Miller88, like many things in life, it depends...
I did a lot of trailer towing with my old '98 civic. Like doing 1500 mile trips towing a trailer with my motorcycle. I got 262K miles on the original clutch, clutch was definitely worn out, but head gasket died first...
Your Focus is bigger and heavier so braking and stability are better than my Civic. I would still not go much beyond 1000 lbs. The clutch is not a concern if you don't do a lot of hard starts on uphills. Drive moderately and it will be fine. Think about it this way, look on the data plate on the driver door frame, it will list the gross weight limit. If you add up the weight of the car, you, fuel, trailer, and cargo, if it's near the limit, the clutch can handle it easy...unless you abuse it of course!
If you read up on trailer set up. You should distribute the load so that the tongue weight is 10% of the total weight. Check it with a scale. This means only ~100lbs on the hitch, that's like throwing ~100lbs of potatoes all the way in the back of your rear hatch.
100lbs tongue weight is not going to wear the rear tires significantly more.
Good towing!
Rich
Quote:
Originally Posted by Miller88
I put a hitch on the Focus for the bike rack. Once it's out of warranty I may tow a small utility trailer when I have a house.
I have two concerns - 1) How long will the clutch hold out as the first 20K miles on the car are city miles 2) It'll burn rear tires off quickly with any decent amount of tongue weight.
So I will have to add in some sort of airbags.
However - all of that once the car is out of warranty.
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