Civic towing a trailer and bike
 

Today I went to a drag strip and took my sportbike in a small, u haul trailer. I just put a hitch on my civic a few weeks ago so it was my first time towing with this car.

The trailer was a 4x7 open trailer with sides and combined weight with the bike was about 1000 lbs

I was getting about 32 mpg @ 58 mph...at that speed without the trailer and extra weight of the bike, I would usually get about 45 mpg

I wanted to do a test pulling the trailer without the bike, to see how much of a difference 400 lbs makes without changing much of the drag, but i didn't get a chance.

Taking the bike off the trailer will drastically reduce the drag, unless it sits lower than the Civic.

here's my civic pulling a bike from indiana to colorado, a trip of 2k roundtrip. last year I did the same thing but I left my saddlebags and windshield on the bike. I ended up getting 30mpg which wasn't to bad, although my normal mpg without the trailer is 44. this year I took off the bags and shield and streamlined the bike a bit.(good thing it didn't rain) my mpg this time jumped to 38mpg. just a little bit of effort made a big difference. here's some pics to show what I did.

http://i1043.photobucket.com/albums/...r/IMG_0547.jpg
http://i1043.photobucket.com/albums/...r/IMG_0548.jpg

Is the civic rated to tow anything?

nice cardboard dustbin fairing!

The civic may not be rated in the US but most small cars have a ~2000 lb rating in the rest of the world. The hitch manufacture puts a rating on it and you can bet their lawyers had a say in the rating they put on it.

Would doing boat tail travel fairing help?

many people won't even consider towing with a 4 cyl car but the truth is they are more than capable of towing 800 lbs or more...when i was a kid living in europe, i remember seeing cars with 900cc engines towing small trailers

In Germany I saw lots of cars pulling good sized trailers loaded down with junk.
Dont know what they had under the hood.

most tow ratings are not based on power plant, but braking. The hitch I mounted on my Subaru GL was 1000lbs, or 2000lbs with trailer brakes.

You normally don't see trailer brakes on trailers with an empty weight of less than 1500lb.

Completely. My dad used to tow up to 2000 lbs of sand/gravel with a 2CV. 3500 lbs total for 29 hp ! On short distances, mind you.

@OP : The fact that you gained by fairing the bike shows that it has an impact on drag. It's visible on the picture, only the lower part of the bike is protected by your trunk.

I tow a 750lb teardrop camper with my Civic hybrid and get about 30MPG in 4th gear at 60. I think I can do better if I can figure out a way to better streamline the trailer, whether through airdams on the car, a nosecone on the trailer, and/or a boattail on the trailer.

https://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphot...18889243_n.jpg