VX Towing

[tom4bren]

Well, I finally installed the trailer wiring adapter. It was pretty easy but took a while since I soldered all of the connections. Yeah, I know - what took so long since I installed the hitch 6 weeks ago. I told you I procrastinate.

We towed the boat to the Potomac on Saturday. The VX tows well but you can certainly 'feel' it behind you. I did have to run with the Power switch on because I was having a hard time pulling some of the hills without it. The boat is a SeaDoo Sportster weighing in at about 2,000 lbs with the trailer. I guess with the 33's, that's about the limit for towing for us.

I took a couple of pictures but forgot to bring in the memory card this morning. I'll try to post them tomorrow.

[ZEUS]

Did you get an auxillary tranny cooler yet?

[johnnyapollo]

I had a tandom axel trailer behind my VX with about 4K lbs in books - didn't have any issues pulling but stopping was a huge issue. First time I came to a stop sign I ended up in the middle of the intersection. I then learned to do gradual braking when approaching a stop and all was well.

-- John

[thedutchguy]

I had a tandom axel trailer behind my VX with about 4K lbs in books - didn't have any issues pulling but stopping was a huge issue. First time I came to a stop sign I ended up in the middle of the intersection. I then learned to do gradual braking when approaching a stop and all was well.

-- John

Don't you guys have trailerbrakes?

[nfpgasmask]

Only very expensive trailers have brakes on them....for us little guys towing a quad or wave runner, most of the trailers are just simple pull trailers with wiring for brake lights.

If I were to tow a small trailer with say, a Polaris Rzr or a quad, would I need a tranny cooler?

Bart

Don't you guys have trailerbrakes?

[tom4bren]

"Did you get an auxillary tranny cooler yet?"

Naw, I only tow it about 30-40 miles at a stretch & Tranny heat didn't seem to be an issue. If I ever decide to tow it down to Tennessee (Watauga Lake) I might look into it.

"Don't you guys have trailerbrakes?"

I'd love to have surge brakes on it, but it wasn't offered & I have too many other "honey do's" on the list to tackle something like that right now. I've been thinking about getting a trailer for a 21 foot boat & modifying it to hold the boat & both jetskis but so far it's just a concept in my head. I also thought about putting a receiver on the back of the jetski trailer & towing the boat behind that but was told it's slightly illegal (even though I've seen a couple of other people doing it this year). In either of those cases, I'd definitely add surge brakes (P.S. I hate electric brakes and would never go that route).

"If I were to tow a small trailer with say, a Polaris Rzr or a quad, would I need a tranny cooler?"

It's never a bad idea to add the Tranny cooler but I don't think that it would be necessary in your application. Basically, you need to decide based upon: the maximum load you'll be hauling, terrain (lots of hill climbing will certainly bring up the tranny temps), and environment (if you're running through Death Valley in the summer, you may want the tranny cooler even if you aren't towing anything).

Johnny - How long did it take before you started breathing normally again after that? I did that once with a heavy load of firewood in the back of my ol' Dodge.

[bigkoala1]

i tow a 21ft apache with my vx. like you all said "you can feel it there" ...no problems going up the ramp, but it has a hard time backing into the driveway. did anyone else notice that?

[johnnyapollo]

There wasn't any traffic so I didn't get too excited - it was more of a "daaaaayum" moment than anything. Mike Pate (who used to be on the forums back when he had a Proton) was in the truck with me and he gave me one of those raised eyebrow looks, as you could probably imagine.

-- John

[tom4bren]

"did anyone else notice that?"

Never noticed anything while backing up ('cept can't see). Then again, my driveway is flat so haven't tried backing up hill.

[bigkoala1]

i noticed in a earlier post you (tom4bren) said you tow with the power button on.. do you leave it on while you are backing. or does it make a difference?

[tom4bren]

I don't think that the power button will make any difference when you are backing up. Someone - Anyone - please correct me if I'm wrong here but: the power button only sets the transmission to downshift easier, I don't think that it actually sets anything different on the engine. It could (through the magic of the computer) advance the timing or set the fuel injection to run richer or something of that nature but I don't think it does.

Some pix of the rig.

[tom4bren]

I put higher res pix in the gallery.

[Chopper]

all it does is affect shift points...almost redline at W.O.T. / like 3200 at %50 throttle. Didn't know it affected downshifts....but then, I've never not had the button down.

[tom4bren]

I guess the net effect is to make downshift easier since the shift points are set differently. All I know is that when pulling a steep hill with the button off, I had to floor it to get it to downshift. With the button on, much less accelerator pressure to downshift. Of course I could have manually downshifted but didn't think of that at the time.

[psychos2]

i tow a 21ft apache with my vx. like you all said "you can feel it there" ...no problems going up the ramp, but it has a hard time backing into the driveway. did anyone else notice that?

Whenever I am backing up a hill with a trailer I use 4 LO. shawn