Gertrude Survived!

Well, as some know, I put a hitch on the ole girl a few weeks ago. I got a small 3x5 utility trailer from Lowes today, and pulled home 8 bags of mulch. I then went to the yard waste drop off and emptied out the big 96 gal trash can of grass clippings, etc, and a 33 gal trash can of old mulch. She handled it like a champ!

 

Mr Bill, the trailer is listed at 225 lbs. Pulling it empty, feels like it's not even there, until you go over a bump and it bounces a little bit. The mulch bags, probably weighed 200 lbs combined, I'd guess. The most I've pulled in the trailer, was a 96 gallon trash can filled with yard wasted about 2/3 full, and a 33 gallon trash can filled with old mulch. I could barely get the 33 gallon onto the trailer. I'd estimate that trip totaled 500 lbs w/ trailer. The car handled pretty much like it normally does. Acceleration is hard to comment on, because I intentionally took it easy on her. Braking, I started early and did it gingerly. I only anticipate towing stuff to/from the local Home Depot/Lowes/Yard supplies/yard waste drop off. All of these are within 5-7 miles of my house, and only 1 road has a PSL of 50 MPH, the rest are below. The only hard part as far as maneuvering, is backing up to get the trailer into my driveway. Otherwise, just have to swing some turns a little further out to make sure the trailer doesn't bump into or run over anything.

I'd say you'd be OK towing that trailer, although those speeds may be questionable. I figure that without exceeding the listed capacity of the vehicle, then I'm OK towing. I assume, that as long as you're below that number, whether the weight is IN the car or behind the car, is pretty irrelevant.

Hope that helps, unfortunately I don't have any feedback at the speeds you plan to travel lol. In all honesty, I'd probably stick to 70 MPH at the fastest, just to be safe.

 

Wow, I never saw an alert that there were replies to this thread until today. Weird. MPG didn't fluctuate too much, until I put all that yard wasted on there. It may have been a 5% hit compared to normal on the short commutes.

 

LOL, actually, one of my friends came up with that name for the GPS "girl". I just decided to stick with it for the car in general. Gertrude was having a hissy fit on that trip, because I kept disobeying her directions (I knew how to get there, just keep it set in the event of a travel detour) and then ended up driving on an invisible road according her lol.

 

LOL, I knew I forgot to check something....

It had just been hooked up to the car at that point at Lowe's. I've removed the information sheet since then.

Those bags of mulch would have, but I prefer to keep that lovely scent outside the trailer now. I swear, I was smelling something crappy for the next 2 or 3 day. OK, so it may have just been myself creating that smell .

I have loaded up the trunk before, almost to the point of bottoming out with bags of small stones. In fact, I learned that 13 bags was a little too much in the trunk, so I moved 3 or 4 of them to the front seat to help even it out a little. There's no way the yard waste cans were going to fit INSIDE the Prius, though. It's also easier for me to lift the stuff from the trailer than leaning into the trunk to do, esp since I have thrown my back out twice - that literally a pain when it happens.