[stillsearching]

Originally Posted by Frank Lee

Sounds like your CAD guy is the one to ask.

He is but he travels so much the last time I heard from him was 9 months ago and when he is in town he's too busy for detailed talks. :-/ Plus don't know if he will have time/energy (or me the money since i'm guessing it's more than trivial work) to design up similar "beyond normal specs" rigs for other vehicles or how feasible it is... if I scale it up I might find midsize unibody vehicles pulling 5000lbs or so, but that's not quite enough extra to be what i'm looking for. A 30% boost over what the Saturn is known to safely do doesn't radically expand what I can do all that much to justify owning a 2nd vehicle just for that.

However of interest I recently found out the 1993-96 Cadillac Fleetwood with the tow package can pull _7000lbs_ factory rated. Not bad for something getting 23-25mpg highway unladen "driven like an american" (techniques here would probably make that 30mpg), and better than midsize SUV's or 1/2 ton light trucks that it's basically doing the job of. The chassis is almost identical to the Caprice/Impala/Roadmaster line (just a few inches longer, tow ratings without the two package otherwise the same as them) so i'm assuming that those with similar mods are probably safe to tow 7000lbs as well. (the differences are things like bigger radiator, low axle ratio, trans cooler and such. Nobody is uprating frames or anything at that level, the pieces changed for that package are known quantities. The Caprice frames are built reasonably tough - they're used for police and taxi use, driving over curbs and such.) What i'm hoping is maybe a diesel swap into a Caprice with enough power would hopefully exceed the gas engine specs for mileage and especially for laden towing. (instead of dropping to less than half as is typical with gas engines) That's starting to look like my option of choice in this weight class.

If the frames handle 7000lbs towing "from the factory" given the right suspension parts, it's not unsafe and forcing the vehicle to do something it's not designed to do. Obviously it was designed to do that, on the frame level, since it came out in a version to do just that. It just may not have been commonly equipped to do that since most buyers didn't need that.

How much of a stretch it would be for other RWD full frame full size cars to pull 7000lbs i'm curious of too though and still an open topic, given the right upgrades just if there's options. However i'm favoring a bubble Caprice because i'm guessing older ones wont match the aero of the newer ones. (Plus the fact I already have one in the driveway i'm not doing anything useful with. It's not worth much to sell used, so i'm not beyond hacking in diesels and stuff to make it into a tow vehicle and if it worked out well later adapting the custom parts to a Fleetwood when I find one to dieselize it maybe for SVO.) Plus aeromodding the newer ones could well make it even better especially when not trailering.


So this bumps slightly the next big leap between 7500-10,000lbs. It's possible I could briefly tow things slightly entering that with the Caprice shorter range at slower speeds more in that range but I wouldn't want to make a habit of it. Safety demands I get a higher rated vehicle or take more trips if it's a routine thing - don't read me wrong, i'm not stupid. As to why do I want to keep stretching things "just a little further" in part it's about self sufficiency... if I can move everything from my friends lifted probably 7000lb 4x4 on a braked tow dolly probably weighing another 1000lbs if he ever breaks down, to all the common loads I want to be carrying out to a future farm with better mileage, the money savings add up. Instead of paying a $500 long range tow the one time my friend needs that tow he pays me, compensating the other projects, etc. That's a good example of a single load I can't break up into separate trips.

Intermittent heavy single-trip loads (like a vehicle tow, or something like a utility tractor on the flatbed with all it's attachments that I bought from another farmer) i'm not too worried about keeping up with traffic, i'm not planning to be through the mountains, I don't mind stopping if any gauges are showing running hot, and would definately be the exception done maybe 2-3 times per year.

However in all due admissions... the modern pickups may well be a good choice for aeromodding and properly done might well beat a stock Caprice for mileage and might get fairly close to an aeromodded one. Since modern pickups of the last 10 years CAN pull 10k lbs and more safely properly set up, i'll be doing more research into that next I think. (for the future date when the Caprice is found to not be enough/common enough loads over 7000lbs to actually justify having a third vehicle and trailer or saving enough on reduced trips to pay the difference)


slowmover - i'm aware of the aero issue, loads I expect to pull will be mostly lower profile heavy stuff on flatbeds. Bags of concrete, scrap steel, scrap wood, seed/fertilizer (quantities below normal "need a tractor trailer" agribusiness levels), 55 gallon drums, totes of ricehulls, 2-3 cords of wood at once, utility tractors in the 5000lb class (by themself, before trailer and implements also included), an antenna tower if another free one ever shows up on craigslist like last year for ham radio use, an occasional parts car on a tow dolly, etc. No 13.5 ft tall fifth wheel quintuple slide boxes - if I were pulling those the aero of the lead vehicle wouldn't matter and I wouldn't care about aero tow vehicles. Can you tell me more of CAN AM RV? I didn't understand what you meant there, this is your first post here. Other vehicles in the 4-6k class i'm still curious about.

"Total cost of ownership" definately is in the figures, it's actually the reason for researching all my options about this in the first place. The easy answer everyone encourages me to do - buy a pickup and use it like a pickup. But the TCO of that doesn't work right now, ie seeking a full time vehicle dedicated just for towing with that as it's best job. There wont be enough regular heavy loads, with enough time spent always laden to justify that. The loads that are expected will be varying in load up to a few tons, intermittent/totally unpredictable (craigslist freebies in a 500 mile radius I have to jump on, plus occasional planned bulk buys and such), and are best done with dual purpose vehicles that otherwise are just commuters for around town. I have space for two vehicles plus a folding 4x8 trailer in town, heavier use trailers would be rented when needed but I want to tow them with a vehicle that is not just dedicated to towing which gets acceptable mileage unladen, hence my preference for a sedan when possible.

Pickups aren't 100% out, they're just disfavored right now unless plans/expectations/future changes. I'm expecting single unit (cant break up) loads over 7000lbs to be pretty rare but to happen (I gave the example of heavy tow dolly loads and a farm tractor/skid steer with all implements being the only examples I expect in that range, but the several hundreds saved per time by doing it myself to pay for itself), large bulk loads way over 7000lbs needing multiple trips will be rare/infrequent enough that extra trips aren't too burdensome (but 3-5x the trips with the Saturn probably would be a bit burdensome and the extra trips ruining any better mileage advantage by that point) and I can't fit a crew cab in the garage. (moving 6 people sometimes happens for me) So if I can stretch a full size sedan to 8000lbs or so maybe 8500lbs load ability infrequently that pretty much meets everything I can conceive of wanting to do with it.