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Tow Far, Tow Good: Hauling Hints

Essential tips for successful towing

Towing a trailer is not as simple as some might think. On the other hand, it's not an overly difficult skill to learn either. The following tips can help to ensure that your towing experience is a positive and safe one, whatever your level of experience. Our first part will cover items to check and practice before heading out, and the second part will go into detailed tips on handling.

Know Before You Go

The idea here is to avoid being in transit while wondering if your brake lights work, or if you cinched the tie-down straps, or raised the trailer jack, or any other key aspect of maintenance.

Look into all those things and then some, before you even pull out of the driveway. To do this effectively, it's good to have a literal "pre-flight" checklist written on a tablet or piece of paper that you keep in the tow vehicle's glove box. In the real world, however, most folks are not likely to do that, so at the very least, go through a mental checklist before hitting the road. Surprisingly enough, it's often the experienced tower that gets overconfident and develops a lackadaisical attitude.

Your checklist should include items such as making sure all lights work properly, the hitchball is secure, all wheel nuts are tight, and tire pressure is adequate (including the spare). Also, make sure the coupler is secure (running a bolt through the coupler hole will ensure it won't pop open), the trailer jack is raised and locked in place, the trailer's emergency brake cable (or breakaway cable) is connected to the tow vehicle and the safety chains are hooked up.

Incidentally, safety chains should be crisscrossed so that if the trailer comes loose from the hitchball, the chains form a cradle to catch the loose trailer tongue and keep it from digging into the pavement and flipping over. Additionally, make sure the load is properly positioned and secured on the trailer.

Watch Your Weight

You should be aware of four weight ratings when you tow: Gross Vehicle Weight Rating (GVWR), Gross Axle Weight Rating (GAWR), Trailer Weight Allowance (TWA), and Gross Combined Weight Rating (GCWR). None of them should be taken for granted.

Both your tow vehicle and trailer have a designated GVWR, which represents the total allowable weight it's designed to safely carry. If GVWR is exceeded on either the tow vehicle or trailer your solution may be as simple as transferring part of the load between the two vehicles.

The GAWR, on the other hand, is the maximum allowable weight on each axle (front and rear on a tow vehicle). In some cases it's possible to be within the GVWR but exceed the GAWR, such as on a small truck with a fully loaded camper and a boat or other heavy load in tow.

The TWA is the maximum weight the vehicle can safely pull. The TWA rating can vary, depending on whether your tow rig has manual or automatic transmission and if it has 4-wheel drive.

Lastly, there's the GCWR, which represents the combined weight of a fully loaded tow vehicle (fuel, occupants, cargo, everything) and the total weight of what's in tow (trailer, boat, fuel, gear, etc.). GCWR is determined by engine, transmission and rear axle ratio.

To determine exact weight, it's best to take the tow vehicle and trailer, fully loaded, to a public scale. Weigh each vehicle separately to get the needed weights. This may sound like a lot of work, but it's the best way to know if you are within safe tolerances.

Practice First

The first few times you climbed behind the wheel of a car and took control of it, you undoubtedly did so under an experienced driver's tutelage, and you likely did it on some out of the way road where there was no traffic. That same principle should hold true when it comes to towing for the first time, too.

Near empty parking lots provide an ideal training ground. Bring some 5-gallon buckets and practice turning around them, maneuvering between them and, most important, backing up along them. Such practice sessions will be time well spent and make the real thing a lot less stressful.

Make Wide Turns

Every time you hitch a trailer to a vehicle, the normal driving characteristics of that vehicle change. The added length, width and weight of a trailer in tow affect turning, acceleration, passing, stopping and practically every other facet of driving. You will need to compensate for these changes by developing different driving habits.

Take turning for instance. Trailers have a tighter turning radius than that of the tow vehicle, so if your tow vehicle barely cleared the curb or a parked car's bumper when turning, the trailer will hit it. That's why you'll need to develop the habit of making wider than normal turns. Ever notice those signs on the back of 18-wheel trucks that warn of wide turns? The same applies for smaller tow vehicles, which is not a difficult tip to learn, yet it is one of the most important aspects of successful towing.

Remember that these are the basic tips for successful trailering, so look for our next set of helpful hints where we'll cover some specific techniques of driving a tow vehicle and how to safely maneuver a trailer.