Towing with a Highlander SUV

[Mr. Adventure]

I'm thinking that the CVT transmission is a big part of the reduced towing capacity. For me, this would be about how much towing I was planning to do, with "lots" being potentially a bad thing for the Hybrid.

But, as an old RV'er once told me, it's not how fast you can go in one of these things, it's how fast you can stop that counts. And the Hybrid ought to stop exactly like the standard model.

Does anyone know what the tow rating for the new Hybrid Hylander is? I thought it was also 5,000 tow weight.

[Mr. Adventure]

Originally Posted by [email protected]

Does anyone know what the tow rating for the new Hybrid Hylander is? I thought it was also 5,000 tow weight.

The hybrid is rated at only 3500, instead of 5000.

I get 20mpg around town and 24mpg on trips with my seasoned standard Highlander, and I don't think I'd bother with the Highlander Hybrid (more expensive, not enough gas mileage improvement to pay for the upgrade cost, lots of bleeding edge technology under towing loads that other people don't do much of, and extremely difficult to deal at the dealers). Today, I'd probably buy the standard Highlander or the 4-Runner to tow a Trailmanor.

Putting the hybrid upgrade cost for the Highlander toward the Prius instead, on the other hand, is a much better idea. The objective is to reduce fuel consumption, and the vast majority of your fuel is not while you're towing. We bought a Honda Civic Hybrid 3 years ago, and have averaged between 44 and 45mpg for 60,000 miles. Before that I used to put 20,000 miles per year on the Highlander and my wife put 10,000 miles per year on her car. Now it's reversed, with 10,000 miles now going on the Civic Hybrid that used to go on the Highlander, a whopping improvement from 20mpg to 44mpg for these miles.

So far, we have only been camping on relatvely short trips (less than 250miles), so I don't have a clear idea yet where we'll come out for over-the-road TM towing mpg.