Small economical DD as a towed

Test drove the new Corolla yesterday. Ford salesmen never called back. It had a 6 speed MT and was close to 40 MPG and less than 3000 lbs. There was about 6 ins of GC also. Trunk was big enough to store a bike. Anyone out there towing a newer Corolla?

jsmart wrote:
We tow a 2014 Ford C-Max hybrid, less than 3000 lbs, has seating for 5 with back seat that folds down if needed and a hatch back like back opening. It's an automatic, but is very easy to set up for towing. We put a 2" hitch on it for our bike rack (we carry three bikes with us). We traded our 2 door jeep wrangler rag top (DW and the grandkids didn't like crawling in and out of the jeep). Set up works great for us.

I looked at the C-Max, Focas and Fiesta yesterday. The salesman told me the C-Max weighed 3600 lbs. He was not very knowledgeable about any of the Ford products without looking things up on the computer. I left him with a fill in the blanks chart asking for Curb weight,Mpg's,ground clearance and seat height from seat to ground for all three cars. I'll see if he calls back.

If you hve a brake system that is independent and uses the veh battery it will pull the battery down. I have the smi system and we did not have a charge wire hooked up. At the end of the day the towd battery was dead for whatever reason, probably the brakes.

Anyhow hooked up a charge wire the next morning no problems next 4000 miles! Not sure how the lights etc are charged either. But lights can also pull a battery down easy.

jsmart wrote:

Gjac wrote:
jsmart looks like the C-max gets 37 mpg on the hiway and starts at $25k. Is this your experience? Do you just put it in neutral and tow?

Pretty much, we paid just under 24,000 from a dealer we know well. The manual has instructions for flat towing, just have to run the engine for 1 minute, move the shift lever through park, drive then neutral, leave the key in and on accessorie, then I turn everything else off. I haven't hooked up a charge line for the starter battery yet, although I've seen on this site that some folks are having dead batteries when they tow their C-Max. We've gone as far as 4 hours without having a dead battery, so at this point, I've got the Blue Ox add a light set installed in the rear light housing, works fine. The C-Max is suprisingly big inside. I'm 6' 260 lbs. and it feels very roomy for me.

What would make your battery go dead?

Gjac wrote:
jsmart looks like the C-max gets 37 mpg on the hiway and starts at $25k. Is this your experience? Do you just put it in neutral and tow?

Pretty much, we paid just under 24,000 from a dealer we know well. The manual has instructions for flat towing, just have to run the engine for 1 minute, move the shift lever through park, drive then neutral, leave the key in and on accessorie, then I turn everything else off. I haven't hooked up a charge line for the starter battery yet, although I've seen on this site that some folks are having dead batteries when they tow their C-Max. We've gone as far as 4 hours without having a dead battery, so at this point, I've got the Blue Ox add a light set installed in the rear light housing, works fine. The C-Max is suprisingly big inside. I'm 6' 260 lbs. and it feels very roomy for me.

My 2012 Jeep Patriot weighs in about 3100, get 25 MPH average city an highway. The manual gear shift is fun to drive. Towed 10-12,000
miles and driven 50,000 plus still happy.

I think several posters are overlooking the less than 3000 lbs requirement.

Very few cars get a true 35-40 MPG. We have one of them, a 2013 Focus SFE (special fuel economy edition). It's flat towable. But I don't think it will haul bikes inside, and neither would the hatchback non-SFE version IMO. And it might be slightly more than 3000 lbs once you put things in it. I think the Sonic would be worth checking out. And the Spark.

Just test drove the 6 speed Hyundai Elantra. Very nice car, quiet, plenty of power only down side was only 5.3 ins of GC. Looked at Versa and Sentra also. Versa manual rear seat would not fold down only automatics which can't be towed 4 wheels down. The Sentra 6 speed manual was 1 mpg less than the Versa but had 6.4 ins of CG, and seat was 26 ins from the ground for those that have knee or hip arthritis it was easy to get in and out of.

jsmart looks like the C-max gets 37 mpg on the hiway and starts at $25k. Is this your experience? Do you just put it in neutral and tow?

We tow a 2014 Ford C-Max hybrid, less than 3000 lbs, has seating for 5 with back seat that folds down if needed and a hatch back like back opening. It's an automatic, but is very easy to set up for towing. We put a 2" hitch on it for our bike rack (we carry three bikes with us). We traded our 2 door jeep wrangler rag top (DW and the grandkids didn't like crawling in and out of the jeep). Set up works great for us.