Anybody heard anything about trailer towing capacity?
Trailer towing
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Stormconnors
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I just put the Curt hitch in, and am now waiting impatiently for the electric conversion box for it so I can start local towing.
I've been towing with a 2004 Prius for about 4 years now with no problems, even up to 3000 pounds (NOT recommended!).
I will post after I start experimenting.
I've been towing with a 2004 Prius for about 4 years now with no problems, even up to 3000 pounds (NOT recommended!).
I will post after I start experimenting.
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Which model year do you have?
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If you have a GEN I you do not need the converter box, just a 4 pin pigtail wire which you can pick up practically anywhere.
After towing my A-Liner pop-up trailer (about 2000 lbs & 200 lb tongue) for over 13,000 miles, i found out why Chevy does NOT recommend towing. While there is plenty of power for any of the Rocky mountain passes, the bumper plates are designed for compression not tension. After about 11,000 miles the hitch was drooping so I pulled the bumper cover, in a campground, to discover the rear hitch and bumper were separating from the body. Fortunately I was able to find a welder to reattach things. The bumper mounts were only only spot welded. So after miles of towing the spot welds were breaking and the rear of the car was coming apart. I wish I could figure out how to attach pictures. So unless just pulling bicycles or a light trailer I would be very careful in towing.
PS when towing I always use Mountain mode and it is really needed if you hit hills. You really need this as the gas engine will not pull a trailer up a hill at 60+ MPH. When towing expect your mileage to be cut in half. 20mpg was a good tank. But when in Mountain Mode the car did fine and I have yet to find a hill where I could not exceed the speed limit.
Here you can see some of the welding and then some bolts, two per side, were added for additional support.
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PS when towing I always use Mountain mode and it is really needed if you hit hills. You really need this as the gas engine will not pull a trailer up a hill at 60+ MPH. When towing expect your mileage to be cut in half. 20mpg was a good tank. But when in Mountain Mode the car did fine and I have yet to find a hill where I could not exceed the speed limit.
Here you can see some of the welding and then some bolts, two per side, were added for additional support.
dhrivnak,
Thanks for the update . . . I was always concerned about the Volt's lack of a frame for attachment. What brand of hitch? What year Volt? On attaching pictures, did you use the "Go Advanced" button and then click on the "Insert Image" button?
Thanks for the update . . . I was always concerned about the Volt's lack of a frame for attachment. What brand of hitch? What year Volt? On attaching pictures, did you use the "Go Advanced" button and then click on the "Insert Image" button?
I have the Curt hitch and tow 2 kayaks and 2 standup paddleboards on a lite aluminum trailer designed for canoes, kayaks, etc.
The whole setup couldn't weigh any more than a coupe of 200 lb. passengers in the rear seats. I have made several long distance trips and my mileage turned out to be about 36 mpg when using the ICE. I also have made numerous short trips to the recycle center using one of my neighbors utility trailers...no problems so far. Keeping the weight down to a minumum is probably the key. I have just under 6000 miles on my Volt at this time. So far, so good!
The whole setup couldn't weigh any more than a coupe of 200 lb. passengers in the rear seats. I have made several long distance trips and my mileage turned out to be about 36 mpg when using the ICE. I also have made numerous short trips to the recycle center using one of my neighbors utility trailers...no problems so far. Keeping the weight down to a minumum is probably the key. I have just under 6000 miles on my Volt at this time. So far, so good!
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1,797 Posts
http://www.insightcentral.net/forum...da-insight-forum-1st-gen-discussion/94474-last-ever-hitch-bike-rack-thread.html
To tow with a modern car you need to map out the rear tub or find what's akin to "frame rails"
I'm guessing the Insight concept of welding a sturdy underride plate firmly to the hitch mount
Then mounting a pull plate under the car to something hard inside and out if needed.
I'm guessing forward of the rear tub like the Insight or right to the battery structure would work.
Have you ever pulled crap apart to see where the structures end on the back of the car?
Sometimes you can use a spreader concept to the suspension points
Good Luck
I had the Torklift Invisi Hitch. The hitch itself is well made and attaches firmly to the bumper but with no frame to speak of. I have a 2015 Volt now at 48,000 miles.
Below is a few pictures of the Volt and camper. The camper folds down to about the same height as the Volt.
Attachments
Update anyone?
Uh yes several posts just above
. Basically the engine is great, but be careful of the rear frame as I nearly pulled mine off. I will still tow but we had to do some extensive welding to reattach the bumper mounts.Attachments
Yes after and they are posted. I also added two bolts to each side for additional strength. See previous page.
These photos are worthy of the camper manufacturer's brochure. Beautiful!
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Ok so I have a 2013 volt, just turned 53k miles. I did a lot of research on possibly towing a light load with the volt. I know the manufacturer says no. But I also agree that the volt's design is better than just about any other small car in terms of being able to tow a small trailer. I went back and forth on weather I wanted to try it out not and finally decided to go for it. I installed the Curt hitch (100lbs tounge max 1000lbs towing max) about three weeks ago. Install was super easy and came out great. Ot doesn't seem to block the light from back up light really at all.
And does hang a little low but never rubs or scraps anywhere son far. Next I wired the volt for a flat 4 trailer harness. Also went well. I have a small 12' aluminum row boat with a 6hp Mercury engine on it, a 5gal gas tank in it and it sits on a small light weight boat trailer. The trailer is steal not aluminum, but it's pretty light weight. I would guess my total weight trailer, boat etc. Is between 400 and 500lbs. The tounge weight is about 90lbs (according to a bathroom scale) put about 350mi on the volt in the past few days at highway speeds. I was doing 65-75mph mostly with that boat and trailer on and was getting 32.6mpg on extended range mode using gas engine. (All on fairly level ground, no real hills) On just the battery I noticed about a 30% ish loss in total battery range.
This was done with two adults in front seats, a toddler in one rear seat and a light load in the back.
The volt pulled it great, you really only noticed the extra drag while merging. And even then it was very minimal. Braking was fine, I had taken a test drive and "emergency stopped" a few times with the trailer and boat on back and it stopped well. The generator engine was not even running at its highest level (u can normally hear the generator slightly at it's highest rpm running)....that only kicked in once or twice while merging and at speeds greater than 75mph.
So I wanted to come back and post for other users maybe on the fence about it like I was. If you have a 500lbs or less load u wish to pull, it seems to do it well. I would prolly not do much more than maybe 750/800lbs load. Just my personal thoughts. I figured the 400-500 I was pulling was about same as 2 adults in back seat plus luggage and gear etc. In the back. Also if you live in hilly terrain that should be taken into account. In hilly terrain I'd say u prolly don't wanna pull more than about 500lbs unless it's all a lower speeds maybe.
I'd like to note I currently also have a Tahoe, we use that to pull our pop up camper. (We brought volt and boat camping as well as Tahoe with pop up this time around) And I have done a lot of towing in the past with my Silverado I use to have. This was my first experience towing with a car and towing with fwd. And it went really well. I'm glad I decided to do it. It makes the volt and even better all around vehicle for my family. We love our volt.
And does hang a little low but never rubs or scraps anywhere son far. Next I wired the volt for a flat 4 trailer harness. Also went well. I have a small 12' aluminum row boat with a 6hp Mercury engine on it, a 5gal gas tank in it and it sits on a small light weight boat trailer. The trailer is steal not aluminum, but it's pretty light weight. I would guess my total weight trailer, boat etc. Is between 400 and 500lbs. The tounge weight is about 90lbs (according to a bathroom scale) put about 350mi on the volt in the past few days at highway speeds. I was doing 65-75mph mostly with that boat and trailer on and was getting 32.6mpg on extended range mode using gas engine. (All on fairly level ground, no real hills) On just the battery I noticed about a 30% ish loss in total battery range.
This was done with two adults in front seats, a toddler in one rear seat and a light load in the back.
The volt pulled it great, you really only noticed the extra drag while merging. And even then it was very minimal. Braking was fine, I had taken a test drive and "emergency stopped" a few times with the trailer and boat on back and it stopped well. The generator engine was not even running at its highest level (u can normally hear the generator slightly at it's highest rpm running)....that only kicked in once or twice while merging and at speeds greater than 75mph.
So I wanted to come back and post for other users maybe on the fence about it like I was. If you have a 500lbs or less load u wish to pull, it seems to do it well. I would prolly not do much more than maybe 750/800lbs load. Just my personal thoughts. I figured the 400-500 I was pulling was about same as 2 adults in back seat plus luggage and gear etc. In the back. Also if you live in hilly terrain that should be taken into account. In hilly terrain I'd say u prolly don't wanna pull more than about 500lbs unless it's all a lower speeds maybe.
I'd like to note I currently also have a Tahoe, we use that to pull our pop up camper. (We brought volt and boat camping as well as Tahoe with pop up this time around) And I have done a lot of towing in the past with my Silverado I use to have. This was my first experience towing with a car and towing with fwd. And it went really well. I'm glad I decided to do it. It makes the volt and even better all around vehicle for my family. We love our volt.
I bought the Curt combo pack off of Amazon about 2.5 months ago, but have been procrastinating the installation due to lack of comfort with all the parts removal that is required. But I was on vacation this week so I finally bit the bullet.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01K52A8CW/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
![Image]()
![Image]()
![Image]()
Installed on a 2016 Premier.
My review on Amazon:
The time estimates I see posted on different sources are very optimistic. If you're wanting to do the job right and carefully do each step to make sure you're covering all the bases, it will take about three hours of analysis, interpretation, and application just to install the hitch and return the vehicle to original configuration. But I'm an engineer so I might get a bit carried away with that. I installed the hitch on my Volt Premier yesterday and it went well. Used a Ryobi impact driver for several steps and that greatly improved the experience. You'll also need to elevate the car to get under it adequately. I used ramps and a mechanic's creeper to roll around underneath for bottom panel removal.
The hitch is built like a rock. Well actually tougher than a rock. Very very solid. One small problem lies with its design in how it affects the current design of the car. The bumper frame gets moved rearward about 3/16" because of the hitch getting sandwiched between it and the frame. That causes the exhaust/muffler hanger to move that same distance rearward as well, since it mounts to the back of the bottom right side of the bumper frame. The problem is that the little hooks that the hanger sits on do not move back. So the hanger plate needs to be "force fitted" downward into the hooks to get placed properly out of the way of the bottom nut on the bumper. Took me a little while since I didn't want to damage anything very much, but it finally fit. Pretty much everything else worked fine though. The cutout dimensions on the instructions were not exact in how they are laid out, but you can figure it out with a tape measure and a comparative relationship between the holes for mounting the bottom panel. Make sure to use a torque wrench to verify you get the nuts back on to their intended level.
Everything went back together well and it looks beautiful. Very solid feel as well. And fairly low-key.
I installed the wiring today. That went well but there are a few little misses here and there. The instructions talk about removing the negative battery cable before starting but reference it up front, under the hood. It is in the rear, under the cargo panels. They also should have mentioned that the battery shroud might need to be removed to get the scuff panel out of the back. I had a hell of a time getting the center retainer to come loose and the plastic frame around the battery had to be removed to get the clearance I needed. The adapter that plugs into the tail lights is a bit bulky since you are adding two additional connectors to the limited space. But they fit ok if you do a little massaging of the cables to keep them clear of the tail light assembly when you install it. The right side is a real PITA though, if you have a subwoofer. I had to loosen two of the bolts on the subwoofer enclosure (rear upper and lower front) to get the clearance necessary for my hand to get in there. All this just get a single green wire with plugs in there. OUCH. But it got in there and plugged in. Good luck with your battery connection. I picked up numerous sizes of nuts and planned on just adding the lug to the top of the battery terminal connection. But none of them would thread correctly. So finally just used an alligator clip test wire to connect the battery terminal to the tap that the existing nut was holding there, as to keep power sourced to the car (while off), just to avoid any code resets or strange problems that I didn't want to have to deal with later. Then removed the nut and put the supplied lug under it. That worked well.
The quality of everything (except the instructions if we're being nit picky here) is top notch, as far as I can tell so far anyway. I'd give it five stars but I'm still not convinced it's quite perfect yet.
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Edit to add: This is just for towing a kayak (Hobie Outback) and trailer (Harbor Freight folder). Total weight of about 400 lbs. Here it is on the back of my 2015 Leaf S:
![Image]()
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01K52A8CW/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Installed on a 2016 Premier.
My review on Amazon:
The time estimates I see posted on different sources are very optimistic. If you're wanting to do the job right and carefully do each step to make sure you're covering all the bases, it will take about three hours of analysis, interpretation, and application just to install the hitch and return the vehicle to original configuration. But I'm an engineer so I might get a bit carried away with that. I installed the hitch on my Volt Premier yesterday and it went well. Used a Ryobi impact driver for several steps and that greatly improved the experience. You'll also need to elevate the car to get under it adequately. I used ramps and a mechanic's creeper to roll around underneath for bottom panel removal.
The hitch is built like a rock. Well actually tougher than a rock. Very very solid. One small problem lies with its design in how it affects the current design of the car. The bumper frame gets moved rearward about 3/16" because of the hitch getting sandwiched between it and the frame. That causes the exhaust/muffler hanger to move that same distance rearward as well, since it mounts to the back of the bottom right side of the bumper frame. The problem is that the little hooks that the hanger sits on do not move back. So the hanger plate needs to be "force fitted" downward into the hooks to get placed properly out of the way of the bottom nut on the bumper. Took me a little while since I didn't want to damage anything very much, but it finally fit. Pretty much everything else worked fine though. The cutout dimensions on the instructions were not exact in how they are laid out, but you can figure it out with a tape measure and a comparative relationship between the holes for mounting the bottom panel. Make sure to use a torque wrench to verify you get the nuts back on to their intended level.
Everything went back together well and it looks beautiful. Very solid feel as well. And fairly low-key.
I installed the wiring today. That went well but there are a few little misses here and there. The instructions talk about removing the negative battery cable before starting but reference it up front, under the hood. It is in the rear, under the cargo panels. They also should have mentioned that the battery shroud might need to be removed to get the scuff panel out of the back. I had a hell of a time getting the center retainer to come loose and the plastic frame around the battery had to be removed to get the clearance I needed. The adapter that plugs into the tail lights is a bit bulky since you are adding two additional connectors to the limited space. But they fit ok if you do a little massaging of the cables to keep them clear of the tail light assembly when you install it. The right side is a real PITA though, if you have a subwoofer. I had to loosen two of the bolts on the subwoofer enclosure (rear upper and lower front) to get the clearance necessary for my hand to get in there. All this just get a single green wire with plugs in there. OUCH. But it got in there and plugged in. Good luck with your battery connection. I picked up numerous sizes of nuts and planned on just adding the lug to the top of the battery terminal connection. But none of them would thread correctly. So finally just used an alligator clip test wire to connect the battery terminal to the tap that the existing nut was holding there, as to keep power sourced to the car (while off), just to avoid any code resets or strange problems that I didn't want to have to deal with later. Then removed the nut and put the supplied lug under it. That worked well.
The quality of everything (except the instructions if we're being nit picky here) is top notch, as far as I can tell so far anyway. I'd give it five stars but I'm still not convinced it's quite perfect yet.
----------------------------------------
Edit to add: This is just for towing a kayak (Hobie Outback) and trailer (Harbor Freight folder). Total weight of about 400 lbs. Here it is on the back of my 2015 Leaf S:
For Gen 1, the ecohitch stealth may be the better option over the Invisi for towing heavy loads as it attaches to the frame rather than just the bumper mounts.
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