Towing with 2023 Outlander PHEV

[BobK]

I’m going to break my experiences towing with my 2023 Outlander PHEV into 3 postings to make it easier to match comments.

Towing Capacity: When I bought my Outlander there was confusion about the towing capacity. The US sites seemed to say 2000lbs, the Canadian ones 1500lbs. The local dealer thought 2000 was correct, but when he looked into it, it turned out 2000lb was for the gas powered Outlander. The official rating of the PHEV is given as 1500lb here in Canada.

For food safety, I needed an enclosed trailer and the lightest one I could find in my area was an EZ-Hauler 5x8’ aluminum which weighed 635lb empty. It has a maximum weight of 2,990lb loaded. I figured I needed to carry up to 800lb, so it looked like the Outlander had just enough capacity for my needs.

The badge on my driver’s side door frame states GWR 6063lb, GAWR FR (with my P255/45R20 tires, 20x.8 rims) 3035lb and GAWR RR 3296lb. Interesting that the GWR is almost 300lb lighter than the sum of the axles. Before buying the trailer, I weighed the empty car at a highway weigh station. With me in it, the weight was 2,525lb on the front axle and 2,447lb on the rear axle for a total of 4,982lb.

There are confusing formulas in my Canadian manual for calculating towing capacity. The first formula on pg. 12-19 is to calculate the available payload capacity for the tongue/king pin load (the weight on the ball). It says to subtract the actual vehicle weight from the GVWR shown on the V.S.S. certification label. I assume the V.S.S. label is the badge on the driver’s door, but it is not labelled as such. I also assume that GVWR in the manual is the same thing as the GWR on the badge. When I subtract the actual weight from the GWR it tells me I get 1,081lb maximum tongue/king pin load. However, if I look at the maximum weight allowed on the rear axle on the badge (3,296) minus the actual rear weight of the car (2,447) I get 849lb for combined rear cargo and trailer tongue weight. The manual 12-19 also suggests it should be between 10-15% of the trailer weight (so why the calculation?). This affects how I balance the weight in the trailer and I’m going with the smaller number.

The second formula is for available towing capacity. It starts with the 6721lb Gross Combined Weight Rating from pg 12-21, then subtracts the actual vehicle weight of 4982lb to give me 1739lb. which appears to be better than advertised (or maybe I should look at it as 1500lb with 239lb of cargo in the car – which isn’t as great).

 

[BobK]

Towing hitch: I asked for a towing hitch option when I bought the car. There was at least a 2 month wait, so the dealer suggested I may want to get a 3rd party one installed (which they would not do). I talked to a trailer company who would not do it because they were unfamiliar with the underlying structure of the car, particularly the battery and additional wiring. That made me nervous so I decided to wait for the factory trailer hitch. I’m glad I did. It is mounted well behind where the third party hitches mount. In fact, it caused a problem for me because the safety chains on the trailer weren’t long enough to attach to the holes that were located so far back on the hitch. My brother-in-law had a trailer sitting idle and offered to cut off its chains so I could clip them onto the ends of mine and get an extension, which I did to get the trailer home that day. I then bought two longer lengths of chain and clips and replaced the original trailer chains (which I gave to my brother-in-law to attach back to his trailer).

The ball is attached to a long shaft that is attached with a pin well underneath the vehicle. Overall the hitch seems to work fine, but it means more scrambling around further underneath the car to get everything attached than I am used to.

 

[BobK]

Towing experiences: The manual pg-12-17 tells us not to not tow anything for the first 800km (500miles) and then when first towing, to not drive the vehicle over 80km/hr (50mph) for the first 800 km (500 miles) of towing. Also, due to the higher loads on the engine, the interval for oil changes is reduced from 8000km (which I already found unusually frequent for an ICE that is only used occasionally and using synthetic oil) to every 5000 km. I now can’t seem to find the entry I saw in the manual but I have had the dealer service confirm I should be changing oil every 5-6000km.

One other consideration is that you have to turn off almost all of the automated safety features of the car before towing (there are a lot on my GT) and you shouldn’t use cruise control pg 12-26. I find that many of the systems turn back on after the car has been powered down, so it is important to double check. You’ll notice soon enough when you try to back up with the rear sensors active.

I kept to the 80km/hr limit for the first 800km (easy in my area due to all the backroads with this speed limit). The ICE is definitely working harder than usual, especially on grades, but other than sometimes hearing high revs when I don’t seem to be going that fast, nothing seems amiss. I haven’t done a proper analysis, but my gas mileage for a 64km hilly round trip seems to go from approx. 3.6l/100km without trailer (fully charged in Normal mode) to 9.2l/100km (using Charge Mode to the destination and Normal back). The charge mode is turned on to drive to the destination because I wanted to keep the battery fully charged to run some AC equipment at the site. I had about 1/4 charge left to drive home with. Its possible the engine was revving a bit more using Charge mode, but it wasn’t obvious. Other than reduced acceleration on uphill grades, the car drove well.

There is a feature called Trailer Stability Assist which is used to stabilize the trailer by adjusting the drive power and braking of individual wheels. I was not conscious any problems or unusual car behavior when driving in moderate cross winds, so it was probably doing what it was supposed to.

 

[Rudra]

2023 PHEV, Australian
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[Johny451]

I’m going to break my experiences towing with my 2023 Outlander PHEV into 3 postings to make it easier to match comments.

Towing Capacity: When I bought my Outlander there was confusion about the towing capacity. The US sites seemed to say 2000lbs, the Canadian ones 1500lbs. The local dealer thought 2000 was correct, but when he looked into it, it turned out 2000lb was for the gas powered Outlander. The official rating of the PHEV is given as 1500lb here in Canada.

For food safety, I needed an enclosed trailer and the lightest one I could find in my area was an EZ-Hauler 5x8’ aluminum which weighed 635lb empty. It has a maximum weight of 2,990lb loaded. I figured I needed to carry up to 800lb, so it looked like the Outlander had just enough capacity for my needs.

The badge on my driver’s side door frame states GWR 6063lb, GAWR FR (with my P255/45R20 tires, 20x.8 rims) 3035lb and GAWR RR 3296lb. Interesting that the GWR is almost 300lb lighter than the sum of the axles. Before buying the trailer, I weighed the empty car at a highway weigh station. With me in it, the weight was 2,525lb on the front axle and 2,447lb on the rear axle for a total of 4,982lb.

There are confusing formulas in my Canadian manual for calculating towing capacity. The first formula on pg. 12-19 is to calculate the available payload capacity for the tongue/king pin load (the weight on the ball). It says to subtract the actual vehicle weight from the GVWR shown on the V.S.S. certification label. I assume the V.S.S. label is the badge on the driver’s door, but it is not labelled as such. I also assume that GVWR in the manual is the same thing as the GWR on the badge. When I subtract the actual weight from the GWR it tells me I get 1,081lb maximum tongue/king pin load. However, if I look at the maximum weight allowed on the rear axle on the badge (3,296) minus the actual rear weight of the car (2,447) I get 849lb for combined rear cargo and trailer tongue weight. The manual 12-19 also suggests it should be between 10-15% of the trailer weight (so why the calculation?). This affects how I balance the weight in the trailer and I’m going with the smaller number.

The second formula is for available towing capacity. It starts with the 6721lb Gross Combined Weight Rating from pg 12-21, then subtracts the actual vehicle weight of 4982lb to give me 1739lb. which appears to be better than advertised (or maybe I should look at it as 1500lb with 239lb of cargo in the car – which isn’t as great).

Very weird. In Australia the 2014 PHEV is rated at 1500kg braked with a 150kg maximum ball weight which is reasonable.1500kg is about 3300lb. Seems to me there is a huge mistake in the USA (and other) manuals.

 

[BobK]

Very weird. In Australia the 2014 PHEV is rated at 1500kg braked with a 150kg maximum ball weight which is reasonable.1500kg is about 3300lb. Seems to me there is a huge mistake in the USA (and other) manuals.

Some of this may have to do with it being the 2023 version and likely getting more activist lawyers involved over time, but it may also have to do with our climate. Having a heavy trailer behind you going downhill on an icy road can be scary if there is no trailer braking. The Outlander does not have the 7 pin connector you need to control trailer brakes (although you can get trailers with internal inertia braking sensors). I suspect they are just covering their butts for people acting irresponsibly, although the fact that they increase oil changes to every 5K when you tow a trailer makes me wonder about the stress on the ICE when towing.

 

[greendwarf]

This issue was done to death 10 years ago in this forum. It is all down to how individual countries calculate the figure in their legislations - the car is the same everywhere and Mitsu has no choice in the matter.

 

[mikepotts64]

Towing experiences: The manual pg-12-17 tells us not to not tow anything for the first 800km (500miles) and then when first towing, to not drive the vehicle over 80km/hr (50mph) for the first 800 km (500 miles) of towing. Also, due to the higher loads on the engine, the interval for oil changes is reduced from 8000km (which I already found unusually frequent for an ICE that is only used occasionally and using synthetic oil) to every 5000 km. I now can’t seem to find the entry I saw in the manual but I have had the dealer service confirm I should be changing oil every 5-6000km.

One other consideration is that you have to turn off almost all of the automated safety features of the car before towing (there are a lot on my GT) and you shouldn’t use cruise control pg 12-26. I find that many of the systems turn back on after the car has been powered down, so it is important to double check. You’ll notice soon enough when you try to back up with the rear sensors active.

I kept to the 80km/hr limit for the first 800km (easy in my area due to all the backroads with this speed limit). The ICE is definitely working harder than usual, especially on grades, but other than sometimes hearing high revs when I don’t seem to be going that fast, nothing seems amiss. I haven’t done a proper analysis, but my gas mileage for a 64km hilly round trip seems to go from approx. 3.6l/100km without trailer (fully charged in Normal mode) to 9.2l/100km (using Charge Mode to the destination and Normal back). The charge mode is turned on to drive to the destination because I wanted to keep the battery fully charged to run some AC equipment at the site. I had about 1/4 charge left to drive home with. Its possible the engine was revving a bit more using Charge mode, but it wasn’t obvious. Other than reduced acceleration on uphill grades, the car drove well.

There is a feature called Trailer Stability Assist which is used to stabilize the trailer by adjusting the drive power and braking of individual wheels. I was not conscious any problems or unusual car behavior when driving in moderate cross winds, so it was probably doing what it was supposed to.

Thanks for the thorough account BobK.
I have towed an 8m long 1500KG EuroVan 300km on Motorway then gravel road (I limited speed to 90km and 70km on steeper inclines) I have also towed a small cage trailer hundreds of kms with not more than 600kg combined weight. My observation is the electric drive is vulnerable on takeoff (overcoming inertia) so is system output limited by the battery management system (read - not a tesla) and the Engine generating power supply isn't rated to provide on demand for the peaks of towed loads above 1500Kg. As a precaution I ran the car in charge mode during the trip, preserving more than 50% battery power available to meet peak demands. The same limitations can apply with driving just the PHEV up long steep inclines. Unless there is sufficient battery power, the car slows considerably and the engine revs to the top of its rev range trying to provide the required power.
In conclusion, the Torque and Engine delivery design are engineered for the effective performance of the PHEV, not for large trailer drawn loads.