Tow cars and trailers

On May 18, 2:59 am, " wrote:
On May 18, 3:14 pm, Paul Hanson





wrote:
At 00:48 18 May 2007, Ed Winchester wrote:

Bill Daniels wrote:
'anonymous' wrote in message
. ch...
Bill Daniels schrieb:

Many of us drive larger vehicles than we might otherwise
choose simply to
pull our trailers 1% of the time. 99% of the time,
we could be driving,
say, a Volkswagen Passat TDI diesel getting 45mpg.
The Volkswagen Passat TDI is a fairly common tow vehicle
in Europe. No
need for a SUV. But then, this has been discussed
here many times.

Yes, I know that. However, it's not common in the
US bacause of the higher,
hotter, longer trip conditions here. Almost any trip
in the western US will
include at least one long, steep grade starting with
temperatures above 40C
that may climb to 3600 meters ASL. I know of one
VW that arrived as
essentially junk after one trip. The next time I
saw that pilot, he was
driving a much bigger tow vehicle.

If you prefer the manufacturer's position, here's
a comment from USA Today's
James R. Healey::
'Back to the Passat towing spec question: VW just
called to say towing's not
recommended with the Passat and that's why no towing
spec is provided. Would
towing void the warranty? Uh, um, well, probably not,
VW says, as long as
you tow light loads with a proper hitch installed
and used per the
aftermarket supplier's recommendations. Unless, of
course, some damage is
the obvious result of towing. Sounds to me as if anybody
who wants to tow
should choose a different car. Too much 'maybe' factor
with Passat. '

The VW Passat TDI diesel is a great car. I just wouldn't
abuse it by towing
a glider trailer.

Bill Daniels

Bill,

I have to agree with Dan. With the TDI (turbocharged
diesel injection)
the elevation would have almost no effect. Yes, pulling
up the hills
would work the engine a bit, but gearing down and watching
the temps
should cover that.

Ed

I think we must be careful not to use too light of
a vehicle to tow our glider trailers with. Although
the 2:1 ratio some trailer rental companies use ('U-Haul
used to require 2:1 ratio between the towing vehicle
and the trailer. Stated differently, the towing vehicle
must weigh twice as much as the trailer and its contents.
To increase rentals, U-Haul lowered that ratio from
2:1 to 1:1. This change decreased stability and increased
accidents'.--fromhttp://www.beasleyallen.com) may
be suitable for short coupled trailers, our glider
trailers although admittedly light in weight, have
much greater moments due to the longer arm, so for
me at least, that unfortunately rules out small, lightweight
super efficient vehicles, due to safety concerns. I
did find this in another thread though, talking about
glider towing with a Toyota Highlander Hybrid:
'I'll add my two cents to this thread. I towed my glider
trailer last weekend with a HH 4wd. Glider trailers
are tricky to tow because of their length (28') and
the fact that they have a lot of sail area. Weight
is about 1800 lbs. The rig was rock solid in mountainous
terrain with a 25 mph crosswind. Was at least as good
as my previous vehicle, a Grand Cherokee. I am quite
pleased with the performance. Overall, I am getting
about 26-27 MPG'.
found in:http://townhall-talk.edmunds.com/direct/view/.f0daea6

I like the idea of good gas mileage, since I tow mine
enough for that to be a major budget concern, for me.
(Ca to Memphis last Feb, Ca to Oshkosh later, plus
several milk runs...ouch) I currently tow with a Chevy
Astro Van, and get around 18-19mpg, doing normal interstate
speeds (70-80mph), so 26-27mpg does not sound too bad,
although I would need a motel when I got where I was
going because the Highlander Hybrid does not sound
big enough for me to camp in with my dog while on site.
It does sound like a good possible solution for some
of you though.

I do really like the idea of some sort of drive-assist
system in the trailer though, an idea I've considered
before, although my gas mileage without the trailer
is near the same in the Astro. Somebody needs to develop
a hybrid van, with good towing capacity, coupled to
a trailer that assists and then we would be on to something.
Although, the excessive cost of this combo would probably
outweigh the extra money that would be saved on gas,
it seems like a step in the right direction none the
less.

While we're on the subject, any comments on the Lexus RX hybrid as a
tow vehicle?

Ramy

Paul Hanson
"Do the usual, unusually well"--Len Niemi- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

A little sideways on this thread ,how does a Chevy Blazer 4.3 litre,
handle the towing loads as I am considering one as a tow
vehicle ,pulling
a tube type of trailer for a Ventus b or Nimbus 2 model. Any bad
reports or known problems I should be aware of .
gary- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Volkswagon, Ford, Mercedes and Fiat (and others) all make great small vans, diesel powered that will tow large trailers easily. Nowadays they drive like a large family sedan!
There is tons of space for extra gear in the back, they run on the sniff of fuel, pull like a 14 year old and you can sleep in the back very comfortably if you need to.

Go try one!


Bagger

bagmaker wrote:
Volkswagon, Ford, Mercedes and Fiat (and others) all make great small
vans, diesel powered that will tow large trailers easily. Nowadays they
drive like a large family sedan!
There is tons of space for extra gear in the back, they run on the
sniff of fuel, pull like a 14 year old and you can sleep in the back
very comfortably if you need to.

Unfortunately, none of these small vans are available in the US...

Marc

Ramy wrote:
While we're on the subject, any comments on the Lexus RX hybrid as a
tow vehicle?

Don't be taken in by the hype. If you consider whole of life energy
costs then hybrids are not very green at all. See

http://cnwmr.com/nss-folder/automotiveenergy

and download the "Dust to Dust" report for details.

The problem is that, while hybrids may give better fuel economy, that's
easily outweighed by the extra energy costs in building and recycling
them. For example, the Ford Focus I drive has a lifetime energy cost of
under 25% that of a Prius despite a 1:1.6 ratio of gas burnt per mile.

On topic: my Focus, a 2 litre automatic estate, has shown itself to be a
good tow car for a Std Libelle in a closed trailer though mileage does
suffer while towing.



--
martin@ | Martin Gregorie
gregorie. | Essex, UK
org |

On May 18, 11:36 pm, Martin Gregorie
wrote:
Ramy wrote:
While we're on the subject, any comments on the Lexus RX hybrid as a
tow vehicle?

Don't be taken in by the hype. If you consider whole of life energy
costs then hybrids are not very green at all. See

http://cnwmr.com/nss-folder/automotiveenergy

and download the "Dust to Dust" report for details.

Disappointed to see that spectacular piece of FUD linked to here.

The "study" is riddled with strange unexplained arbitary assumptions
in order to arrive at their conclusions such as the idea that a Prius
lasts only 100,000 miles and that a Hummer lasts 379,000(!). Reverse
those numbers to get a true picture of what taxi firms are seeing.

Another cracker: "The typical hybrid small vehicle such as the Prius
is driven far fewer miles each year than a comparably sized budget
car. And for good reason... these are generally secondary vehicles in
a household OR they are driven in restricted or short range
environments such as college campuses or retirement neighborhoods. "
Erm, what? The only hybrid owners I know are long-distance business
drivers - they either bought the hybrid themselves or, increasingly
commonly, have been given them as company cars because they're so
cheap to run (assisted by tax breaks).

A priceless "I've not done my homework" section is claiming that the
factory that produces the nickel for the Prius's battery has reduced
the local area to "a moonscape". Originally the factory did - in the
1960s. Since then the factory and area has been cleaned up and in 1992
was given an award by the UN for environmental rehabilitation.

Over 120 pages of the report is made up of photos of cars, editorial
cartoons and SONG LYRICS.

Funnily enough CNW is entirely funded by the North American car
industry.

If it's not peer reviewed - and this certainly wasn't - it's junk. I
speak has someone who studied product whole-life-cost estimation for
my degree.


Dan

Dan G wrote:
Funnily enough CNW is entirely funded by the North American car
industry.

I didn't know that. I checked when I first saw the reference but could
not determine their allegiance. I thought the original (spreadsheet)
report looked OK and conveyed more information than the current one,
though I must say I was surprised that "Ford Focus" only gets one
mention considering the range of different models and engines sold under
that label.

Thanks for the info: opinions adjusted accordingly.

If it's not peer reviewed - and this certainly wasn't - it's junk. I
speak has someone who studied product whole-life-cost estimation for
my degree.

...but nor are many other sites that survey a range of equipment. For
instance http://www.hybridcars.com/ also appears not to be peer
reviewed, though the hype on it is more obvious.

Can you supply the URL(s) for more reputable site(s) that look at the
same area? Its an area I'd like to know more about.


--
martin@ | Martin Gregorie
gregorie. | Essex, UK
org |

On May 19, 12:40 pm, Martin Gregorie
wrote:
Can you supply the URL(s) for more reputable site(s) that look at the
same area? Its an area I'd like to know more about.

All the hard data is proprietary and so the truth is no-one knows
_exactly_ what the costs of each technology are. CNW's report is
purely a guess with a rather obvious bias.

What's without doubt is that a hybrid's batteries are more energy
intensive to construct than a conventional car of the same size.
What's also without doubt is that right now no car of similar size
approaches the mileage of the Toyota and Honda hybrids, and they also
get a lot of tax breaks which are likely to only getter bigger as
governments try to get "green". Only Toyota really knows hows much
energy is needed to build the battery, and how that compares to how
much energy is saved in fuel. However, using the back of an
envelope...

Let's assume that over 100,000 miles a hybrid saves 10% fuel. That's
enough fuel for 10,000 miles, or (at 45mpg, which is about typical for
a current hybrid) 222 gallons of petrol. 222 gallons of petrol is
about 1,000l and at 35MJ/l that liberates 35,000MJ. Reduce that by two-
thirds to allow for the inefficiency of oil-fuelled power stations
(yeah I'm skipping the different energy density of petrol vs. whatever
an oil station really burns) and that gives you a conservative energy
saving of around 12,000MJ, which is enough to produce 50kg of virgin
(not cast, which is mainly recycled thus much cheaper) aluminium,
which as you may know is *incredibly* energy instensive to produce
(most al smelters are sited next to hydro dams or nuclear
powerstations, or both!). I don't know how much energy is needed to
build a Prius battery (mass around 100kg) but I imagine it must be
less than it takes to make aluminium. Yellow Cab of Vancouver have
taken their Priuses to 200,000 on the original batteries, and afaik
are still going. Therefore I personally reckon the whole-life cycle
cost of a hybrid is beneficial, and the only way to claim otherwise is
to pretend that the alternatives will last three times longer, which
is what CNW did, which is bull.

However the context has to be understood. The future of the automobile
is hydrogen as oil is a finite resource - all the car companies are
developing hydrogen-powered cars for the very long term (who says
capitalism is only about a quick buck?). Where hybrids fit in is the
short-term - the next decade or two where oil prices will rise, but
not so much that hydrogen is competitive. The alternative to the
hybrid is the diesel, which is what the Germans and French are
developing. A few companies are introducing "mild" hybrids for
marketing purposes. (There were also electric cars. I haven't seen
that film about the scrapping of the GM EV1, which is probably some
great big conspiracy theory, but at a guess the reality is probably
that battery technology simply doesn't have the fundemental potential
to be competitive with the fuel cell.)

Bottom line: hybrids get the best gas mileage at present. Diesels are
close behind and may always be a bit cheaper to buy, but not quite as
good for mileage, and also have issues with pollution. Ultimately -
decades ahead - hydrogen is the future. Where the energy to produce
the hydrogen comes from is a whole other ball game :-).

*Personally* I drive a medium-size petrol as the low mileage I do -
about 5,000 a year - means that the extra purchase cost of a diesel
isn't economical. To save the planet (and my heart) I cycle where-ever
possible.


Dan

"Dan G" wrote in message
ups.com...
...
Bottom line: hybrids get the best gas mileage at present. Diesels are
close behind and may always be a bit cheaper to buy, but not quite as
good for mileage, and also have issues with pollution. Ultimately -
decades ahead - hydrogen is the future. Where the energy to produce
the hydrogen comes from is a whole other ball game :-).


If we don't have the energy to extract the hydrogen, then what makes it "the
future"? I've never understood that angle - "we will need hydrogen for when
we run out of oil" - but we need oil to extract the hygrogen, eh?

Seems to me like we need "something" as an energy source for when we run out
of oil, and what kind of fuel one would generate for transportation would
depend a lot on what that "something" is. Might be H2, very possibly won't.

--
Geoff
The Sea Hawk at Wow Way d0t Com
remove spaces and make the obvious substitutions to reply by mail
When immigration is outlawed, only outlaws will immigrate.

Capt. Geoffrey Thorpe wrote:
"Dan G" wrote in message
ups.com...
...
Bottom line: hybrids get the best gas mileage at present. Diesels are
close behind and may always be a bit cheaper to buy, but not quite as
good for mileage, and also have issues with pollution. Ultimately -
decades ahead - hydrogen is the future. Where the energy to produce
the hydrogen comes from is a whole other ball game :-).


If we don't have the energy to extract the hydrogen, then what makes it "the
future"? I've never understood that angle - "we will need hydrogen for when
we run out of oil" - but we need oil to extract the hygrogen, eh?

Seems to me like we need "something" as an energy source for when we run out
of oil, and what kind of fuel one would generate for transportation would
depend a lot on what that "something" is. Might be H2, very possibly won't.

Yes! Kind of like the E85 push, the big boosters never bother to
mention that it takes nearly as much energy to make the ethanol as you
get out, meanwhile driving up corn (and beef) prices, and any other crop
that isn't planted so that corn can be.
I wouldn't be surprised if battery technology develops so thoroughly
that fuel cells (i.e. H2) never takes off.
Look at the Antares for example :-)


Shawn

Capt. Geoffrey Thorpe wrote:
If we don't have the energy to extract the hydrogen, then what makes it "the
future"? I've never understood that angle - "we will need hydrogen for when
we run out of oil" - but we need oil to extract the hygrogen, eh?

Seems to me like we need "something" as an energy source for when we run out
of oil, and what kind of fuel one would generate for transportation would
depend a lot on what that "something" is. Might be H2, very possibly won't.

Hydrogen isn't an energy source, just a way of storing energy in a
transportable form, same as battery or biofuel.

It has a few disadvantages too - when you combine electrolysis to get H2
with fuel cell efficiency the overall efficiency is around 66%. Thats
good compared with an IC engine's typical 25-35%, but other storage
methods, e.g. Li-poly batteries, which have a charge/discharge
efficiency of around 85%. The proof of this is that direct drive (no
storage) solar electric UAVs and those using Li-poly storage have
already flown successfully but no solar fuel cell system has, AFAIK, yet
flown.

Now consider that liquid H2, which is what cars will probably run on.
This needs cryogenic storage (if you don't cool it to liquid you either
need heavy HP gas cylinders or you adsorb it in a carrier and that
material isn't all that light either). In practice cryogenic tanks boil
off hydrogen to cool the remainder, which reduces the overall efficiency
by 15% if you immediately drive until the tank is empty and by up to
100% if you just park the car.

I think some other liquid fuel, such as ethanol, would be a lot less
hassle, but, like hydrogen, it needs to be manufactured industrially
using solar or nuclear power if enough is to be produced to entirely
replace fossil vehicle fuels.


--
martin@ | Martin Gregorie
gregorie. | Essex, UK
org |