Real life Hybrid towing experiences

[Mike_E_]

Hi folks,

Looking for some insight from those who have towed with a mid-size SUV hybrid.
DW and I are a single-vehicle household and are hoping to get into a slightly bigger vehicle than our current '13 Honda CRV.

With a son living/working in Europe with no intentions of returning, we are going to have to afford trips to see him....especially after his upcoming wedding and potential grand-babies shortly after. She's already made such noises.....yay!!

That said, I've told DW that I am not willing to completely give up on camping as I simply miss all the fresh air etc.
With that, I'm thinking we'll end up with a pop-up or very small TT.
We're looking into a Toyota Highlander Hybrid with 3500lbs towing capacity as well as the Ford Explorer Hybrid with 5000lbs towing.

Trust me, I'd love to have a truck/5th wheel again, but that simply isn't in the cards.

So, anybody out there using their Hybrid in such a fashion?

[bikendan]

lane hog wrote:

carringb wrote:
Hybrid Explorers can be bought reasonably equipped under $40k.

A Powerboost F150 is close to $60k with little room room for discounts at the money. I don’t consider that “almost the same”.

I got my 2016 Powerboost for under 27K with 60K miles on it... just sayin'...

You are using the wrong name. You have an ECOboost, not the new hybrid POWERboost. That's why the title of this thread is "Hybrid towing".

[lane_hog]

Grit dog wrote:

lane hog wrote:

carringb wrote:
Hybrid Explorers can be bought reasonably equipped under $40k.

A Powerboost F150 is close to $60k with little room room for discounts at the money. I don’t consider that “almost the same”.

I got my 2016 Powerboost for under 27K with 60K miles on it... just sayin'...

Well, that's a heck of a deal since they're first available as 2021 models.
But you probably got a nice Ecoboost for that much.

Powerboost is a thing?... I assumed you'd renamed Ecoboost.

[Mike_E_]

"If your choice of SUV will be a daily driver and your expectations are that you'll get better mileage commuting and have the ability to tow a small trailer, than your expectations should be met. "

That's it in a nutshell.
Have no illusions that towing MPG would be any better than a conventional SUV. I gave up on the "what's my towing MPG calculation going to be on this leg of the trip" a long time ago. I'm camping, so what it costs to get there is what it costs to get there....no worries. 🙂

[rjstractor]

Part of the equation could be, what is your reason for wanting a hybrid vs a conventional powertrain, and what are your expectations? If your choice of SUV will be a daily driver and your expectations are that you'll get better mileage commuting and have the ability to tow a small trailer, than your expectations should be met. If you expect that you'll still get significantly better mileage while towing with a hybrid, you'll likely be disappointed. I daily drove a mid 2000s Escape hybrid for a few years, and while it got great mpg city and highway, load and speed had more of a pronounced negative effect on mpg compared with a conventional SUV. I never towed with it, but I imagine it would have gotten worse mpg towing than a conventional SUV.

[Grit_dog]

lane hog wrote:

carringb wrote:
Hybrid Explorers can be bought reasonably equipped under $40k.

A Powerboost F150 is close to $60k with little room room for discounts at the money. I don’t consider that “almost the same”.

I got my 2016 Powerboost for under 27K with 60K miles on it... just sayin'...

Well, that's a heck of a deal since they're first available as 2021 models.
But you probably got a nice Ecoboost for that much.

[lane_hog]

carringb wrote:
Hybrid Explorers can be bought reasonably equipped under $40k.

A Powerboost F150 is close to $60k with little room room for discounts at the money. I don’t consider that “almost the same”.

I got my 2016 Powerboost for under 27K with 60K miles on it... just sayin'...

[valhalla360]

carringb wrote:
Hybrid Explorers can be bought reasonably equipped under $40k.

A Powerboost F150 is close to $60k with little room room for discounts at the money. I don’t consider that “almost the same”.

If you are insistent on the hybrid I suppose but if you drop back to one of the ecoboost, you can drop the cost back in line and still get 30mpg, if you aren't drag racing.

[valhalla360]

Mike E. wrote:
Mid-sized SUV because it's the DW driving it most of the time and she doesn't want a truck or anything full-size.
Also, we have two dogs, so the SUV works best for us/them.

My DW felt the same...then she drove the 3/4 ton.

A couple big dogs would easily fit in the back seat of our truck.

But if you are insistent on it, just make sure to check all the ratings, not just the tow rating.

[Mike_E_]

Mid-sized SUV because it's the DW driving it most of the time and she doesn't want a truck or anything full-size.
Also, we have two dogs, so the SUV works best for us/them.

[Lwiddis]

Golden rule....buy or select the trailer first, then buy the tow vehicle.

[carringb]

Hybrid Explorers can be bought reasonably equipped under $40k.

A Powerboost F150 is close to $60k with little room room for discounts at the money. I don’t consider that “almost the same”.

[valhalla360]

mkirsch wrote:
If you're looking for actual towing experience with these vehicles, you are not likely to find it here. The "culture" here is that anything less than a pickup truck with 8-lug wheels and a diesel engine is not capable of properly towing anything, so you will receive an overwhelming negative response to your proposal.

Those who are towing with these vehicles are off happily towing and no longer need advice from this forum.

I will also say that I personally do not have any experience towing with either of these vehicles myself, but I have a piece of advice to offer:

You either believe the ratings, or you don't. I don't think 3500 or 5000 is unobtainable or unreasonable for either platform.

If you are talking about a small single axle trailer with negligible tongue weight (but still north of 12%)...sure. They can do the job if you are careful to check all the ratings.

But I've seen enough of these marginal tow vehicles that look like they are climbing a hill when they are going downhill because the rear suspension is bottomed out. I suspect most are not happy but most either get an appropriate tow vehicle soon after or stop towing because it's "so scary".

Sure I believe the tow rating. I also believe the payload and hitch weight limits but with the SUVs the payload/hitch rating is often met long before the tow rating.

From the original post, the OP appeared to be concerned about cost and a 1/2 ton pickup isn't significantly different cost from an SUV. So what exactly is pushing the OP towards an SUV?

[blt2ski]

I have/had an older sister that towed an older Cub Cadet from the 50s with two different Toyota's. One iirc was a smaller chassis, 3500 tow rating, other a bit bigger with a 5k rating.
She upgraded to larger as the smaller was capable power wise etc, bigger was better overall. She was typically the only one in vehicle.
Based on a few comments, never followed my advice, she needed trailer brakes on trailer. If the trailer is over 1000-1500 lbs, I will HIGHLY suggest installing brakes. She went through vehicle brakes quickly, and had a few what I would call white knuckle braking experiences. Trailer dealer may not say you need brakes, legal in yours or my states may not say you need brakes, same with Toyota warranty.....out them on!
Unfortunately she passed on 3-1 so I'm not able to get a y more specifics. While a lovely sister for 50yrs, unlike her father who was a brilliant engineer at Boeing, she was a librarian, not too mechanical. Even at that, not real smart from what and how she needed to tow properly or correctly.
With above said, an areodybamic trailer should be towable with a hybrid. Like a non hybrid vehicle, the one with the larger motor, more fears in transmission etc will tow up hills etc faster.
Good luck with choice.
Marty

[mkirsch]

If you're looking for actual towing experience with these vehicles, you are not likely to find it here. The "culture" here is that anything less than a pickup truck with 8-lug wheels and a diesel engine is not capable of properly towing anything, so you will receive an overwhelming negative response to your proposal.

Those who are towing with these vehicles are off happily towing and no longer need advice from this forum.

I will also say that I personally do not have any experience towing with either of these vehicles myself, but I have a piece of advice to offer:

You either believe the ratings, or you don't. I don't think 3500 or 5000 is unobtainable or unreasonable for either platform.

[carringb]

The Explorer is a far superior towing platform. My sister-in-law has the Highlander Hybrid. When they need to tow their Toy Hauler in the snow, my sister's Explorer Sport gets used (primary TV is a 2WD Chevy Express). The difference is tow ratings pretty much shows that. The hitch receiver on the Highlander won't have enough carrying capacity for most camper trailers, with its 350# tongue-weight limit.

That said... if you aren't doing lots of in-town driving, the Explorer 2.3L EcoBoost gets good highway fuel-economy, and still is rated for towing 5,300 pounds.

The main reason the Explorer is a better platform is it's architecture. It's RWD layout get send 100% torque to either front or rear axle. The Highlander uses an electric motor for it's rear axle, and that only produces 80 ft-lbs of toque. And there's no transmission on it, so there's no further gear reduction. It basically adds about as much torque as a large man pushing.

The hybrid systems work completely differently too. The Highlander uses the planetary CVT to blend power sources, where the Explorer basically adds electric-assist to the torque-coneverter, and uses same 10-speed transmission as the F150.