-check tongue weight every time you take out a crate from the back.
The "More weight on the wheels than tongue" thing is also about the placement of the twin axles, they usually are dead centre over here so it's easy to position that excavator so it has no leverage.
I've pulled empty hay wagons that have a front and rear axle it starts fishtailing if you try to go very fast. They had the orange triangles on them, haha.
I pull something like this https://cheyennecampingcenter.com/inventory/2022-forest-river-cherokee-grey-wolf-23dbh-bunkhouse-travel-trailer-439
With a truck like this https://www.edmunds.com/gmc/sierra-1500/2011/review/
comfortably on flat ground at 100km/h if there isn't a lot of crosswind.
We don't really worry about calculating tongue weight every time the load changes because we tend to tow with vehicles that are designed with towing in mind and have ample power. I guess that's the difference between German and American engineering, one designs things to be as efficient and conservative as possible, the other builds something far heavier and larger than what the average person needs.
I'll agree that trucks could be smaller. I drive 79 series Landcruisers for offroad use in a mine and they are tough little machines. It would have no trouble towing but they're not considered road worthy here and can only be imported as offroad vehicles. We're not hard up for space in North America so pickup trucks aren't really seen as a nuisance here like I suppose they are in Europe.
Absolute nonsense, the torque converter multiplies torque at low speed, so an automatic with the same gear ratios as a manual will have far more pulling power than a manual.
And a trans cooler is standard on pretty much any automatic vehicle.
That's not a SUV my man, that's a full size pickup truck with a bed topper. And automatic transmissions can absolutely pull a heavy load without a problem if they are designed for it. Plenty of Americans own manuals, I've had many over the years and enjoy them both, but just having a manual transmission is not what makes a car capable of pulling a load. Your never going to pull a serious load in a golf, regardless of the transmission; maybe a little yard trailer or haul a motorcycle, but not a horse, a car, or anything actually considerable for that matter, you would fold the frame up and would never be able to stop it. That's a ram 2500 btw, it will haul 10,000-15,000 lbs depending on how it's configured. A unimog is more like a street legal tractor, love em, but it's in a whole other class than this. Completely different use case, not really comparable. A new unimog probably cost 3x this truck as well.
That's quite a bit more than a Golf's 2t, the maximum you can get over here without it being a truck (and requiring a truck license) is 3.5t. 5t is medium lorry category... not pulling, that is, but hauling stuff themselves. If you order a load of bricks or such you generally don't pick them up, they get delivered by whoever's selling them with a lorry with a suitable crane.
And no a Unimog is not a street legal tractor, pretty much all tractors are street legal (as long as it's harvesting season farmers get all kinds of road legality exemptions as long as they drive at snail speeds great-grandpa's trailer that he pulled with horses is still legal). It's an Autobahn-legal tractor and appliance carrier. Also drives on rail if equipped for it. And it's Autobahn-legal by a wide margin, the minimum is 60km/h and they usually do 80 (in line with what lorries are allowed, everything over 3.5t total weight), you can get them with up to 110km/h.
I know exactly what a unimog is, I have drove one. And you are just talking semantics about the legality, here they are considered street legal, as they get a plate assigned. You can drive a tractor on the road but only for the purpose of transport to other fields on Maintence. They do not require a a tag, only a triangle. A basic license here covers all pickup trucks for private use, you only need a CDL for a really big trailer when you are working for hire, or a commercial truck over a certain size. It is kinda crazy to me how people can have 42 foot RVs here pulling a 40 foot double stacked enclosed trailer though with just a basic license though haha
🥱 https://youtube.com/watch?v=DOj5xpZ1H9E