Workin' that diesel hard!

LibertyCRD · **Posted:** Fri Mar 03, 2006 10:57 am

All those journalists that group the Jeep Liberty in with cars can kiss my white

So I pulled 4,000 lbs. total weight the week after I bought my CRD on a camping trip. It pulled fine and stopped fine (with trailer brakes) but the only problem I had was above 65 mph it started to sway a bit. No doubt because of the short wheelbase.

Today I'm pulling a 14' flatbed tandem axle trailer that weighs 2,200 lbs. I'm driving down to Tennessee to pick up my buddy's 3,500 lb. Toyota Tacoma 4x4. Then I have to truck it back to Kentucky. (We hydrolocked his engine on our last fourwheeling trip...oops).

So I'm going to have probably around 5,700 lbs. or so hooked onto the rear of my KJ tonight. And I have to merge into traffic on two Interstate highways. I've towed enormous amounts of weight all my life...grew up around it being a country boy. But never with a Jeep (short wheelbase). Am I going to die in a fiery crash? :roll:

Seriously though...I'm hoping that I'll be OK if I load the trailer evenly. We'll see how it goes. I can hear my little turbo whistling like crazy trying to climb those hills right now. LOL. I wish I had a pyrometer for this trip...might get scary...

Guest · **Posted:** Fri Mar 03, 2006 11:54 am

Seriously, keep it at 55mph, or 60 max. It's really going to try and push your rear end around ! Be safe, take a picture of everything loaded up!

LibertyCRD · **Posted:** Fri Mar 03, 2006 12:02 pm

Yeah I know...for the first time in my life I'm actually a little concerned about this one. But I will take it easy and keep my speed down. I'll get some pics too. I know a lot of people buy CRDs to tow their toys with. And they frequently ask questions about what the CRD can and can't do. I suppose I'm about to push the CRD to it's towing limit today so I will be the guinea pig! :lol:

I'll report back as to how it does when I get back to the computer later in the weekend.

torqueofthetown · **Posted:** Fri Mar 03, 2006 12:30 pm

Let us know how it goes. Love to see some pics.

I think you'll be stressing the brakes the most, (IMHO) so I'd keep the speed down if it was me...... Bummer about the Toy.

dog_party · **Posted:** Fri Mar 03, 2006 2:13 pm

God speed LibertyCRD. I can't wait to see picts and hear stats. Watch the brakes and remember to slow down BEFORE you start going downhill. ;-)

And, above all else, don't think about the (last I heard) $10,000 the state charges you if you use one of those emergency runoff graveltrap ramps.

RTStabler51 · **Posted:** Fri Mar 03, 2006 2:20 pm

Give us an update on how she does; I might be in the same heavyweight type of situation this summer.

pnorton · **Posted:** Fri Mar 03, 2006 3:25 pm

you might want to evaluate your weight displacement. too much weight in the back of the trailor can cause some or a lot of sway. Try moving it to the front of the trailer or the back of the jeep. I had the same sway with a buddy. We stopped and moved some of the heavy items around and it was fine to go higher speeds (but still be careful, not too fast).
take care.

BCool · **Posted:** Fri Mar 03, 2006 4:04 pm

see if you can put sway control or weight distributing hitch on that trailer, that will take care of your concerns, a equilizer or a dual cam sway control can help alot. And if you don't have a break controller you might want to invest sounds like you tow a lot.

gsbrockman · **Posted:** Fri Mar 03, 2006 8:06 pm

LibertyCRD wrote:

So I'm going to have probably around 5,700 lbs. or so hooked onto the rear of my KJ tonight.

Pics.....gotta have pics. Just gotta.........

Greg

LibertyCRD · **Posted:** Mon Mar 06, 2006 9:00 am

WOW. That's all I can say. WOW. :shock:

We made sure to load the truck on the trailer perfectly. And boy can this CRD tow! 5,700 lbs? Man I can't believe how easy that was. I honestly was worried about it. But apparently I didn't have enough faith in my Jeep. It made short work of that load!

On the two lane roads, when I hit the 6% grade areas I had to flip the overdrive gears off. I still topped those grades at 50 mph. And on the Interstate I just set the cruise control and rolled on! NO sway whatsoever. Only kicked down a gear for long hills. Towed perfectly! I kept it below 70 mph for safety reasons...but I'm confident it would have towed faster than that if I wanted it to.

I had trailer brakes and I definitely recommend those. But after the way my CRD towed nearly 3 tons this weekend....WOW. I would recommend one of these to anyone who really needs a SUV to do some work. I'm so impressed. The temp guage never even hit the half way mark...even on the long 6% grades!

Working on pics.....

oldnavy · **Posted:** Mon Mar 06, 2006 9:22 am

The little 1.9 VW TDI is rated 5000 lb tow in Europe and handles the load without problems. Your Jeep is rated 5000 lbs, just due to frame and lawyers. The Jeep would probably handle 10,000 lbs tow just the way it's equipped, but the problem runs into the truck being too short wheelbase to handle the weight properly. I'm sure we have all seen the PU or SUV with trailer that had the rear bumper of the tow vehicle almost dragging the ground, that is the problem here in the US. I have seen vehicles loaded like that pass cops on the road and never get pulled, makes me mad as.....

dog_party · **Posted:** Mon Mar 06, 2006 12:14 pm

Woohoo! I can't wait to see picts! You just can't stop this motor! I love to rip by "I think I can, I think I can" trucks chugging up the hills. I can just hear my KJ is screaming at the top of it's lungs "I AM, I AM, I AM!!!"

LibertyCRD · **Posted:** Tue Mar 07, 2006 9:17 am

Well that may be true, but this guy here wouldn't even think about towing 5,000 lbs. with a 1.9L VW engine. They make half the torque of a healthy Jeep CRD engine. I guess it could be done but I'd certainly want to make sure I had plenty of time to get where I was going. :wink:

OH...and I checked and with that 5,700 lbs. in tow I averaged 14 miles per gallon. That's my new all-time low for this CRD, but it's still making me happy considering that my Dodge Ram only got 12 mpg running EMPTY.

Workin' that diesel hard!

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