Towing with 2008 CR-V EX-L

tstruna30 said:

In May I am moving from Michigan to Boulder Colorado.

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In a couple of years I won't be far behind--we're leaving the same state for something on that side of the country. Slim chance a possible future employer might be in Boulder but I'm open to anything, especially Utah or Colorado. Only difference is, we have an entire household to move.

Anyway...

An enclosed 5x8 U-haul cargo trailer (enclosed) weighs 900 pounds, if you can stand to lose a foot in dimensions. The 5x10 cargo trailer is 1,250 pounds. I found the open utility trailer you mentioned on their site also.

The weight limit for our CR-Vs is higher in other countries, largely due to legal issues. The problem isn't only acceleration and handling, it is also about stopping all of the extra weight. A trailer with its own braking system is safest, but I don't see U-haul offering that on their rentals. Without any brakes on the trailer, I would stick to what the US owner's manual says and not exceed the 1,500 lb. limit and recommended tongue weight. If something bad happens, you could lose an insurance claim (or get sued by anyone else who is injured) by exceeding the weight limits on the trailer. Sure, it can probably pull up to 2,500 lbs. (I think that might be the limit in other countries), but that doesn't make it a good idea here even with trailer brakes.

Since there are two of you moving, renting a smaller truck and driving the CR-V out there probably makes better sense and causes less grief and worry.

Wrascal said:

These guys don't get the cost of renting a truck to go that far with that little is just a waste.

What is the cost to repair a burnt out tranny? Or repair body damage due to an inability to stop/ control the load?
Both likely cost much more than an 11 year old CRV is worth.

CRVs are wonderful for moving people and groceries but they are only piddling as a workhorse.

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WTH are you smoking?

Replacement transmission, 300-500 plus install. Complete rebuild $2500.

Not sure why you are here if you have no clue what a CRV is capable of. Another one of "it's just for hauling the kids" crap. And it's that, crap.

Plus obviously you havent actually gained an understanding of towing. 500-1000 lbs behind a CRV is nothing is loaded correctly. It's the size of the trailer that's the problem. Can't do a big enclosed trailer.

The couple hundred pounds of stuff he has to haul, go to harbor frieght and buying a trailer for $300 (make sure to grease the bearings when assembling) or buy a used trailer for the same price which is 1/4 or less of what a truck will cost and take what little he moving and not worry about it.

Man I get sick of this "cant do anything because it's a Honda" garbage on here. It's called know the limits, the real limits, do it properly and you'll be perfectly fine.

FYI I tow 1000lbs+ behind my 2003 all the time. Towed 1500lbs plus 150lbs+ of firewood in the hatch. That was about 70 miles round trip and trans wasn't barely above optimal temp. Engine was working but transmission didn't care, that's what a cooler is for along with not driving like an a-hole.

Will be using it to tow my trailer which is about 400lbs plus whatever we put in it for multiple 300 mile trips over the next 2 months moving to Missouri. Not concerned one bit about it holding up. Trailer will probably weigh 600-900 total loaded. Had 300lbs in crap in the trailer the other day (taking junk to the dump) so about 700lbs and CRV could have cared less it was back there.

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Advising caution is never a bad idea, as experience always teaches, so good on you for that. But what am I smoking? I'm a retired truck driver with over five million miles pulling every kind of load with every kind of truck ever made. The only things I never pulled were gasoline, milk, and wet concrete. I am HazMat certified and have hauled cruise missiles, explosives, radioactive, biohazard, and every other class of Hazmat. I heavy hauled around Houston for years, delivering equipment to the refineries. Permit loads, over width and height and length. My youngest son does that now. I taught him how to drive. Used to take him with me on the road when he was a teen. That song "Weed, Whites, and Wine?" That was me. I did it all, and I've seen it all, over the lower 48 and Canada, over a period of forty years or so. Only ever ran over one drunk and one idiot kid. Both survived, both were arrested and charged. So I have some stories too, and some experience.

I also have a woodshop, and an F250, and a 16' trailer. The heaviest machine I've had in my shop was a 2,800 pound AWWM Universal Saw Table, made c. 1905. That big old stuff is mostly all gone now and I have a mostly early Powermatic, Delta, and Walker Turner shop. The only heavy machine I have now is a 2,200 pound Cleveland vertical mill, as I've added some knifemaking capability.

So I think I'm fairly qualified to give a little towing advice. My CR-V is not an off-road vehicle, nor is it a truck. But it does have a Class 3 hitch, and I can do some stuff with it. Already have. It's pretty capable, within its limits.

I just towed a 3,000 pound, 6’x12’ trailer from Portland to Alaska with my 2008 CR-V and I want to add some anecdotal data to this conversation.

I believe that the only reason I was able to successfully tow such a heavy, resistive load without apparently damaging my car is by using an App on my phone that monitors car conditions from the OBD II data port. The app I used was OBD Fusion and I used it to closely monitor the Transmission temperature. I’ll make another post about how to monitor the temperature of the CVT Tranny, but by driving the car hard (without the trailer) in 90 degree heat in Arizona I determined that CVT Temps frequently were in the 280 deg F range wiith incursions up to 300 deg F. I have no other basis for that but I treated 280 as “normal hot” and 300 as (overheated, pull over). The tranny once got as hot as 307 without any warning lights coming on.

One decision I made was to put electric brakes on the trailer with a proportional brake controller. On dry pavement, I could have gotten away without the brakes, maybe- but I consider it a necessary precaution and I was very pleased with how it handled.

The first thing I noticed after picking up the 1,300 lb empty trailer was the extreme wind resistance caused by a 6x12 by 8 foot tall trailer. 60 mph was a max speed on flat requiring about 100 HP (compared to 35 HP untrailered. I could drop to about 60 HP and access 4th gear (OD) by dropping my speed to 50 mph.

After loading 1500 lb of construction supplies in Portland the car was notably sluggish especially at stoplights. I discovered that by default the CRV starts in something like 2nd gear, and by manually shifting to 1st gear it seemed that I reduced the strain on the transmission. Basically I drove it like a stick shift at intersections.

To summarize the drive North I discovered that cold air temps helped a lot. When air intake temp was 50 deg F I could push the car much harder than when intake was 85 F. On flat ground my cruising speed was 50 mph and I found that by keeping Engine Torque below about 70 foot-lb I could maintain CVT temps within range. Even at moderate grade I would overheat in 4th gear so I mostly turned OD off causing Engine RPM to be in the 4,000 range, but torque dropped. Average fuel mileage was about 14 mpg (compared to 25 without a trailer). On any incline my speed would drop to 40 mph or slower as I tried to keep my Torque below 100 foot lb. The steepest, longest hill in the Canadian Rockies required me to pull over twice to let the Tranny cool, other than that both times I overheated it was due to driving in OD instead of 3rd gear.

In Alaska, without the trailer, the car drives great and the tranny fluid is still red and clean. I’m sure I put excessive wear on the Tranny, but there is no sign of damage.

I’ll post more on how to monitor the tranny temp

Dan

Wildcat said:

The 2008 CR-V doesn't have a CVT. Were you referring to another model year perhaps (2018)? I don't know if our older CR-Vs have the ability to monitor transmission temperature, but it would be handy to have (especially if towing).

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Thanks. It looks like you are right about that. It’s a 5-speed automatic and it does have the ability to monitor something that I’m pretty sure is related to Transmission Temp.

In OBD Fusion I entered a user defined PID to return transmission Temp in Deg C using the following parameters:

Module/Header - ALL
OBD Mode - 22
PID Number - 2201
Equation - AA

I converted it to Deg F with scale factor of 1.8 and an Offset of 32.

I derived that information from the Honda Piloteers forum

https://www.piloteers.org/forums/98...on-temperature-monitoring.html#/topics/155273

I am relatively confident that it is measuring something related to Transmission Temp because

a) at startup it reads the same temp as the Engine

b) it doesn’t ever show signs of having thermostatically controlled cooling. If the Temp is rising it keeps rising asymptotically to a stable temp. It doesn’t seem to engage a cooling cycle

c) heavy load causes it to heat quickly

d) downshifting causes it to heat much less or even cool at the same speed

e). It cools very slowly at idle or Engine Off, suggesting a lot of mass