silverstrike

I have a 94 accord 2.2L coupe. I am thinking about getting a hitch to tow my snowmobile, anyone know what the tow capacity is for my car?

TheMuffinMan

iTrader: (1)

Ehh, depending on snowmobile that's probably pushing it tow capacity wise.

-RedneckDave-

check the owners manual.

silverstrike

I do not have an owners manual for the car, that's why I posted the question on here. The sled weighs about 550 pounds, trailer that I'm looking at would weigh roughly 200 pounds.

professorman

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by SuM Honda &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">you're not supposed to tow anything...and I think the max weight for the car alone is around 800 lbs...so unless you weigh less than 100 lbs I'd suggest not doing it...you could risk doing major damage to your transmission.</TD></TR></TABLE> nonsense. ..

The Accord was designed to be able to tow. It was not designed to be a truck, but it definately can town. With the extra weight, it definately stresses your car more, so parts may wear out quicker, but an occasional towing wont hurt anything if you drive smoothly and baby your car.
I have been towing occasionally for a little time now. My rear has started to sag due to the added pressure on the rear suspension, but other than that, I havent noticed any major differences.

Here is my writeup about towing my Motorcycle Trailer
https://honda-tech.com/zerothread?id=1977607

Here is the same writeup in the motorcycle section (Different responses)
https://honda-tech.com/zero...age=1

Here is one tread I started about lowering and still being able to tow a jet ski.
https://honda-tech.com/zerothread?id=2131943


Let me know how it is turning out for you.


oh... And to clear things up..

SuM Honda

sorry forgot i wasn't on the civic forums

silverstrike

nice writeups, thanks.

shortlid

Thinking about puting a Class 1 hitch on my '99 Accord EX sedan, 4cyl. 5-speed. I am thinking about towing a small utility trailer for hauling firewood, and building supplies. Maybe even pull a 4X8 Uhaul trailer.

professorman

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by shortlid &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Thinking about puting a Class 1 hitch on my '99 Accord EX sedan, 4cyl. 5-speed. I am thinking about towing a small utility trailer for hauling firewood, and building supplies. Maybe even pull a 4X8 Uhaul trailer.</TD></TR></TABLE>

Check out my 'towing' tread that I listed above. I say go for it! My Accord is my EVERYTHING. My work truck, my sports car, my daily driver. Just dont abuse her

YeuEmMaiMai

max like others have stated is 1000lbs and you really should keep the car out of 4th gear unless you are on flat level ground

shortlid

Mine is Five speed manual, so I will likly keep it out of FIFTH gear except on flat highway speeds. How much harder is towing on my clutch. The car has about 130k on the roiginal clutch.

YeuEmMaiMai

lol I wouldn't even considering towing with a 5spd manual. the clutch area is WAY smaller than that of an automatic trans. definately nothing above 4th gear in that case (stay out of overdrive)

silverstrike

Are you serious?

First of all, the 94 accord can handle up to 3915 pounds gross vehicle weight. The car itself (if its a 2 door coupe DX manual tranny) weighs 2756 pounds. That leaves a net weight of 1159 pounds for passengers, cargo, trailer, and the load on the trailer.

Now if you have the original clutch at 170,000 miles (I'd be surprised if this were the case), you are right, do not tow with it. But if you have a new clutch or less miles, even of it is oem, there is nothing wrong with towing 1000 pounds on a factory setup; the car was made for it. Also, in the worst case scenario, if you burn a manual clutch, how much is it to fix, 150 bux in parts? If you burn an auto tranny, how much do you have to pay? Prolly more than the car is worth. Also, towing will hurt an auto so much faster than a manual, unless you simply don't know how to drive a manual correctly. Ever see 18 pounds of turbo boost on an oem clutch that has 90,000 miles on it compared to the same setup on an auto tranny? I'd say good luck buddy to the guy with the auto.

One more thing, you may want to stay in 4th gear, but why not shift to 5th if you are cruising down the highway at 65-70 mph? Hills may need downshifting, but on flat ground going 65-70 mph you will be holding your rpms so high for so long it will do way more damage to the motor than the clutch.

If you have proof otherwise, I would love to see it, so feel free to challenge me....

After about 2 weeks of research, I do not see anything wrong with towing any load under 1000 pounds regardless of what trim accord you have. You will need lower gears for the top end torque, but at cruising speeds (quoting professorman) "above 60 mph you can't even feel the trailer behind you." So it would be fine in fifth gear, just shift to 4th to accelerate.

Ok thats enough for now....

YeuEmMaiMai

GVW includes things like you, luggage passengers, gas, etc. I didn't say you could not tow with it but that I would not recommend it.

and yes the clutch in a manual is a lot smaller than the MUILTIPLE cluctch packs in an automatic.

The reason you keep the car out of 5th gear is to keep the engine from working extra hard to pull nearly 4K of loaded car.

of course you forgot about those tiny 11" rotors and disk brakes in the rear too right?

and the reason autos have issues with high boost has absolutely NOTHING to do with the HP, it is THE POWER DELIVERY that causes the problems when you get a sudden jolt in engine output.

what exactly does 3915 get you if you carry 4 adults at 150lbs apeice that is 600lbs in addition to the 2756 so it is now 3356 so you are now within 600lbs of GVW add some luggage and 100lbs of tounge weight and all of a sudden you are at capacity and that does not include the 900lbs of trailer you are towing do you really expect 130HP to sufficiently pull that in 5th gear? lol with the tiny brakes on that car I would NOT want to be at GVR for extended periods of time.

and driving in 4th gear at the PROPER towing speeds for that car will not damage the engine...........only idiots tow trailers at 55+ in such a light car......what does the manual say?

BTW I did have a 94 LX coupe with a trailer hitch and did towing so I am speaking from experience............that is a light car and 1K ot trailer can have a BIG impact on how the car handles

silverstrike

Well I agree with you on a few things, I would not tow with 4 adults in the car and I would not fly down the highway at those speeds either, but some people do.

When you say "power delivery," are you speaking of torque?

For my application, I would drive myself(165), the car(2756), the hitch(35), trailer(~250), and snowmobile(500) locally around town, or maybe 2 hours distance at most on the back roads. That totals 3706, so there is still room to spare for some luggage and/or a second passenger if you really want to max it out. The same thing will work for a jet ski, but it may be difficult pulling it out of the water up a wet ramp.

I would say towing with a manual is perfectly fine as long as you dont drive too fast, if you know how to properly drive a manual, you dont drive like a nut, if you get a feel for the trailer first, if you dont have more than 2 passengers or excess luggage, and as long as you take care of your car so there are no faulty spots, especially wheel bearings, shafts, brakes, shocks, joints, rust, tires, etc.

I would in no way call my accord a "truck" for any occasion, but it is a nice ride for what I need it to do. Maybe I'll get a Tundra for those heavy hauling needs

professorman

Okay, I did some research into this matter about going into 5th gear when towing.

I will now have to make the same recommendations as "YeuEmMaiMai" as far as which gear to drive in.

I have never pulled a transmission apart, so I do not know if what I am saying is 100% true or not, but it does make sense to me.

On a 5spd manual, it is better to drive in 4th gear when towing on long distance. The reason for this is because 5th gear is a OVERDRIVE gear, where as 4th gear is a DIRECT drive gear. That means that in 5th gear, the car multiplies the engine speed to get a faster output at the wheels than the engine is turning. Effectively, you are going through gears. 4th gear on the other hand is a DIRECT DRIVE gear. That means, that it just takes the output from the engine and send is straight to the wheels. It does not go through any multiplying nor reducing gears, so there is effectively no additional wear on the transmission than necessary. Effectively, you are over stressing the gears in your car, whereas you could just send the power directly to the wheels without going through additional gearing cogs.
If you are regularly towing in a 5spd over long distances, it is better to just keep it in 4th to extend the life of the transmission.

Thinking about it now, I have heard about people ruining 2nd gear, 3rd gear, and 5th gear. I have not heard of a lot of people destroying 4th gear.
My mechanic friend says that eventually, if you are towing in 5th gear all the time, the car might start jumping out of 5th gear because it is worn (being a overdrive gear).

This kinda makes sense, because automatics have a TOW button which locks them into 3rd gear, which is the direct drive gear, whereas the 4th gear is the overdrive gear. So, in essence, automatics should stick to the direct drive gear as well for cruising.

As far as clutch wear, I consider myself a VERY conservative clutch user. I am always aiming to move off with as little clutch slip as possible. I allow my RPMs to drop to just above the extent to which the engine will start struggling, maybe about 500 RPM when moving off. It does wear your clutch a little more when moving off, especially when towing a jet ski and going up the launch ramp.

I changed my clutch at 150k miles because I was paranoid, and I do not know how the previous owner drove for the first 80k miles of the car's life. When I changed the clutch, it had about 1/2 the clutch life left in it. it was only a little bit more worn than the brand new Honda genuine clutch that I was putting in, so driving habits play a HUGE part in clutch wear. I am almost certain that I wont ever need to change my clutch again because of how conservative I drive, based on how little the old clutch was worn when I was taking it out.

You ONLY wear the clutch when you are moving off, or if you do not know how to rev-match when changing gears. When the car is in motion and is in one gear, the clutch does not wear. The clutch is locked in place. You would need huge amount of load to start stressing the clutch to the point of slipping. I use all genuine Honda parts in my drive train, so I am sure they are up to Honda specifications. If you use other after market clutch kits, I could not guarantee the same results, but I think Honda clutches should be good to hold up to the stress of the extra 1000 lbs limit of towing, maybe even more, but I wouldnt want to stress the limits of my clutch/drive train like that too much or to for example tow other vehicles and crazy stuff like that.
Overall, once you are in gear, there is no clutch wear, unless you have a super cheap clutch and pressure plate, or worn out clutch and pressure plate.

In terms of the automatics, the torque converter effective replaces the clutch. The torque converter really can handle almost infinite load compared to the clutch of a car. The fluid swishes around to move the car, so there is no wear on anything in the torque converter with load. The fluid does break down faster, but you can just change the automatic transmission fluid easily. It is however harder on the transmission with towing. Everyone know's that automatic transmissions have a VERY limited lifetime compared to manual transmission. A driver who knows how to properly rev-match and takes care of the syncros in changing gears can minimize the wear on the manual to make it last an extremely long time. In automatics, the driver have less of a control over how things operate, so it can be a hit or miss situation when electronics does not do what they are supposed to do, or doesnt shift the gears in the correct manner, increasing wear on the automatic transmission.

I would recommend reading the How Stuff Works article on automatic transmissions if you do not know how they work, or if you own one. It really puts things in perspective for the novice automatic car driver.
http://auto.howstuffworks.com/...4.htm

If someone is a mechanic, you can correct me if I am wrong about this 'direct drive' gear versus a 'over drive' gear.

shortlid

Great write-up thanks for all the research.

spankybrandonf

I would have to agree with you, im sure my towing is above the specs slightly, but in 20 years of doing it, theres never been a issue, heres my story...started with my parents buying a 91 accord lx coupe, and always took us camping towing the 76 jayco popup camper, loaded with gear and my parents and my brother and i, and since my dad got older and mom passed away, i have the camper and honda, honda only has 130k miles because mom only drove to store and back last ten years. Ok well the camper is small, weighs 1475 and only thing i did to the honda was run hd shocks in rear, better spark plugs and royal purple oil, and tranny fluid, i have never had issues in towing, engine, or tranny. Im sure the camper is slightly over the specs, but my friend whos a mechanic at honda said that the numbers are reccomendations, and that the car can handle up to 1500 towing if cars a coupe, and the four door could handle 1800 do to better stability with longer chassis. Mines the 91 lx coupe with four speed auto with the SPORT BUTTON,,,and i even had the tranny checked by aamco before my cross country trip last year, and they replaced a switch, hut other then that they said its in perfect condition...hope this helps.

spankybrandonf

After u read my post below, i just checked the plate in car and manual for my 91 accord lx coupe, tow capacity is 1600 and that is straight from original owners manual and the info plate mounted on car, which goes with my story about towing a popup camper since i was kid, hope this helps

Kickstart1

I tow with a 93 Accord coupe EX w/automatic and use a 5ftx10ft Aluminium trailer and have hauled 2 motorcycles no problems.I think the trailer might be 400 lbs or less for sure and have hauled a 750cc Vtwin four wheeler for lots of miles too.I just drive nice and easy,not pushing it hard and at (every) oil change,I also remove the Trans plug and replace the 3 qts trans fluid.I find that at 55-60 mph is just right and seems to be able to hold the CControl well at that speed.Just remember to approach stop lights,and stop signs with caution as it(the loaded trailer)can push you in to an intersection.

MAD_MIKE

I have a feeling he will not, being its been 7 years since he has posted/logged on.