Re: Towing With V8 (was: Boating with an S4)

["Doyt W. Echelberger" <Doyt@nwonline.net>]

Clifford..........Just one more thought about towing......trailer weight
isn't the only factor that is involved in what your car can tow. When your
trailer approaches speeds of 50 mph, the frontal area of the trailer
becomes a major factor in determining how much work the engine must do to
keep the vehicle moving. At that speed, air is behaving somewhat more like
a liquid than a gas. Try sticking your hand out the window at 30 mph, and
again at 60 to get the feeling of this effect.

And lots of that work ends up as heat in your automatic tranny fluid. And
lots of additional forces are transmitted through the hitch.

So, if your trailer has a small streamlined frontal area and a low profile,
you can get away with driving it at higher speeds, and if it is a high flat
boxy frontal surface, you need to tow at speeds below 50 mph to limit the
heating of the tranny fluid.

Doyt Echelberger